Food Festivals

We went to the Welsh Food Festival at Glansevern Hall Gardens near Welshpool yesterday.

It was somewhat grandly titled considering they already have the much bigger Abergavenny Food Festival, not to mention the biggest Welsh Food Festival of them all. The one at Ludlow.

It was very pleasant though, all the usual sights and sounds - stalls, free tastings, burgers, ice-cream, and watching Anne shop. I usually spend most my time thinking about my Shropshire Curry Company 'gap in the market', and chicken pakoras would have gone down very well there yesterday, but I do have to report two curry companies have now moved into and rather overflowed my "gap". Never fear though, "pots of deliciousness" seem to have disappeared and we spent a pleasant half an hour imagining what could fill that gap and came up with a similar dessert-based concept, reassuringly monickered "Tubsters".

We also spent some time remembering festivals and markets we've enjoyed around the world. I'll hold over the markets for the future, but with thanks to Anne's holiday diaries I can share with you the best Food Festival we've ever attended.

Lyre Bird Hill Winery, Australia, the Prom County Slow Food Summer Festival, which was twenty people in a barn for supper and wine tasting, a mix of visitors from Melbourne, farmer-tanned locals and their fat wives, and us. Sparkling rose to kick-off; smoked trout and damper, served with four generous tasting-glasses of chardonnays; smoked chicken caesar salad with four more; platter of local smoked meats and couscous with four more; panna cotta with four dessert wines; and then stickies with chocolates and coffee.

And some people would rather listen to crap music in a muddy field...


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