The Abergavenny Food Festival...

One of the highlights of the ‘foodie year’ both in Wales and the rest of the UK, is the amazing Food Festival held each year in the sleepy market town of Abergavenny, here in South Wales. This year the visiting chefs included the fabulous Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.

Originally started about 11 years ago, the Food Festival was an attempt to counteract the devastation caused to local farmers and food producers from the fall out after the BSE crisis which dramatically hit the UK farmers at the time. Nowadays the festival has achieved the big-time by wowing about 30,000 visitors each day of the two day Festival!

www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com

Abergavenny is very much an old rural market town set in the picturesque green and lush Welsh countryside at the base of the Sugar Loaf Mountain and close to the adjoining majestic heights of the Brecon Beacons.

The Festival attracts some of the top food chefs and famous names and this year was no exception with not only Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, but also the fabulous Claudia Rodin and the august Pierre Koffmann amongst others.

 

 Not only can you go and see each of them giving a talk or cookery demonstration but they will also be walking around sampling the delights of the festival and generally happy to talk to people. Such as Pierre Koffmann spied at a cookbook stand as we walked by!

 

 

A few years ago I was picking out some heritage apples from a stall when someone next to me beat me to a particularly fine specimen. The gentleman apologized and offered it to me and to my surprise it was Rick Stein! I’ve since met him a couple of times and he is a lovely chap and hugely passionate about local food. 

 

 I’ve also had the pleasure of chatting to Clarissa Dickson Wright-what a truly fascinating lady-and have met the charismatic eastern European chef Silvena Rowe.

 Apart from all these  ‘celebrities’ you also get the chance to meet local food producers and the majority of the food stalls are giving away free samples of their wares to tempt you. 

 

Even the decorations made by volunteers and hung from the ceilings of the old Victorian Market Hall, symbolise food with this year’s theme being wild food...

 

 

Abergavenny closes its main streets for the two main days of the festival so you can freely wander around. The old Auctioneer’s Hall is the centre of the numerous cheese stalls with tutored tastings. One of the churches and an Old Tithe Barn is the focus of the fish and seafood stall holders section and the Castle itself focuses on the more children centred food activities and has street entertainers and strolling musicians. 

The whole town becomes food obsessed with even the local wool shop having knitted bagels in its shop window... 

Another kitchen utensil shop had a very artistic display-all of which was made of cake!

The downside and it is a very big downside, is that it’s very popularity nowadays means the crowds are enormous...This small market town becomes host to about 30,000 visitors each day of the main two day festival. The mornings are not too bad and we have learnt over the years of visiting, to arrive early in order to be able to park near to the centre and then have a leisurely cappuccino before it officially open at 10 o’clock and then to hit the stalls then. By the afternoon the main areas are unbelievably busy and the crowds can make it all rather uncomfortable.

 In addition to the general ticket entry which is a very reasonable £6-£8 for each day-children are free- there are the Masterclasses and Tutored Tastings where you pay an additional fee. As these are hosted by some of the food ‘celebrities’, tickets for these can sell out very quickly. Mind you, even at £7 or so they are very good value as you get to meet the chef or speaker, and hear them give a talk or see them cook and at some get a glass of wine and some nibbles too. 

So for this Post I will concentrate on the first day-the Saturday- when we had a talk on some sublime British unpasteurised cheddars from Somerset led by Rudolf Hodgeson and Jamie Montgomery of Montgomery Cheddar Cheese. And in the afternoon we were privileged to attend a Master Class and Demonstration by Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi and his business partner, Palestinian, Sami Tamimi who celebrated their flair and creativity with a fusion of West Bank Cuisine.

 

First to the cheese...

 

I do have to admit that cheese is a very definite weakness of mine...and as such I did have to volunteer us for a tutored cheese tasting of Artisan Somerset Cheddars...

The class was led jointly by the now revered head of the revival of cheese making in the UK, Randolf Hodgson.

 

 

Randolf started Neal’s Yard Dairy in London over 30 years ago. Passionate about British artisan cheese, he drove the length and breadth of the UK to meet the cheese makers and persuade them to allow him to sell their cheese.

 

 In those days he told us, most cheese was only sold locally because only a little was made. 

 

He had to prove to the cheese makers that he could be trusted with their precious cheese to look after it properly and sell it when it was in peak condition.

 

 He wanted to bring to a wider public some of these great cheeses and because he had personally visited the cheese makers and even met the cows! - he could therefore communicate the skill which went into each cheese.

 

Even to this day, although the staff in his shops has dramatically grown, each one will experience the whole process of the cheese so they can bring this knowledge to the customers.

 

Huge care will be taken to ensure the cheese in the shop is at its peak to the extent that staff have to wear wellington boots to traverse the shop floor, as the shop is kept at the required humidity for the benefit of the cheese!

 

www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk

 

Our other speaker was Jamie Montgomery of Montgomery Cheddar in Somerset.

