For those who might have had a Negroni too many over the bank holiday break, the path is clear: a trip to Devon’s Fordmore Farm Shop. The cafe on site has whipped up a colossal ‘Hangover Cure Breakfast’ that’s been the talk of the town, and the rescue of many a person with a cocktail-related sore head.
Sourced from the fields just a stone’s throw away, this indulgent plate, loaded with three of everything, is perfect for those seeking a protein kick, a weekend treat, or simply a meal worth boasting about. According to scientists, drinking alcohol messes with our blood-sugar, leaving us feeling more hungry more quickly. As well as that, after a bevvie or five we tend to over-ride any ‘good’ intentions that we have towards calories and healthy eating – reverting to a ‘caveman’ state, where we head straight for the nearest high-calorie snack.
So it’s unsurprising that this whopping breakfast has already gone down in history, reports Devon Live. Priced at £16.95, the Fordmore Café ‘Hangover Cure’ proudly boasts servings of three slices of bacon, three plump sausages, three fried eggs, three golden hash browns, alongside black pudding, garlic mushrooms, a roast tomato, special house recipe beans, and toast.
Located just a stone’s throw away from Cullompton on Honiton Road, this hearty feast is luring in everyone from dawn-breaking builders to fitness enthusiasts in search of protein-rich refueling. The brains behind the dish, Tom Harradine and James Persey who together run Fordmore Farm, have dished out the details on how this culinary creation came to life. According to Tom, the motivation was customer demand.
“We found that there were lots of people coming in and wanting an extra rasher of bacon or an extra sausage and it tended to be on Fridays when a lot of the services and trades were coming in for their breakfast before finishing off for the week, so we created the hangover cure breakfast,” he disclosed.
The choice to serve items in threes was a deliberate one, according to Tom. He explained: “Three is a magic number and odd numbers look better on plates, such as in the garden, as all gardeners do everything in odd numbers. You never plant in twos, you always plant in threes or fives. I think we thought about doing four of each, but we felt that was too much and we would need bigger plates, although we ended up getting bigger plates anyway.”
Indeed, larger plates were necessary. The triple-loaded dish has rapidly become a staple on the café’s breakfast menu. When it was briefly removed for just over a week while Tom was on holiday, its absence caused such an uproar among regulars that it was almost immediately reinstated.
Tom revealed: “It came off the menu because I was on a holiday and they took it upon themselves to change the menu. Came back on a Friday and I was like, ‘where have all the builders gone?’ So it was brought back by popular demand. It was taken off briefly and we had so many comments and requests that we had to put it back on.”
Despite the decadence of the meal, it’s not only those recovering from a night out who are enjoying it. Fordmore has discovered that a surprising number of health-conscious customers are attracted to the high-protein plate, with many opting to remove the toast or hash browns to keep it low in carbs.
Tom stated: “It’s for everyone. We’ve seen the smallest person polish one of these off in record time and it’s just so popular with so many of our customers. They love it. Weirdly you do find a lot of women will have it, take the carbs out of it, because a full breakfast has got no carbs as long as you don’t eat the toast or the hash brown. We find a lot of gym going women will eat it. There’s definitely been a trend of people wanting to have more protein in their meals and that’s something that we’ve seen with perhaps gym goers or people who are training. They come in, they have their breakfast and they get their protein intake pretty much in one hit for the day with the hangover cure breakfast.”
And for those who believe one plate isn’t enough, Fordmore has thrown down the gauntlet – the leaderboard awaits any brave enough to rise to the challenge.
“We’d like to have someone come in and try [eating two portions in a row] and we’d certainly create a leaderboard for them if someone wanted to come and do two in a row,” Tom added. “The second one would come with a portion of chips.”
Fordmore Farm Shop has grown rapidly in recent years and now boasts a thriving café, deli, butchery, bakery, and even a new fish shop. A new gift shop is also set to open on the site in May. The café, like the shop itself, is rooted in local sourcing and quality. Most of the meat is supplied directly from the farm’s own herd, just a few miles away.
“The whole idea of the farm shop and café was James and I think Devon has so much to offer and in this part of Devon you really couldn’t get hold of it. So whilst opening it there was no business plan, there was absolutely nothing. We opened it just so people can see what we think Devon has to offer that’s so good,” Tom shared.