Spend any amount of time there however and you'll discover not only that none of this is true (OK, not entirely true...), but that there is a very great deal more to love about the county than there is to mock. Its towns and city offer all the comfort and amenities of more thriving metropolises without the congestion and crime. Its historic villages are beautiful oases of calm offering a quality of life at least comparable and perhaps superior to, say, the Cotswolds at half the cost.
And, to get to the point to which you have I expect been urging me to get for two paragraphs now, Norfolk has the most fantastic food scene; artisan producers, rare breed farms, organic grocers and weekend markets mean that whatever outsiders might like to think of the locals, no-one could ever say they're not at the very top of the culinary tree. The wealth of quality food has even spawned a Norfolk Diet movement.
Although I've not eaten at all that many restaurants in my adoptive home county - my family having now all gravitated there from almost-as-roundly-mocked Dorset - I can confidently say that I have not eaten at any better than the Ronsealogically-named Roger Hickman's Restaurant in Norwich. Chef-patron Roger Hickman was head chef under former owner David Adlard and took over the premises when Adlard sold up to found a now hugely-popular cookery school. I ate once at what was then Adlard's with my family a few years ago and remembered having been impressed with the Tom Aikens-esque technique of the chef; that chef was, it transpires, the Aikens-trained Hickman. My mum's recent birthday presented the perfect opportunity to re-visit and see what had changed now that it's Hickman's name out front.
