Glamour on the Unfitted Kitchen Stage.
Still coming down off the high of the first South Downs Food Festival…
I can’t stop thinking about the scene of Prue Leith and all our wonderful speakers plus stellar Thomasina Miers putting the Unfitted Kitchen through its paces in the oak framed travelling barn.
The glamorous Prue Leith was briefly held up in traffic while we waited for her star power to kick everything off onstage. Meanwhile food stalls and chefs were well underway and tempting scents wafted about the site. Excitement was running high as that morning we’d seen pictures of Prue in black latex and amazing hair and makeup on a London catwalk. The sun shone for us, Prue landed and declared the festival open with a glass of English Sparkling.
A succession of wonderful talks with an Elizabeth David focus followed on the Unfitted Kitchen Stage. We were lucky enough to hear from Tom Marks, Diane Purkiss and Rachel Cooke before Prue rejoined us for a panel discussion which also included Elizabeth David’s biographer Artemis Cooper. David’s legacy is open to many fascinating interpretations but Prue got to the heart of things by choosing garlic as her greatest contribution to British cooking. Before her books, we were terrified of its strength and smell, a fear she blew away to everyone’s lasting relief.
The tale of Prue’s purchase and then loss of ED’s kitchen table led to a consolation prize from me: one of the small collection we still have of wooden spoons from her special container, a toilet cistern top in cream glazed ceramic. You can still see this and many others of her original objects and furniture by visiting her kitchen as we have recreated it at Stansted House. This exhibition will end around Christmas.
On Sunday, Thomasina Miers and her little daughter helper stole the show. Using our fully functioning Unfitted Kitchen on the stage, they treated festival goers to a whirlwind masterclass in Mexican cooking. Fresh sweetcorn, polenta, chillies of many types, a big foraged puffball, chalkstream crayfish, tarragon and other herbs and spices, and tomatillos – all were used and celebrated. Thomasina had never seen a hob quite like ours – TPB induction in softly marbled brown finish – and I think we can safely say she loved it for its beautiful looks and hyper-responsiveness. The central island’s rise-and-fall worksurface was put through its paces, gliding up and down to enable Thomasina’s small assistant to join in fully and playfully with the demonstration. It was a charming experience and the audience got to taste some of the delicious Mexican dishes (although this had its logistical challenges involving pens dug from handbags).
Julian Baggini led the talks on Sunday with an introduction to his brand new book How the World Eats. This is a visionary work encompassing all aspects of our relationship with food and the vast global systems that feed us. We were extremely lucky Julian could come to the festival. As indeed we were with Diane Purkiss whose terrific book English Food: A People’s History is a gripping read full of insights. We loved her talk on Saturday with its revelations about how people with limited means have fed themselves historically. Rachel Cooke was another star. Her latest book is Kitchen Person and a must-read for her wide-ranging chapters and the personal perspective she brings. Tom Marks gave a wonderful talk about Elizabeth David and her sense of visual and literary style and her links to artists. You can read about his research here on the Elizabeth David website. And then on Sunday we had a delightful excursion into the world of the Gladwin family of Nutbourne and London restaurants through a talk by Peter Gladwin supplemented by very beautiful photographs and artwork by Bridget Gladwin. Peter has just brought out An English Vineyard Cookbook, with all royalties going to the City Harvest charity. In another illuminating talk with an environmental theme, Beth Mander outlined for the audience the work of the Ellen Macarthur Foundation’s circular food economy.
The festival was lucky enough to hear also from Harvey Jones whose rewilding of two farms through the Pig Shed Trust offers a radical perspective on food and land use. For Harvey human food provision takes a back seat while he allows the return of insects, plants and animals to his land. In his words, his mission is to provide wild creatures with ‘somewhere to live and something to eat’. It resonated with the audience who expressed their gratitude to Harvey for this work.