food

cook in the castle kitchens in 1967, he provided not just a chef for the family, but also a manager for the production unit which turns out bakery and preserves for a wider market.

Master bakers, Wilma Hendry, Mary Galbraith and Eileen Morrison all live in Kelso. They bake the perfect scones daily for the castle restaurant with Collingbourne's recipe. They also make the shortbread, cakes and preserves which can be bought at the castle garden shop and coffee shop.

But does Collingbourne himself still make the legendary salmon fishcakes which I remember from previous visits to the Borders? ''Oh, yes,'' he says.

''And what is it that makes them so special?'' ''Well, it's the cream and the salmon,'' he replies. Beyond that he will not say. Was it a Roxburghe family recipe? No, he made it up himself over 30 years ago for the old duke who liked them for his breakfast. No, there's no potato in it. And he changes the subject.

It was the dry, sunny climate, combined with rich arable lands, which attracted Cistercian and Benedictine monastery communities to this area in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. At the height of their wealth, the Border abbey domain was described as a ''land of milk and honey''. It is still a highly-productive farming area where sheep graze on the grassy hilltops and fields of wheat, barley, vegetables and soft fruits grow in the valleys.

By 12.30am I am in Kelso, buying two pounds of pork sausages from Wilson, the butcher's on the square. They equal the scones in perfection, if you are looking for a meaty sausage which will make a meal.

Not such a good buy is a quarter of ''Moffat toffee''. I take one from the bag to suck on the journey southwards. Yuk! This has none of the familiar Moffat toffee tang. There is sugary-hard toffee, certainly, but the strip of astringent lemony-sherbet, which makes the real thing special, is missing and the bad taste, of whatever

cheap substitute has been used, lingers unpleasantly.

I stop at the Teviot Game Smokery at Eckford. Better tastes here, I hope. But first a tour of the smokery. It's a small, hands-on, family business run by Denis and Anne Wilson and their son Hamish, combining the smokery with a restaurant, and a centre for landscaped water gardens. Anne has landscaped the river bank behind the restaurant into a charming water garden on three levels (worth a visit).

In the smokery they are smoking salmon. Wild salmon from the Tweed, when it's available, farmed from Orkney, when

it's not.

The filleted sides are given a simple curing treatment, says smoker, Keith Rothwell. A wet brining followed by a long period (48 hours) of cold smoking over smouldering oak sawdust.

The significance of the longer-than-normal smoking time is that it produces a more distinctively-flavoured fish. Also, while it is absorbing the smoke flavours, the fish firms up, losing excess water. But as in all dried, smoked and preserved

foods what you lose in quantity you gain

in quality.

Another unique product from this smokery is smoked Tweed eels. Hamish Wilson used to be a water bailiff on the river and a special concession has been given by the Tweed Valley Salmon Association allow him to fish the eels, trusting him not to pinch the odd salmon. And, yes, lunch in the restaurant was a much better taste than the so-called ''Moffat'' toffee.

Further south and heading along the Rule valley towards Bonchester Bridge, all around there are lush green fields of spring grass. Cows and sheep are grazing.

My destination is Easter Weens farm and the creamery where another unique Borders product is made. Christian and John Curtis make Bonchester cheese from raw milk that comes from their herd of Jersey cows.

Their soft, mould-ripened, Camembert-style cheeses are rated as highly as the

best French artisan cheeses of the same type. But what is it that makes such good cheese? Soil? Grass? Cows? Milk? Cheese-making process?

All are unique in their own ways. But it's only when you visit on-farm cheesemakers (who breed their own herd of milking cows) that you realise it's the cheesemakers and their recipe which has most effect on the finished result.

The Curtises have registered Bonchester Cheese with the EC as a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin). Which means that it can only be made in their special way with raw Jersey milk from cows which have grazed in the Rule valley.

Legalising its uniqueness in this way helps them protect its integrity. A different, or less good version (like the fake Moffat toffee) cannot be made and still be

called Bonchester.

l Borders Food Fair, Jedburgh, runs from May 22-24. Stalls represent 28 local food producers. A Borders Food Directory will also be launched. Details from the

co-ordinator, Susan Rae, at Borders Enterprise (tel: 01835 824000 extn 5413)