Harrogate Food and Drink Festival

I have just seen a feature on Breakfast about the Sunday headline act at Glastonbury, SZR, being the lowest attended for many years, if not ever. Well, if they will insist on staging their do to clash with Harrogate’s Food and Drink Festival, what can they expect. Not only is there a huge choice of artisan produced gifts and foodstuffs – very Glasto – but also street food vans, bars and music which you can listen to whilst seated in a deck chair rather than standing half a mile away only able to see the acts by means of enormous screens.

This is the third time I have been to this event and the variety of stalls was just as wide so I thought that, rather than show you endless photographs of cakes and gins, mainly because I couldn’t trust myself to walk away without buying something to add a couple of inches to my waistline, I decided to concentrate on the new features for this year.

My first call was to Yorkshire Appetite Food Tours who were running on-site strolls to offer a taste of the Festival’s vendors. The jaunts last an hour and a half, taking in five venues, beginning with Paella before a detour to Malaysia for a Kuala Lumpur dish, returning to Spain for a dessert of Churros. The other two stops were at a Cocktail Stand and the Main Bar. The price for this gourmet treat was £25 which is a snip when you think how much just a cocktail and a pint would cost. Trust me to use use alcohol as a monetary measure.

You don’t have to go to a festival to enjoy a curated tour by Yorkshire Appetite Food Tours as they organise trips throughout the year in Harrogate, York, Leeds, Ripon and others on request. Why not check them out at https://www.yorkshireappetite.com/

My next stop was at Artisan Cooks who were running cookery classes for kids. Rather them than me, especially as the goodies being manufactured were choc chip cookies, so the chance of a flour cloud interspersed with a chocolate hail storm looked on the cards. Fortunately the risk was mitigated by their carefully programming the day’s activities as the following class was for cocktails! Had it been the other way round, there could have been mayhem. For more about Artisan Cooks go to https://www.artisancooks.co.uk/

Leaving the food themed events behind I headed for Stem and Petal who were presenting classes on being creative with flowers. Today it was back to the Glastonbury vibe as they were showing visitors how to make flower crowns. The last time I wore flowers in my hair was the Summer of Love, 1967. In fact, it was also the last time I had hair!

The two students were making the process look easy under the expert tuition of Creative Florist Siobhan Hughes, I saw them a little later on having a well earned break at one of the food trucks modelling their new millinery, and very fetching they looked too. Check out the website at https://stemandpetalflowers.co.uk/

Time to have a stroll round the producers’ stalls to see what was on offer.

Come on, where else did you think I was going to start. Just clock the fillings in these beauties from Brockleby’s Pies. They come from Melton Mowbray, where else, and sell on-line and at festivals, including the next Harrogate Food and Drink Festival in August – see below. For details see https://www.brocklebys.co.uk/

It is an unwritten law in Yorkshire that you can’t prioritise pies over cheese, or vice versa, so I had to avoid potential arrest by checking out this stall. If the pie company had to be based in Melton Mowbray then this lot just had to be from Cheshire. Again they sell by mail order, so see their site for details and special offers. https://gbcheese.co.uk/

Don’t worry if you have four legs rather than just the two, as pets are well catered for too. There were no pet street food stalls, as that term has a whole different meaning for dogs and cats, but there was lots to take home, or order on-line such as the healthy options at Pure. https://www.purepetfood.com/

Time for entertainment, and I was well catered for here. On the main stage, OK, the only stage, was a band called Leaving Overmorrow who were performing a selection of really good cover versions of bands such as the Eagles and Yazoo. Plenty of room for the audience, and the toilets were impeccable as well, unlike some festivals I could mention, and have.

The weekend headline acts were a Killers tribute on Saturday and a Robbie Williams one on Sunday.

The young ‘uns were not neglected, far from it, with a children’s entertainment tent housing a rotating programme all day. The chap who was on when I stopped for a few minutes, was Joel Dickinson, who did a great line in balloon swallowing, well, it was for kids so swords would have been a bit dangerous, mind you he did strongly stress that his act shouldn’t be copied by the audience. He did another trick, this time an arithmetical one, which couldn’t possibly have been copied at home. Baffling!

It was now time to go to the other end of the age spectrum, i.e. mine, with a visit to a mobile disco. Actually it was more of a mobility disco with a couple of DJs darting around the site on scooters blasting out the hits of yesteryear.

After throwing a few shapes I thought it time to hit the road myself and get home to enjoy the stuff I had not been strong enough to resist when passing the various stalls.

All in all, another great day, but don’t worry if you missed it, as there is another Harrogate Food and Drink Festival just a couple of miles up the A61 at Ripley Castle on 24th and 25th August so get your tickets sorted out now at https://harrogatefoodfestival.com/