Views from the Southbank

Eco-cooking is fun.  Find out more by going on a culinary adventure to the London Festival of Food, a four-day foodathon running from Thursday 18 September to Sunday 21 September at the Southbank Centre, London.

The Southbank Centre and Slow Food London will be championing great food, the environment, and sustainability from 12pm - 9pm every day, over four days.  Over 50 stalls will sell sustainable and traditionally prepared foods from a selection of the UK’s leading food producers.

Along with the Slow Food market, there will be an eclectic programme of talks and demonstrations, a photographic exhibition celebrating the craft of bread-making in Britain, a Bee Day, and live music throughout the weekend.

Good, Clean, and Fair are key words for the Slow Food Movement.  In other words, food that is delicious, environmentally sound and fairly traded.

At the festival, you can taste and buy pedigree and rare-bread meats, raw milk cheeses and ‘true’ Perry - alongside a host of other delicious foods ranging from exotic spices and chutneys to biodynamic wines and real ales.

The festival is not just about tasting, buying and eating real food but also learning what you can do with it.

•    Farmer and butcher Peter Gott will demonstrate the art of buying and using cheaper cuts of pork.
•    Slow Food devotee, Sarah Moore, formerly of the legendry Air Studios’ restaurant, will show how to cook tasty, seasonal and nutritional dishes for under £5.
•    Arthur Potts Dawson, leader of the crusade in eco-friendly restaurants and the executive chef and co-owner of Acorn House, will illustrate delicious autumnal ingredients.
•    Cyrus Todiwala from Café Spice Namaste, and Jacky Lelievre from celebrated gastropub The Butcher’s Hook, will explain how to make simple, seasonal and cost-effective dishes from market ingredients.
•    Sushi chefs from Feng Sushi, who only use impeccably sourced, sustainable fish, will demonstrate easy sushi techniques.
•    Peter James, Beekeeper at Chelsea Physic Garden, will bring along a ‘dry hive’ and run a ‘Bee and Q’ session:  all you wanted to know about bees but never thought to ask!
•    Orchard Apiaries’ Mike Thurlow will display his observation hive so you can see ‘bees in action’.  He’ll also run a beeswax candle-making workshop for children (and keen adults).
•    Celebrated British folk band, Bellowhead, food lovers and Artists in Residence at the Southbank Centre, will bring their Bellow session to the Slow Food Festival.  Guests are invited bring instruments and jam with the folk wizards.
•    Also marvel at the Brighton Morris Men, who help keep part of England’s history and heritage alive with their dance displays.

The Festival of Food at the Southbank Centre is free to all visitors.

It runs every day from 12 noon to 9pm, 18 September to 21 September

For more information email: lisa@ispani.co.uk