Don't Tell 'em Pike

A pike
Image from pixabay.

I’ve just taken delivery of some pike. Not being a fisherman, this was harder than I anticipated, and having seen the price of a full one, it ended up being mere fillets. It’s not for me, you understand, but having asked somebody to cook a pike recipe in the not-too-distant future, I had to make sure that the raw ingredients were available for the task in hand!

All very interesting, you might think, but what does this have to do with this website, Heritage & Culture Warwickshire (HCW), and the Our Warwickshire project as a whole?

Websites, collections, reach

The more observant amongst you may have seen the Heritage Cooking Challenge section of the website. This was an idea by a couple of us to generate interest in the collections, make them more accessible, and also show how the heritage collections can be relevant in the modern day. The idea has been to tap into the vast amount of Warwickshire recipes available within the collections, cook something, and inflict it on (un)willing work colleagues. Some have, naturally, turned out better than others, yet to my mind the ones that have worked rather well have been the ones that have drawn gasps of trepidation. I’m thinking here of the pickled pigeon and the artichoke pie. Indeed, the artichoke pie also worked surprisingly well in extending our reach and awareness of what we do, when Sharon Forman and yours truly ended up making an appearance on Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet. It’s very strange seeing judges on the Great British Menu, and thinking that I managed to baffle (and slightly scare!) them into wondering just what it was they were actually eating…

Content and awareness

So it would be nice to think the project has increased awareness of us, our collections, and their relevance. It’s also, of course, provided a steady stream of pages for the Our Warwickshire website!

And this, of course, is where the pike comes in…