Sunday 5 October 2008

A day at a food festival

Yesterday was the first day of the East Midlands Food And Drink Festival and I was lucky enough to be there. The event marks the culmination of British Food fortnight and is a showcase for local producers to show off there food. Amongst the hundreds of stalls was Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, a company that makes traditional Red Leicester cheese selling it in huge wheels weighing a whopping 20kg, I considered buying a whole wheel but reluctantly had to settle for a small piece instead! Almost every stall had samples to try and there was plenty to tempt me, the apple and blackberry brandy was a particular hit although the chocolate truffles came a close second, they were extremely tasty!

There was so much to see including breads, cakes, jams, fruit, veg and meat. Of the more unusual products on offer were ostrich meat, smoked garlic and purple cauliflowers all of which looked great but I resisted the urge to buy.
I spent the day eating my way around the halls as there were so many samples on offer! All in all it was a brilliant event and I will definitely be going again, it's just a shame I have to wait a whole year!

Enormous wheels of Lincolnshire Poacher cheese
A more sensible sized piece?
Fantastic bread. The breadsticks in the background are flavoured with olives and fennel and were delicious
An impressive display of pastries, these were huge!
A very colourful display!


6 comments:

Katie said...

Oooooh smoked garlic sounds good!

Sylvie said...

Sounds like you got to spent a great day at the festival!

Hopie said...

Looks like a great event. I'm not at all sensible when it comes to food and I can see why you would be tempted by those huge wheels of cheese :-)

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

Yum. The mention of Lincolnshire Poacher brings back happy memories - I haven't had any in absolutely ages, so thanks for the reminder!

Jules said...

That veg box, bottom left is the one we bought home with us! I meant to take a pic of the union jack made of veg ath the enterance but on the way out when I was intending on taking the pic a TV crew were filming infront of it.

Good to see another Sparkenhoe fan out there.

Maggie said...

Mmm pleased you enjoyed the Food Festival.
We didn't get this time because I made an earlier trip to Melton Mowbray the weekend before!