Port Eliot’s food and flora stage is where the country’s greatest horticulturists and culinary geniuses give talks and demos. The Flower and Fodder Show is held in the old servant’s basement next to the stage and a series of competitive classes are judged here over the course of the weekend. A number of limited-space events are held in the Big Kitchen.
Flower & Fodder programmer, Lucy Hyslop, lets us in on her plans for this year’s festival.
“Just who would make the best company around any food table? Who would have the right culinary chops to sparkle enthusiastically, woo an audience as well as festival staff? When it comes to plotting the Flower & Fodder stage, these are the thoughts that permeate every decision.
Last year we had the wonderful Nathan Outlaw, as well as a plethora of fresh and established authors bringing the very latest flavours and cooking creativity for every age and every palate including Blanche Vaughan, Sally Clarke, Alistair Little, Jeremy Lee, Peter Gordon, Claire Ptak, Alice Lascelles and many more.
There’s nothing like putting just the right petal on with our competitive flora and food classes. We love our audience snipping, trimming and arranging their way in the classes wittily created by our Creative Director Michael Howells and overseen by the masterful author and Telegraph food writer Rose Prince – all judged by the great and the good of the artistic and culinary worlds. Enter our Flower & Fodder Competitive Classes HERE.
And of course, if there’s a hot flower (or flour) topic to be had, you can bet we’ll be up for a talk or two, with plenty of questions (and answers, no doubt) from the audience.
Our F&F motto is simple: Come hungry, leave sated… Are you ready to tuck in?”