A 4 day festival celebrating food at Southbank Centre
Thursday 18 September to Sunday 21 September
daily 12.00 - 21.00
To sign our bee plight petition, Download Petition.pdf .
Southbank Centre and Slow Food London have collaborated to create a special 4 day event championing great food, the environment and sustainability from Thursday 18th – Sunday 21st September from 12.00 - 21.00 daily. The Festival of Food will feature a range of events including the UK’s largest and London’s only Slow Food market, an eclectic programme of talks, demonstrations, a photographic exhibition celebrating the craft of bread-making in Britain, a Bee Day, and live music and performance throughout the weekend.
The UK’s Largest and London’s Only Slow Food Market
Southbank Centre Square, outside the Royal Festival Hall will be home to the UK’s largest, and London’s only Slow Food Market where over 40 stalls selected by Slow Food London will sell sustainable and traditionally prepared foods from a selection of the UK’s leading artisan food producers and beyond. The Slow Food Movement believes in food that is Good (delicious), Clean (environmentally sound) and Fair (fairly traded). One of Slow Food’s aim is to protect the regional and local distinctiveness of foods around the world. At the festival visitors can taste and buy produce that is truly unique to Britian - pedigree and rare-breed meats, raw milk cheeses and ‘true’ Perry - alongside a host of other delicious foods ranging from exotic spices and chutneys to biodynamic wines and real ales. The Slow Food stalls will wrap David Adjaye’s ‘Sclera’ pavilion constructed from sustainable tulip wood and designed as part of the London Design Festival.
Download the Brochure for full details of the programme here.
Demonstration Highlights:
The festival is not just about tasting, buying and eating real food but also learning what you can do with it.
Farmer and butcher Peter Gott, a long standing member of Slow Food and passionate about educating people about quality food and food production, will give a guide to buying and using cheaper cuts of pig as well analysing the economies of unintensive pig rearing.
Talented cook and Slow Food devotee Sarah Moore who ran the restaurant at the legendry Air Studios for 12 years, will show people how to cook tasty, seasonal and nutritional dishes for under £5.
Arthur Potts Dawson leader of the crusade in eco-friendly restaurants and executive chef and co-owner of Acorn House will showcase some delicious ways to enjoy selected autumnal ingredients.
Cyrus Todiwala, from Café Spice Namasté, and Jacky Lelievre, from celebrated gastropub The Butcher’s Hook, will visit market stalls to select produce and then show how to make simple, seasonal and cost-effective dishes.
Sushi chefs from Feng Sushi who only use impeccably sourced, sustainable fish will demonstrate some easy to replicate sushi techniques.
Talk Highlights (all talks are non-ticketed)
Planet Chicken, The Shameful Story of the Bird on Your Plate
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square
Thursday 18th September 17.30Hattie Ellis, winner of this year's most sought after award, the Guild of Food Writers’ Derek Cooper Award for Campaigning and Investigative Food Writing, has shone a light into the darkest corner of global poultry practice in her latest book Planet Chicken, The Shameful Story of the Bird on Your Plate. Her insightful and thought provoking talk will highlight both the exploitation of the world’s best-loved bird and also discuss ethical producers who are putting real chicken back on our tables.
The Slow Food Story
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square
Thursday 18th September 18.30 Geoff Andrews, writer, academic and author of The Slow Food Story, will talk about the movement’s history, ideas, structure and membership exploring its roots within 60s and 70s counter culture and the distinctive politics that lie in the unity of gastronomic pleasure and environmental responsibillity.
Scrumptious Southbank Centre
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square
Friday 19th September 16.00
Through a research project with tutors and students from the Brighton University Centre for Research and Design over the coming autumn, Southbank Centre will be exploring the potential for growing and greening the site with local people. This talk by Andre Viljoen publisher of the book Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULS) maps out the strategy for the research project and features details of other growing schemes around the UK.
Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Friday
19th September 17.00
John Dickie, reader in Italian Studies at University College London has written articles and books on many aspects of Italian history. He will discuss his new book Delizia! which reveals that Italian food comes not from the peasantry but from city culture. His talk takes visitors on a journey around Italy and Italian history, from 12th-century Palermo to the Slow Food movement of modern Turin via the immigrant slums of New York and the putrid alleyways of 19th-century Naples.
A World Without Bees
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square,
Friday 19th September 18.30
Authors and urban bee-keepers Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum discuss their new book examining the plight of honey bees. Colony Collapse Disorder is a mysterious 'disease' that is killing honey bees. First reported in the USA it has now spread across the planet. So intrigued were they by this mysterious plague that Guardian journalist Alison and Brian spent four months investigating the phenomenon. From Argentina to Australia, New Zealand to New England, China to California and most of Europe they gathered the latest information from the scientists, apiarists and government officials, piecing together the facts and dismantling the rumours, to arrive at the most up-to-date account of the global problem afflicting the honey bee.
Apples, Orchards and Community Orchards
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square,
Saturday 20th September 15.00
Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground, an organisation which campaigns to link nature with culture and the postiive investment people can make in their own localities, will discuss both this organisation and her wonderful title The Apple Source Book in her talk ‘Apples, Orchards and Community Orchards’. Her book is a celebration of the nearly 3,000 varieties of apple grown across the UK, their distinctive flavours, uses, places of origin, stories and associated customs.
