#Springfest Marie is great

[rosecandyart]

My personal rankings of each special splatfest Marie outfit because I gotta do everyone at this point.

1. Springfest

2. Grand Festival

3. Splatoween

4. Summer Nights

5. Frostyfest

[squishieeeeee]

Unsure if I'll get much else out of the fest, won 4 10x battles for Bear so I'm pretty happy how I am. GL everyone!

[eatingexeter]

DEVON: Delightful, Edible, Variety, Outdoors, Nourishing.

Five words we can think of relating to our incredibly rich, tasty and hardworking county, but there are certainly many more words to describe the assortment of food and drink available to us from our waters, moors and everything inbetween.

The best way to be exposed to as many great producers as possible? Food and Drink festivals of course!

Here’s our round up of the upcoming 2018 Food Festivals in Devon as well as a couple from Cornwall. We’ve included website links for each festival as well as links to our review of the previous events for a feel of what you can expect.

This page will be updated constantly if other events pop up, or when we know more info has been released so do come back to double check if you’re looking for an event to visit. In the meantime, get the dates in your calendar!

If you know of a great food or drink event we haven’t included, then feel free to message us on any of our social media platforms, or email info@diningdevon.com

April

14th April: Cullompton Springfest

Check their Facebook page for further info.

A food, craft and music festival; there will be a Farmer’s Market, plus a range of food producers selling their food products as well as cooked food to sell on the day. Local restaurant, The Bakehouse, will be hosting an Indian Cuisine night and there is a special meal at The Walronds on the night (ticket only), with a celebrity chef doing the honours.

May

5th, 6th and 7th May: Exeter Food and Drink Festival

Check their website for further info. 

Last years write up: Exeter Festival of South West Food and Drink 2017

In our opinion, the largest event in the South West and based in Exeter city centre in the grounds of Exeter Castle. An excellent festival including evening music events, live music during the day, beer tent, kids cookery and activity tents, farm animals, plenty of food to eat, producers and no shortage of tasters – come hungry! Demo kitchen, chef’s Q&A, wine tasting as well as a VIP option with an extra room full of treats and a place to rest your weary legs.

  6th May: Salcombe Crab Fest

Check out their website for further info.

Last years write up: Salcombe Crab Fest 2017

A free one day festival spread around Salcombe quay and town is a celebration of crab and seafood – with demos from chef and restauratuer Mitch Tonks, crab picking tuition, commercial crab fishing talk, crab pot making, music, wine tasting and more. The programme of events will be available on their website from March.

  26th – 27th May: River Cottage Spring Fair

Check their website for further info.

On the grounds of the famous River Cottage HQ at Axminster, this festival is full of food, music and producers in a fantastic setting, albeit not as accessible as some, so do check access if you have prams or wheelchair needs etc. Cookery line up includes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tom Kerridge, Guy & Geetie Singh-Watson and Gill Meller, to name a few, with more to be announced. There are workshops to book, tours to venture on as well as various kids activities. Additional activities do cost a bit extra so be sure to take plenty of cash or prebook through the website to ensure a place.

27th – 28th May: Dartington Food Fair 

Check their website for further info.

Our write up from 2016: Dartington Food Fair 2016

A free event, with a small parking charge, the food fair is held in the grounds of the Shops at Dartington. This fab food fair includes a demo tent, large food producers tent, plenty of food to eat, along with a few kids activities. On top of that you can enjoy the deli, the kitchen shop, toy shop as well as the drinks shop. A great excuse to visit this lovely ‘shopping village’ which champions local food and drink.

June

1st – 3rd June: Plymouth Flavour Fest

Check their website for further info.

Now in it’s 15th year, Plymouth Flavour Fest is quite a large food festival spread out through Plymouth city centre. Food stalls, producers, drinks marquee and chef demo tent with the star chef for the event being Masterchef Judge, John Torode who will be cooking on the Saturday. Extended trading times, evening entertainment, children’s engagement programme and a continental market also feature this year. 2018 details are yet to be released fully.

2nd June: Ottery St Mary Food and Families Festival

Check their website for further info.

Now in its 6th year, this event is aimed at foodies and all the family, encouraging healthy eating and showcasing local produce and restaurants. More info is yet to be released but last year over 5,000 people joined in the fun at local eateries, enjoyed tasting local produce from the food stalls and the children were well entertained inside and out.

9th – 10th June: Crediton Food Festival

Check their website for further info.

Now in it’s 10th year, this event is held in the town centre and is great for food stalls, music and demos.

16th – 17th June: Q’fest BBQ Competition, Festival and Camping

Check their website for further info.

