The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Clegg's People: Food
A real appetiser of a film, as Yorkshire and beyond reveals some of its gastronomic concoctions, such as the Pontefract cake, Bakewell pudding, and fare not for the queasy.
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Overview
Barnsley naturalist and broadcaster Michael Clegg gives us a tour of Yorkshire’s tasty delights in this entertaining treat, using his amiable manner to tease out some culinary nuggets. See how Pontefract cakes were once made, what makes a Bakewell pudding, and how the legendary black pudding king of Barnsley, Albert Hirst, once mixed his ingredients, by hand.
Michael Clegg ran his series for Yorkshire Television throughout the 1980s. Clegg was a naturalist, former columnist at the Yorkshire Evening Post, and a regular on BBC Radio 4's Natural History Programme. Born near Barnsley, Clegg was an early campaigner for wildlife sites. After his death in 1995, a Memorial Trust was formed in his name, and both a meadow and an annual bird race were named in his honour. The Barnsley butcher’s shop of Albert Hirst was opened in 1897, passed on to his son, Albert Hirst, and then on to his son, Albert Hirst. Sadly, having once had five shops, they are now no more. They once produced 1,500 lbs of black pudding each week at the Queen's Road factory, mainly eaten in Barnsley.
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