Our Story
Throughout Heather's several careers eating, drinking and cooking have been abiding passions. As an archaeologist researching the early history of agriculture, Heather spent more time in Mediterranean markets and cooking for the excavators than in the trenches. While General Manager of the Academy of Ancient Music and Personal Manager of Christopher Hogwood, she researched and cooked sixteenth- to eighteenth-century feasts to suit the music performed at concerts. For the sheer joy of it, she cooked alternate Sundays at the Good Food Guide restaurant The Old Fire Engine House in Ely, disturbing the equilibrium by demanding unusual ingredients for historical English dishes. More interested in eating than publicity, Heather nevertheless did occasional programmes on eighteenth-century cuisine for the BBC and organised the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum into cooking their own seventeenth-century banquet. She was a founder member of the Cambridge Convivium of Slow Food, organised Neal's Yard Dairy's appearance at Slow Food Cheese in Bra, Italy, in September 2005 and their sold-out cheese workshops in London. None of this can compare in job satisfaction to introducing like-minded food-lovers to the traditional flavours and knowledge of the Garfagnana. *Named Heather by her parents, she discovered that Italians couldn't pronounce the initial 'H' or 'th' and adopted the Latin name for the heather plant, Erica, by which she is now known in Italy.