Held at Red Rock Brewery in Bishopsteignton, this newbie to the food scene is now in it’s second year. Driven by the increased interest in UK BBQ’ing, smoking and outdoor cooking, the event features a major BBQ competition. For visitors there will be camping, product stalls, BBQ cooking demos, bouncy castles for the kids, food and drink of course, live music in the barn as well as the opportunity to taste some of the best BBQ in the country.

July

15th July: Pen’Grillie’ BBQ Festival

Check out their website for further info.

Held at Pentillie Castle, to the east of Plymouth, this event is now in it’s 3rd year and is a lovely event consisting of BBQ competitions, live music, chilli eating competition, kids activity tent, food and product stalls, smoking and grilling demos, all in a beautiful setting.

August

12th August:  Rockfish Crab Fest, Dartmouth South Embankment

Check their website for further info

The Rockfish Crab Festival is now in its 7th year, championed by restaurateur Mitch Tonks, it celebrates all that is great about our British crab. Enjoy music, local crab, children’s crabbing competition & the best-dressed table competition – that’s the table not the guests! Bring bunting, table linen, flowers, candelabra, whatever you fancy.  Guaranteed fun & guaranteed weather-proofing with a marquee!  This is a ticketed event, and further info will be released in due course on their website.

September

1st September: Nourish Festival, Bovey Tracey

Check their website for further info.

2015’s write up by Editor, Chris, can be read here.

Bovey Tracey’s Fore Street gets transformed for this music, food, craft festival and Devon Street Food Awards. There will also be two evenings of concerts. More info  to be released soon.

2nd September: Clovelly Lobster and Crab Festival

Check their website for further info.

A unique and beautiful place, Clovelly celebrates its famous lobsters and crabs sustainably caught by its fishermen with a great day out for all the family. This year is its 10th Anniversary.

7th, 8th & 9th September: Topsham Beer and Bacon Festival

This little festival is not all fancy and big – it’s perfectly formed and organised by the guys at The Pig and Pallet/Good Game. A beer tent, some bacon and pork based food stalls, a side loader truck opened up for the live music to perform on, and right in front of The Lighter Inn on Topsham Quay. If you’re local, be sure to pop down for a good time.

8th: Ashburton Food & Drink Festival

Check their Facebook page for more info.

This free festival offers a full day of local foodie delights and entertainment. There’ll be over 60 stalls and music and entertainment together with talks, wine tasting and cooking demos.

16th – 17th: Plymouth Seafood Festival

Check their website for further info.

The website states “The Barbican and Sutton Harbour will come alive on Saturday 15 to Sunday 16 September, with a celebration of locally sourced and sustainably caught, high quality seafood.”

With Plymouth having the second largest fish market in the UK, events spread across this harbourside city includes cookery theatre with well known regional chefs, food stalls, crabbing competition, and a cardboard boat race amongst other activities!

22nd – 23rd September: The Great Food & Drink Show

Check their website for further info.

This is a brand new show, being held at Westpoint in Exeter, featuring some serious food heavyweights such as chefs Tom Kerridge and Jean Christophe Novelli. The weekend will include workshops, South West food and drink producers as well as a selection of restaurants and eateries. More information being released gradually but having spoken with the organiser, it sounds like it’s going to be a very exciting, large event. When you buy a ticket, you can also opt in to be in with a chance of winning a place on their Ready, Steady, Cook challenge!

Date TBC: Taste of the Teign and Teignmouth Harbour Festival

Check their website for further info.

A week long food event that will include Smokeinteignhead, a newly added BBQ competition. Various events are held and venues and include Tea on the Teign, jam making workshops, an evening in the orchard, Fry Up Friday, street food market, farmers market and culminating with a food fair.

October

  6th – 7th October: Powderham Food Festival 

Check their website for further info.

Last years write up: Powderham Food Festival 2016.

Held inside Powderham Castle and around the beautiful grounds, this fabulous festival includes a Theatre of Fire and Smoke, food stalls, producers, drinks, items for sale, free cookery classes for kids by Fun Kitchen, demo kitchen with local great chefs including Exeter Cookery School and some live music.

  19th – 21st: Dartmouth Food Festival

Check their website for further details.

Held all along the harbour with plenty of street entertainers, food stalls, products, children’s activities and demos to be enjoyed as well as special offers in restaurants.

______

Some of the above events we have visited and some we haven’t so it’s a mix of knowledge, opinion and information gathered from the websites. Please check websites or organisers directly regarding prices, parking and accessibility. Feel free to tag us on social media if you visit any!

2018 Devon Food and Drink Festivals for your Diary DEVON: Delightful, Edible, Variety, Outdoors, Nourishing. Five words we can think of relating to our incredibly rich, tasty and hardworking county, but there are certainly many more words to describe the assortment of food and drink available to us from our waters, moors and everything inbetween.

