Festival puts the best of British on display

Martin Hesp only wishes there could be more autumn events showing off prime produce

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There ought to be more of them... is what my friends and I were agreeing while driving home from the Three Counties Autumn Show at Malvern last weekend.

We were talking about large-scale country shows that take place at this time of the year because we hugely enjoyed our visit to the show, which is billed as the "UK's biggest harvest season celebration". It offers the ultimate demonstration of something this nation can do very well indeed - we are capable of growing some very good food.

I have never seen such glorious fruit and vegetables. The Harvest Pavilion at the show could be described as a shrine dedicated to topnotch plant-based food.

By the way, we're not talking here about the fabulous National Giant Vegetables Championship, which is a huge (in more ways than one) crowd-pleaser at Malvern. The pre-event advertising blurb declared: "Needs to be seen to be believed!" That was no exaggeration. The veggie beasts in question were jaw-dropping!

But despite being a fun thing to admire, giant veg does not exactly whet the tastebuds. Big applause to the growers, but the Land of the Giants does not translate to anything you'd want to put on a plate.