Wild about food - leading wild food experts at local festival
This weekend, the British Wild Food Festival arrives at Hawkstone Park Follies, near Weston under Redcastle, and will boast the exotic from the everyday.
The festival encourages people of all ages to step outdoors and learn about the delights of local British wild food. Food that is free, delicious, and the most nutritious food on earth. With everything from lavish wild feasts, wild food workshops for kids, a gin safari, workshops, herbal medicine for dogs, and a marketplace there's something for everyone.
In recent years foraging has grown up. A few years ago it seemed to be the preserve of just the few to becoming as commonplace as hummus in our kitchens! Organiser Sam Webster, a foraging teacher and member of the Association of Foragers, said: "I'm delighted that some of the best foraging chefs, bartenders and teachers in the country, possibly the world, are attending the British Wild Food Festival. As someone who has sampled the food of many of the producers, I can confidently add you are for a culinary experience you'll never forget".
Many food festivals leave you feeling that you need to re-mortgage the house in order to buy the exotic ingredients needed to make the dishes you get inspired to make. The British Wild Food Festival is very different as all the food on show can be gotten for nothing and what's more, it's abundant from shore to shore across our great island.
Sam added: "We want the festival to be as inclusive as possible, which is why I invited my good friend Vicky Manning from the Little Foragers Kitchen".
Vicky said: "We are passionate about helping people of all ages to reconnect with this lost knowledge in an accessible, safe, and fun way". She'll be joined by social media superstar, the Fungi Guy himself - Ali Mac, who will be hosting one of the many free events with a talk about all things fungi.
Interestingly, even our four-legged friends will find something to do as Charlotte Chetwynd from Herbal Howls will be taking owners around to help identify the plants which can help sure our pooches.
It's not just wild food on offer but wild booze with Scottish titans of the wild drinks world, Buck and Burch, who mix wild and known flavours to create so out of this world concoctions.
There'll also be seaweed demos, wild chocolate, wild vegan food, butchery, wild food feasts, book signings, well-being and mediation, fermintation, mushroom growing, a wild food market place and much, much more.
Come join us over the weekend of June 8-9, you'll have a wild time! Tickets and further details at: britishwildfoodfestival.com.
By Andy Hamilton - Contributor