[chilicookoff]

Results of South Carolina Cookoffs

The South Carolina “Southern Trifecta” chili cookoff weekend was a tremendous success.  Throughout the 3 day weekend event, 58 cooks from across 18 different states provided over 200 cups of judged chili and salsas for our judges and at the end of the weekend 10 qualifying winners are headed to the International Chili Society (I.C.S.) World Championships, a site to be announced later in the year.  The last few years, we have seen the World events held in Reno NV, Las Vegas NV, Palm Springs CA, Manchester NH, Charleston WV, Omaha NE, just to name a few.

 The trifecta event started Friday evening with the “South Carolina State Chili Cookoff” and “Belton Springfest Blockparty” where ICS chili cooks energetically chopped ingredients for salsa and stirred their pots of chili verde and competition red. They eagerly waited to be judged to see who would don the championship rings and be called the king or queen of the South Carolina State Chili Cookoff.  The evening featured the Combo Kings band, a hot wing eating contest, corn-hole games and life size jenga for our entertainment.  As the evening grew into night and the temperatures began to nip at our noses, we had already began to consider the evening a success and started making preparations for day number two.

 Day two, the “Palmetto State Regional” began Saturday morning where the entire downtown square was closed off as vendors, local and amateur cooks filled Main Street and classic cars started their “cruise in” for the day.  Little wispy white clouds dotted the otherwise perfect baby blue sky as the warmth of the sun was a comforting change from the previous night’s cool breeze.  Food vendors began their hawking of fine fair foods such as carnitas and tacos to succulent chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick.  Warm funnel cakes and tangy fried pickles accompanied tiny donuts and steaming boiled peanuts in the hands of the jubilant event patrons.   As chili tastings from our chili cooks were handed out, you could see the faces of attendees showing their satisfaction for deliciousness, but in some instances, you saw the pain as hot pepper capsaicin traveled across the tongues as they tasted the Belton Fire Department “5-Alarm Chili” and they raced off to find the beer tent or the ice cream or the shaved ice vendor. 

As the Belton Museum Association put on their largest hot bowl of chili contest to date, there was chili flying, foreheads sweating, stomachs rumbling and we saw the winner, Air Force MSgt. Anthony Da Silva down seven 16-ounce bowls of spicy chili.

When the beauties from the Little Miss and Miss Chili Pepper Pageant were introduced on the stage, their eyes gleamed and their crowns glistened as they stood there with giant grins and pride when they heard their names called out to the crowd. Later as the tunes from the band Radio Rebellion were finished and we cleaned the last table in the judging room, we concluded day number two was a great success.

 The third and final day on Sunday was a private “cooks only Kegs-n-Eggs” event that was held at the host hotel in a green space beside the hotel parking area.  This was a perfect spot to almost literally cook out of your vehicle.  Many hotel patrons seemed curious and would venture over to take a peek. We invited many of them to hang around and join our judging panel, but there weren’t any takers, but we did have a few join us to eat some of the left over scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, biscuits and gravy, cheese grits and fruit that was freshly cooked up that morning on site.  The cooks were slow moving early on but spicy Bloody Mary’s got the blood flowing and energized the cooks right back into the swing of things.  As the beautiful morning moved into mid-day, the judging was complete and after the winners were announced, we said our sad goodbye’s and exchanged handshakes and hugs as the cooks went their separate ways. Until next year…South Carolina loved having you all and, “See you on the Chili Trail”. 

Friday- South Carolina State

Salsa

3rd- Matt Steuwe

2nd- Henry Stephens

1st- Diane Lentz

Chili Verde

3rd-Michael Freedman

2nd- Don Smith

1st- Larry Weltikol

Red Chili

3rd- Jim Lewis

2nd- Peter Combs

1st- Don Smith

Saturday- Palmetto State Regional

Local People’s Choice- Belton Fire Department

ICS People’s Choice- Brad McElhannon

Judges Choice- Daddy & Daughter Secret Recipe

Best Booth- Deanna Daniels

Showmanship- Belton Fire Department

Homestyle

3rd- Lisa Jameson

2nd- Brad McElhannon

1st- Henry Stephens

Salsa

3rd- Doug Johnson

2nd- Lauren Ray

1st- Julie Netser

Chili Verde

3rd- Doug Johnson

2nd- Roxanne Ballachino

1st- Diane Lentz

Red Chili

3rd- Larry Weltikol

2nd- Kit Hoff

1st- Veni Miller

Sunday- Kegs-N-Eggs Regional

Salsa

3rd- Dave Schulman

2nd- Jeff Netser

1st- Doug Johnson

Chili Verde

3rd- Larry Lentz

2nd- Christine Johnson

1st- Doug Johnson

Red Chili

3rd- Anne Marie Malone

2nd- Jim Bright

1st- Henry Stephens