Autumn Food Festivals 2010
Wednesday 08 September 2010
Autumn Food Festivals 2010
This is a time of year I think I like, perhaps even better than high summer - a softer calmer golden feel best put by John Keats in his Ode to Autumn - penned almost 200 years ago.
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.”
It is a time when one can enjoy short breaks and hops around the country, and a time too for all those wonderful Food Festivals, which are such great fun, and also bring custom and business to their local areas. The week beginning the 10th September is actually a great week to take a holiday, as you can coast along from Waterford in the East, to Skibbereen in the West, enjoying three food festivals on the way – hither and thither!
The Waterford Harvest Festival kicks off next Friday 10th September and continues for a mighty ten days. Now that is a really ambitious project. The idea is to bring together, involve and educate people, and the community, in the appreciation of good, clean, fair food, whilst showcasing all the gastronomic delights the region has to offer – and there are many. They have a broad spectrum of events from educational talks, to food markets, to cookery demonstrations, to grazing trails, a street party, a party in the park hosted by the Mayor of Waterford, Cllr Mary Roche, and much more. The event kicks off on Friday next with a fabulous Historical Banquet at Waterford Castle with Chef Michael Quinn recreating food in the style of one of the last gastronomic events hosted by Princess d’Ardia Caracciola, nee Mary Purcell Fitzgerald (1908 – 1968), who was the last member of the Fitzgerald family to live in Waterford Castle after generations before her dating back to 1160. Diners will be brought back in time and given a taste of food and hospitality celebrating the 800 years of the castle. Tickets are €80 including wine. Next day sees two Slow Food Tours, the party in the Park, and the Street Party. Each evening from Monday 13th to Thursday 16th there will be two cookery demonstrations at 7 p.m at Blackfriars followed by a tasting session – entry free. Every day has something, but a really great day should be Saturday 18th September, Deise Day, when Macra na Feirme come to town with a toy tractor rally, bale pushing, obstacle courses, and even trying to milk the special Macra cow! The Saturday Market folk will be joined by Jack Molloy Butchers who will be selling traditional Waterford fare, including hog roast ribs, trotters, colcannon, and of course the blaa. Deise Day will be rounded off with a Ceili Mor with Waterford Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann! Fantastaic – follee that! www.waterfordharvestfestival.com
Also happening the same week from the 11th September to the 19th September is “A Taste of West Cork” Food Festival based at the delightful town of Skibbereen. This festival first started in 2004 and has grown in length and breadth since. On September 11 there will be a Banquet at the West Cork Hotel with special guests including the Chinese Embassador, His Excellency, Liu Biwei, and his wife, and the U.S. Senior Commercial Officer, Stephen Anderson, representing the American Ambassador. There will be Farmers markets, and special dishes on menus in restaurants, including Goblets and Gourmets, a tutored wine tasting followed by a fab four course dinner served with matching wines at Over the Moon Restaurant on Bridge Street on Friday the 17th – tickets €50. There will be fun cookery events for children, food trails to local food producers for both adults and children, plus on Tuesday the 14th Martin Shanahan of “Martin’s Mad About Fish” will be doing a demo at 7 pm at the West Cork Hotel. Tickets €15. Next day will see the finals of the Schools Cookery Competition at Mercy Heights Secondary School 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. and on the same day there is a Sushi demonstration at Annie May’s Restaurant on Bridge Street at 6 pm – entry free. Full programme with all details on
On the Saturday of the same weekend, 11th September, at Midleton in East Cork, they will have a great whing ding of a day with a Food & Drink Festival. Midleton Main Street will become an open air food and drink market, with a whole pig turning on a hot spit, and an array of scrumptious foods to indulge in. There will be Craft exhibitions and an Agri Aware Mobile Farm, which is an educational experience for all the family – hold the animals, feed them, and learn about their role on the farm. They will also be happy to discuss the ins and outs of animal husbandry with you. There will be street entertainment and a Waiters’ Race – all in all good fun.