 

 

I have met Jamie several times over the years and he is understandably exceedingly passionate about Cheddar Cheese as his family have been making it for generations...

 

 We had a plate of about 6-7 cheese samples and he and Randolph talked us through each one. 

 

We sampled some 12 month cheddars made by the Keens family, one from Westcombe and, of course, one of his own. Very nice they were too with perhaps the Keen’s being my favourite with a nice ‘bite’ to it. 

 

Then, however, we went on to some that had matured for 18 months and the ‘long finish’ was delicious with the 18month Montgomery then taking top place! 

 

Jamie and Randolf talked at length at how important the maturing process was for Cheddar. 

 

For them the whole rounds of cheese should be cloth-bound to allow the air to circulate in and around the cheese. 

 

Unfortunately modern supermarkets are demanding cheddar that is stored in plastic which ‘kills’ any long finish to their flavour. For the supermarkets it is all about uniformity whilst anybody that is lucky enough to eat artisan cheese appreciates that its taste and even the colour will change over the year depending on the season and what the cows have fed on.

 

 Another very worrying trend is that the supermarkets now want cheddar which tastes ‘sweeter’ as this appeals to the masses. Rather than to go back to the cheese makers and ask them to look at working at the ‘recipe’ to see if a more natural way can be found to make a ‘sweeter’ cheddar i.e. incorporating some of the Helvetia style which makes a sweeter cheese into the cheddar making, the supermarkets are simply going for the quicker cheaper option of adding sugar...

 

Artisan cheese is all about celebrating taste and appreciating all that goes on to making a good farm cheese. This year, with its appalling bad weather has resulted in a knock on effect to our British cheese makers. Rain sodden fields results in the protein levels of the grass being down. The farmers have had to supplement but the cows have been lethargic and understandably prefer to stand close to any shelter from hedges and trees rather than wander and graze and this has affected the overall quality and milk yield. Cheddar depends for its fantastic long flavour on the proteins in the milk being able to ‘wrap themselves’ around the fat globules. Good artisan cheese makers are very, very picky about the cheese they store as this reflects their skill as cheese makers. So far this year, Somerset Cheddar, by all the artisan producers is down by a huge 20%. And you have to remember their overall production is not very big at all compared to the mass produced for the supermarkets...

 

So I for one, will be making a big effort to buy some lovely artisan cheddar from Somerset on a regular basis-as if I need any encouragement!! 

 

And finally,

 

After hours wandering through the myriad of food stalls across the town, we really appreciated the chance to sit down at the beautiful old Victorian theatre and watch the cookery demonstration by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. The place had been sold out months ago when the tickets were first available as Yotam seems to be the ‘chief of the moment’! Luckily we managed to get seats right at the front and Yotam and Sammi were wandering around the stage setting up and prepping the food and rather hilariously taking photos of us the audience!

 

Unfortunately just before the actual demonstration we were told that no photos were allowed during the demonstration...so of course I put my camera down...

 

 

I do have to say the demonstration was fab!! However, I can’t for the life of me remember the names of what they actually cooked!!

 

Sami, with his gentle sense of humour, talked us through cooking a typical Palestinian dessert with layers of filo pastry and goat’s cheese which was then anointed with a caramel syrup-it looked divine! 

 

Yotem cooked a dish with meat although he said it could be made without for vegetarians, which then had eggs carefully broken into them to cook in the simmering mixture and served with a beautiful dish of roasted and glazed sweet potatoes and figs.

 

I have just received my library copy of their book ‘Plenty’ so will be avidly reading it and if I find the names and recipes will let you know!

 

I was very, very impressed with their cookery demonstration. They happily admitted that they are perfectionists and the quality and source of their ingredients is paramount. At the same time, they want cooking to be about sharing and giving and having the utmost pleasure both in cooking and eating.

 

 To be able to share West Bank Cuisine with its mixture of both Jewish and Arab cultures for them is very obviously a huge, huge pleasure. They both talked about how each culture would cook with seasonally available ingredients but would have different names. Even each family would cook a traditional dish just slightly differently. If you would go out and buy food there would be certain places in Jerusalem where you would buy just the one dish and both agreed on the best place to buy hummus in Jerusalem for instance.

 

At the end of their cooking they took an extensive question and answer session from the audience including where they would recommend getting spices www.spicesofindia.co.uk questions about their stores and restaurants in London and what they are be happy to sell online www.ottolenghi.co.uk plus lots of basic questions from the audience about problems they had cooking and what the duo would recommend. I do have to say they were extremely patient with all the questions thrown at them and did their best to answer them fully.

 

They were available after to sign books but I’m sorry to say we anticipated the crowds would be huge and by then we were well and truly shattered so slunk off home to rest and recuperate for the next day.

 

Next time, if people are willing, I will go on and describe Day Two...

 

Until then, eat well and heartily...