I have very mixed feelings about food festivals.
I’ve been to good and bad – a bad festival often involve a crowd of people jammed into a venue with limited space, poor vendors and expensive food choices.
By comparison, a good festival involves space, choice, great selection of vendors, good music and demonstrations galore.
The Foodies Festival leans a little more to the latter, so despite the miserable weather, torrential rain and having to swap my pretty cream pumps for a pair of heavy trail running trainers more suited to a muddy field, we didn’t mind so much.
I have to admit as Keeley and I pulled into the make shift car park (not far from where I was for the Stargazing event earlier this year), I didn’t have the highest hopes. I’d been to Levenshulme Market earlier in the day and the streams of water running down the street and the downpour as we pulled into Tatton Park, had me envisaging ankle deep mud, grumpy kids and spending most of the day huddled under my umbrella.
The weather played nice and we were soon wandering around in little more than a light sprinkling, ogling a stall flooded with fat green olives and creamy Feta cheese, Haughton honey, and the huge queue to get into the demonstrations.
The scents flooding the site were incredible – unsurprisingly the biggest queue (aside from that to register for demonstrations, which was huge) was for Gaucho BBQ.
The scent of roasting meat and smoky coals was all over the site and we simply had to join the queue (alternately popping off to sample some Stella Artois Raspberry Cidre while we waited). And here comes my first grumble. The price. I’m not above paying for my meat, I’m more than happy to, but the prices for this weren’t displayed anywhere. On the side of the stand, on the A-frame sign, nowhere. And coming in at £10/£15 or £20 a pop, they weren’t cheap by any extent – and if you’d queued for 20 minutes for your food, to be confronted with that sort of price was a bit of a cheek. Though I didn’t indulge myself, I understand from those that did that they didn’t feel it was worth the price tag.
And given that due to a late start for them, only limited meats were available, it felt even cheekier.
So, being the penny pinching miser that I am (you can blame my Yorkshire heritage for that one) I headed to the German sausage stand instead and snaffled a Käsekrainer – a smoked wurst filled with Austrian cheese, which I then smothered in sauerkraut and mustard. All for a killer £5. Bargain.
Now I was suitably stuffed with sausagey goodness, we could wander some more, investigate and sample. Between Warner Edwards and Martin Miller Gin, flavoured vodkas from Christine’s Preserves, delightful dairy and gluten free desserts (seriously Pudology’s Chocolate Orange Pudding totally won me over) and some stunning freshly made juices.
We had to forcibly drag ourselves away from the olive oils and vinegars on sale on one stall, the mandarin and grapefruit versions were delightful.
We had just the right reason though – the fabulous Melissa Cole was on hand to chat to us about beer and showcase some of the stunning ones she’d brought up to the festival.
We sampled Proper Job from St Austell Brewery and Honey Dew from Fuller’s and ended up wandering off with a gorgeous selection from Sharp’s in Cornwall, including their 6 Vintage Blend, an deep fruity, rich beer that was almost like a beery fruitcake.
But my winner of the beer round was the Tribute Extra from the St Austell Brewery. I loved this so much I took a bottle away with me. And didn’t share it with Mr GFB. Not a drop.
Strong citrus flavours of orange and grapefruit, heaps of floral notes and a light bitterness means this beer is distinctly on my ‘favourites of all time’ list and I haven’t seen it anywhere up here. Which means I’m just going to have to order a case. Or two. You know, stock it up.
Suitably tipsy (me) and sober for driving (Keeley) we both wandered off with heavier bags than we’d arrived with. To mull over the day.
I still have my issues with the event I think. I thought the parking charge on top of admission charges a bit much, given the nearest train station is half a mile walk away, and a family of four could find their bill easily over £30 before they’ve even hit a stall on site.
That said, most of the stalls were well worth a visit, even if you had to fight through queues to those offering samples. It felt as though there was the general feeling that if you’ve spent £30 to get in, you’re going to want to try as many freebies as possible to make up for it, right?
The queues for the demonstration registration were huge – but I think that may have been down to limited staffing. And what we saw of them, appeared worth the wait.
Would I go again? I really don’t know.
Tickets to this festival were provided free of charge. All other expenditure was covered personally.