Pickling, potting and preserving at Powderham 2013

This year the Powderham Food Festival is celebrating ‘Pickling, Potting & Preserving’ from ancient roots to space food technology. The festival takes place on 5 October 2013, and is sponsored by Helpful Holidays one of the leading holiday cottage specialists in the South West.  The event will celebrate food and food-growing in a spectacular location – Powderham Castle: an exceptional, family-run 600-year-old stately home which is situated beside the picturesque Exe estuary, and surrounded by stunning deer park.

There will be over a hundred producers exhibiting in the castle and grounds, with fascinating demonstrations, talks and tastings by artisan makers, small producers, growers, and experts in the field of food preservation.  Toby Buckland, nurseryman and television broadcaster, who owns the Toby Buckland Plant Centre on the Powderham Estate, will be leading the talks, discussing ‘How to Grow Your Garden and Eat it’ then hosting a panel of experts for a foodie gardening question-time session.

Autumn at Powderham Castle in the last few centuries was a busy time with the kitchen and still-rooms, busier than ever, preserving the harvest for the lean months to come. There were once great hooks in the vast old kitchen inglenook fireplace where hams were smoked; great earthenware crocks used for salting and the lovely old copper pans and stoneware pots used for jams, vinegars, and cordials. The larders were crammed with great sides of pork, to be dried, cured and turned into potted meats and bacon. Even milk and cream were “pickled” - cheese after all, only being “pickled” milk!

But here at Powderham Food Festival we are looking to the future. We’ll be investigating ways of preserving your own harvest with talks and demos on drying, smoking, salting, jam-making, pickling, brewing and much more. In addition to how new foods and preserving methods developed by NASA for astronauts in space have impacted on our domestic kitchens.

There’ll be food stalls, a ‘Preserves Competition’, children’s gardening activities, apple pressings, talks, workshops with the ‘Victorian Cook’ and live music to keep you entertained.

Helen Hayes, PR manager of Helpful Holidays, the key sponsor, is looking forward to the event “We are happy to sponsor this wonderful festival. Fabulous West Country food is very much a part of our guests' self-catering holiday experience and we can't wait to celebrate a second year at this tasty and engaging event.”

Worth putting the date in your diary for the festival in this unique historic setting for family fun, and an abundance of fabulous food.