When you have recovered from Waterford, Midleton and Skibbereen, you will be just about ready to set off again for Galway where, from the 22nd – 26th September, the City of the Tribes will be hosting its 56th Galway International Oyster Festival. The City will be awash with Guinness and Oysters, sensational live music and entertainment, craic agus ceoil, a Street Party in the Latin Quarter plus a Best Dressed Lady competition and an Oyster Pearl Competition for the ladies with the prize being a string of cultured pearls, a cash prize of €500, a Crystal Trophy, and other goodies. Oyster have always been prized as a precious gourmet delight by food lovers and of course associated with love. There is really nothing like our wonderful native oysters and of course each year hundreds of competitors from around the world enter for the Guinness World Oyster Opening Championships. The current reigning champion is Xavier Caille of Belgium who will be defending his title this year. www.galwayoysterfest.com
Dingle is a glorious location for a Festival with the pretty town intimate enough to create a great togetherness. The first weekend in October - 1st – 3rd – will see the foodie caravan arrive, including myself in the role of a Judge on the Blas na hEireann Irish National Food Awards Academy, which is part of the Dingle Food & Wine Festival. Two years ago I was lucky enough to partake in a blind tasting of 23 black and white puddings followed straight on by 32 cheeses – I couldn’t look at either again for a very long time – no matter how good they were!! As with the other Festivals, the days and the evenings will be filled with fun and food, and really interesting food trails in over 40 outlets where festivalgoers can purchase Taste Tickets and sample local cuisine delights in locations that vary from pubs and galleries to shops and restaurants. A kitchen will be set up in St. James Church with a variety of both local and national chefs giving demonstrations. The line up includes oyster tasting, a charity auction, wine tastings and tutored workshops including beehive and hen keeping, grow your own food and coffee tastings. There are some great restaurants in Dingle including Global Village and The Chart House.
And so to the town I love so well – Kinsale – of the original Irish Gourmet Festival which now heads into its 34th year on the second weekend of October. This year it is being sponsored by Bollinger Champagne and believe me there have been, and will be, plenty of Ab Fab types floating around the town. It kicks off at 3 p.m. on Friday 8th October with a cookery demo and wine reception at the White Lady Hotel. Martin Shanahan will be doing the cookery demonstration this year, and that will be followed at 6.30 p.m. by the Official Opening with a Bollinger reception and canapes from Kinsale’s Good Food Circle of restaurants. Derek Davis will be the M.C. After that you choose your own restaurant and then head off to the Festival Club at the Blue Haven Hotel. Saturday is always an hilarious day with the Mad Hatters Taste of Kinsale. It starts at Acton’s Hotel at 11.30 a.m. and is a long day with some inexperienced over enthusiastic revellers sometimes falling by the wayside…. The group breaks into four and follows either Alice, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare or the Fieldmouse in a tour of the 11 members of Kinsale’s Good Food Circile who will present spectacular dishes from their kitchens bearing testimony to the culinary skills of the chefs of Kinsale at four different venues. On Sunday there is a fabulous Fruit de Mer four course lunch including lobster, crab, prawns, etc accompanied by superb wines sponsored by Torres Mas Rabell. Here too there are some excellent restaurants – Shanghai Express, Max’s Wine Bar, Toddies at the Bulman, Fishy Fishy, White House, Jim Edwards and Blue Haven, Man Friday and White Lady.
The 4th Savour Kilkenny 2010, which is to be the biggest and best yet, with the majestic walls of Kilkenny Castle forming a spectacular backdrop to the event will take place in the historic city over the October Bank Holiday weekend – 22nd to 25th. Claire Daly, who has worked with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, is the new Festival Manager. The new Parade Plaza in the heart of Kilkenny will be home to a tented food village which will be buzzing with stalls where you can taste and buy the very best of food from Kilkenny producers, restaurants, hotels, cafes and chefs. There will be demonstrations in the new Marquee Theatre in front of the Castle by celebrity chefs, with tastings and entertainment throughout the weekend. Small, affordable, tasting plates will be available for food lovers and visitors to buy and enjoy as they wander through the stalls. The tented food village will be the very first major showcase event on the new Parade Plaza which is a welcome addition to the City. Savour Kilkenny is still a little while away and there is still time for chefs, restaurants, cafes, cookery schools, and shops from the city and county, and neighbouring counties, to reserve their stall. You might like to take part in the Savour Kilkenny Masterchef competition which should be fun with judges Kevin Dundon and Catherine Fulvio. There will also be a celebrity Ready Steady Cook Off with Dragons Den’s Bobby Kerr and RTE’s John Murray. One of the highlights will be on the Sunday, the Smithwicks Ocktober Feast, in the main marquee with long tables and ceili music. Smithwicks are celebrating their 300th Birthday and it will be called the 50 Mile Meal as all food will have been sourced within a fifty mile radius of the City.
By the way, if you are footloose and fancy free and feeling hungry today, the restaurants and chefs of Greystones, Co. Wicklow, are hosting Gourmet Greystones at Greystones Town Centre. The day will feature cooking demonstrations from the fantastic Sunil Ghai of Ananda Restaurant, Derry Clarke from L’Ecrivain, and John Howard of the legendary Le Coq Hardi.
After all that we can start the diet!!
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010.