Mmm, lobby. Meat, vegetables, delicious stock, a big chunk of crusty bread – a Staffordshire classic. But what about scouse, the Merseyside equivalent which may well have been the inspiration for our famous dish?
Apparently, after the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal, it gave a new route for pottery to be exported through Liverpool, where that city’s barge workers are thought to have passed on their ‘lobscouse’ to their Staffordshire counterparts.
At The Pheasant on Monday night, the two dishes went head to head in Liverpudlian landlord Dave Smithwick’s culinary challenge at the start of this year’s Stone Food and Drink Festival.
Bowls of both dishes were on offer, with locals finding both pretty tasty.
As for the scouse, all efforts to uncover Dave’s secret recipe were in vain. He was definitely keeping schtum about his mother’s secret recipe!
And the winner….. the lobby!
There’s lots going on around the town in the run-up to festival weekend on Friday. See the Stone Food and Drink Festival website for the programme and lots more information.
