Lancaster Food and Drink Festival

Today was the first ever Lancaster Food and Drink Festival, and I'm told it's to be an annual event. It's held at Lancaster Leisure Park (what I remember as Hornsea Pottery), next door to Lancaster Auction, and the home of the Lancaster Brewery:

where you can do brewery tours:

I like food festivals (especially ones that are free admission like this one), as it's a chance to meet up with old friends (and make new ones) and find out about new ideas from talented food producers.

Old friends were there, like Savin Hill Farm:

and the Port of Lancaster Smokehouse:

and I'd travelled a long way (from Cheshire) to chat to Simon Spurrell from the Cheshire Cheese Company!

Some traditionalists may not like some of their cheeses, like Sticky Toffee Heaven, Jamaican Jerk Sauce and Taste off the Raj Cheshire Cheese:

but I think it's great how our food is continually evolving and changing.

However I decided not to buy this one:

to take home and say "I thought of you and bought you this"!

Lancashire is famous for great cheeses, and Procter's Cheeses were selling a very good Grandma Singleton's Lancashire:

I'd not come across the Northern Dough Company before:

they make pizza doughs:

for a quick do-it-yourself pizza.

I met up with Phil Keenan, also known as Foody Phil on Twitter, who's helped get the show up and running and is a great ambassador for Lancashire Food.

He suggested I visit Baxter's Potted Shrimps:

which I've been meaning to do since I walked across Morecambe Bay. They've been producing delicious shrimps sine 1799!

He also suggested I go (amongst many other places) to Archers at Red Bank Farm to try their salt marsh lamb, and Cool Cow at Garstang to try their ice-cream made with organic milk, but sadly I spent too long at the Winter Gardens in Morecambe, so will have to save that for another day. I could do with a sponsor so I could shed the day job and spend more time on this blog...

Talking of ice cream, there was Wallings Farm, Mrs Dowson's and Bleasdale's icecream at the festival.

I'd not come across Bleasdale's before (it's the man on the bike at the top of this post), but it's fantastic ice-cream simply made with as few ingredients as possible (cream, sugar, fruit, and no artificial additives). I couldn't decide whether to go for vanilla (always the best test of a new ice-cream) or damson, so the man helpfully supplied half a scoop of each: