Digging out the secrets of your gran’s cookbook and pantry can help you on your way to a healthier future according to key speakers and exhibitors taking part in this weekend’s West Wales Food Festival.
Exploring recipes and remedies from days gone by will be a key theme for celebrity chefs, local food producers and exhibitors at the festival, who will all reinforce the message that – with all the choice facing consumers today – delving into the culinary past can bring about a healthier lifestyle for all.
Some of the highlights taking up this topical theme at the third West Wales Food Festival at the National Botanic Garden of Wales this weekend will include:
- Celebrity Chef Bryn Williams talking about recipes he learned from his grandmother, that featured in his recent book Bryn’s Kitchen, which he will also be signing copies of at the event.
- A team from CultureNet Cymru’s Heritage in the Community Project recording old family remedies and recipes in what has been described as a ‘Culinary Antiques Roadshow’.
- Ferryside author Jenny Kenna revealing the mysteries of a Victorian kitchen in Wales, as chronicled in her book Susan’s Secrets.
- Lisa Fearn of Pumpkin Patch Garden and Cookery School, Whitemill, will run cookery workshops for kids showing that healthy eating can be fun.
- Lara Bernays, a member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, will explore the medicinal use of culinary herbs and spices in ‘Remembered Remedies’ a film and talk exploring Myddfai’s herbal heritage, past and present.
- Professor Les Baillie, of Cardiff University’s Welsh School of Pharmacy, will talk on healing with tea, hops and honey.
- There will also be health-conscious sessions at the festival on how to successfully grow your own vegetables and bee-keeping.
There will be many exotic samples of local produce to try out on the more than 50 stalls, with visitors being offered the chance to sample roast water buffalo.
And festival organisers are confident that culinary master classes being hosted by celebrity Welsh celebrity chefs Gareth Johns, Angela Gray, Stephen Terry and Bryn Williams will prove a huge draw – as they have done in previous years.
And for those children and adults who want to be entertained while dining then there will be musicians, magicians and jugglers as part of the weekend’s entertainment.
The concluding highlight of the festival weekend will be a Gala Dinner, starting at 6.30pm on Sunday, where celebrity chefs will each prepare a course for the three-course extravaganza.
Event organiser and Head of Marketing at the National Botanic Garden of Wales David Hardy said: “The previous two festivals have attracted more than 5,000 people and we are confident that what’s on offer this year will prove an equally big draw. We are sure that the interest people show nowadays in finding out more about healthy, quality eating and unlocking the culinary secrets from our past will be a fascinating mix, combined with a fabulous setting, which will bring in the crowds who want to find out about the best gastronomic delights West Wales can offer.”
For more information visit www.westwalesfoodfestival.com or become a festival ‘fan’ at www.facebook.com/foodfestival
