Friday 22 April 2016

The spectacular rise of the British food festival


Festival season will soon be upon us. But if the words “festival food” conjure up images of undercooked burgers and dodgy noodles while hiding from the rain at Glastonbury or queuing for lavatories at Reading, you could be in for a surprise.

The past five years have seen an explosion in popularity of dedicated food festivals, with events celebrating US-style barbecue, veganism and street food joining established festivals like Abergavenny, Aldeburgh and Ludlow on the foodie calendar.

Food festivals are “more popular than ever”, says Frances Hopewell-Smith, director of the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival. “People’s awareness of where their food comes from has increased enormously and food festivals allow us to reconnect with the people who produce it and the land from where it comes, so it’s hardly surprising they are on the increase.”

Aldeburgh, held in Suffolk in September, is now in its 11th year, having hit on a winning formula of producer stalls, appearances from credible chefs (José Pizarro, Olia Hercules and Thomasina Miers were three of last year’s names), and masterclasses in everything from Middle Eastern baking to wild-food foraging.

Wales’ Abergavenny Festival, now in its 18th year, has a similar format.  Changing tastes have also seen new events in cities, instead of the food festival’s traditional stomping grounds: pretty villages and market towns.

Meatopia is a brash and smoky celebration of carnivorism held in a former warehouse in London. Grillstock in Bristol focuses on barbecue (its slogan is “Meat. Music. Mayhem”).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Vegfest is a growing collective of vegan festivals held in Brighton, Bristol, London and Glasgow. Even music festivals have upped their foodie game, with banquets and foraging workshops replacing the burger van.

The trailblazer was Wilderness, which launched in 2011. At this Oxfordshire gathering, the food is as big a draw as the bands. There are long-table banquets and intimate cooking sessions from exciting talents like Tomos Parry of Kitty Fisher’s.

Other festivals have similarly appetising offerings – you can eat well at Bestival, Camp Bestival and Latitude among others. “We’ve never seen food in a field as challenge – with the right planning and production, there’s no reason the food can’t be as good as in a restaurant,” says Wilderness’s Food Programmer, Clare Isaacs.

But why does she think festival-goers are prepared to fork out for a banquet on top of their ticket price, instead of making do with campsite beans and trips to the pizza van? “Festival audiences have changed hugely. Those of us that started going to festivals in the late Nineties are now well into our 30s, and our tastes have changed.”

In recent years, we’ve come to expect top-quality grub in restaurants, at delis and markets; now, apparently, we expect it at festivals, too – however they started life.


Written By  Katy Salter

Source:telegraph.co.uk

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