Two essential guides to Cumbrian food...

Two new publications about the county's food offerings are now available.
The Taste District is Cumbria Tourism's guide to food in our region. It has listings of restaurants, pubs & inns, cafés and food shops. The Taste District also has an extensive editorial section, with articles about many of the local specialities such as artisan cheeses, preserves, bread, locally brewed ales and of course all the wonderful meat that's produced from animals grazing the fells. Find out about producers such as Martin Gott and his partner Nicola, who make cheese twice a day from milk from their own herd of ewes, or Caroline and Jon Watson, who help preserve the Cumbrian landscape as well as provide first class meat through their herd of Herdwick sheep and Belted Galloway cattle at Yew Tree farm in Coniston.

The Taste District also has information about food events and festivals throughout the year, farmers markets and lots more. It's available through the Tourist Information Offices and other outlets.

The Lake District Cumbria Food & Drink guide by Christian Dymond, part of his own Dymond Guide series, is an excellent and comprehensive guide to the best of food in the region. It includes restaurants, pubs, cafés, food and drink producers, food and farm shops as well as cookery courses offered. It's well organised; eateries are listed by town or village, which is of course the best way if you are travelling around the county looking for a top meal. The producers are organised by food category. The book includes lots of photographs, of both establishments, the people behind the food and the landscape in which they run their businesses, and it all adds to inspire the reader to discover more. The Lake District Cumbria Food & Drink is available in many local independent book shops in the region, and can be ordered through branches of Waterstones and several other bookshops. It costs £12.99.

Content and photography supplied by artisan-food.com