Raclette and Fondue
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square,
Sunday 21st September 16.00
Patricia Michelson, a leading authority on cheese, discusses the delights of cheese and demonstrates how make to fondue and serve Raclette. Patricia is the owner of La Fromagerie, a cheese emporium based in London’s Marylebone, one of the best-loved cheese shops in Britain. Her much celebrated book The Cheese Room won the Best Single Food Subject Award (UK) in the 2002 Gourmand World Food Book Awards.
Saturday Slow Food Bee Day
Wild Honey Bees are in real danger since the arrival of the verroa mite in the early 1990’s. Other environmental problems appear to have a similarly devastating effect. Honey bees are crucial to us all; a third of the food we eat requires insect pollination. Saturday will be dedicated to the glorious honey bee.
Peter James, Beekeeper at Chelsea Physic Garden, will bring along a ‘dry hive’ and run a ‘Bee and Q’ session: all you wanted to know about bees but never thought to ask!
Orchard Apiaries’ Mike Thurlow will display his observation hive section so you can see his bees in action, whilst he demonstrates some of the techniques of beekeeping. He’ll also run a beeswax candle-making workshop for children (and no doubt keen adults).
The Plight of the Honey Bee
Learn some practical steps to support your local honeybees in their fight for survival through this talk and demonstration by the London Beekeeping Association.
Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Saturday 20th September, 5pm
Royal Festival Hive
Southbank Centre has its very own beehive on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall. Meet the Honourable Company of Hive Workers who look after the bees on the square, chart the Bee’s favourite flight-path, listen live to the hive, and taste some of the most cultured honey in London. Meet at the Festival Demo Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Saturday 20th September 4.30pm
Throughout the day on Saturday Slow Food London will be conducting comparative honey-tasting sessions: the range of flavours is truly amazing.
PETITION:
There will also be an opportunity to register your concern about the plight of the honey bee by signing Slow Food London’s petition, demanding that the government through Defra increase and expedite urgently needed funding to investigate all the contributory causes of colony disease.
To sign our petition, Download online_petition.pdf .
Music and Performance Programme Highlights:
Shellac Sisters
Southbank Centre Square
Saturday 20th September 16.00 - 20.00
In the spirit of Slow Food, visitors will be encouraged to ‘slow down’. Lay back and enjoy a ‘slow’ dj set by the glamorous Shellac Sisters playing 78rmp records on 1920s wind-up gramophones.
Bellowhead
Festival Terrace
Sunday 21st September 12.00 & 17.00
Brighton Morris Men
14.00 16.00 18.00
Celebrated British folk band Bellowhead, food lovers and Artists in Residence at Southbank Centre, will bring their Bellowsession to the Slow Food Festival. Guests are invited to bring along an instrument, and, having learned the song online in advance, jam along with the folk wizards. Marvel at the Brighton Morris Men who help keep part of England's history and heritage alive with their dance displays.
Flavours in Emotions
Festival Riverside
Sunday 21st September 15.00 17.00 19.00
Gauri Sharma Tripathi Artist in Residence will perform ‘Flavours in Emotions’. South Asian culture has always been heavily rooted in food and dance and Gauri celebrates the beauty of this combination in a short Kathak dance piece that will be performed throughout Saturday.
Children’s Activities Highlights:
Carrot Club, Busy Bee Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Friday 19th September, 13.00 - 15.00. Younger children can join in at Carrot Club, a participatory parent/toddler (for children aged 2-5yrs) group that encourages playful interaction on themes of food and growing through music, arts and crafts.
Be a Bee, Meet at the Busy Bee Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Saturday 20th September, 13.00, 15.00, 16.00. How do bees navigate and communicate? Kids can find out by becoming a bee and buzz around the Southbank Centre looking for pollen. Kazoos will be provided! Slow Art, Busy Bee Tent, Southbank Centre Square, Saturday 20th September 12.00 - 16.00 and Sunday 21st 12.00 - 16.00. Children and their families can drop into Slow Art Tent and try their hand at creating a visual feast; art activities will celebrate the beauty and versatility of food!
Try your hand at Snail Racing!
Festival of Food is a non ticketed event; entry is free to all visitors.
Festival of Food Market Traders include:
Altissima (Italian wines & gourmet products),
The Arabica Food & Spice Company (contemporary middle eastern delicacies),
Bean & Gone (Monmouth coffee),
Ben’s All Natural Candy Floss and Popcorn (organic unrefined sugar candyfloss flavoured with freeze-dried fruit),
Born & Bread Organic Bakery (atisan sourdough breads),
Café Spice Namasté (Indian dishes and homemade chutneys),
Casa de L’Oli (award-winning extra virgin olive oils from Catalonia),
Chocstar (gourmet chocolate treats),
CupCake Boutique,
Eat Natural (delicious fruit and nut bars),
Emmett’s (Suffolk cure ham and bacon),
Farmer Sharp (Herdwick lamb and mutton, Galloway beef – and the Slowest burgers to go),
Farmstead Cheese (French cheeses),
Frankins Deli & Farm Shop (locally grown fruit & veg and deli produce),
Game4Everything (handmade game pies and rabbit pasta),
Gastronomica (Italian cheeses and salumi),
Green and Blue (biodynamic and rare wines),
Holker Farm Diary (raw sheep’s milk cheeses), La Grotta Ices, La Lodigrana cheese, Manor Farm Game (game and game sausages),
Luca's Bakery (bread, savoury and fruit tarts)
Mersea Vineyard and Brewery (English wines and real ales),
Mootown Welsh Cheese (award-winning cheeses direct from small Welsh farmers),
Norfolk & Suffolk Speciality Foods (exotic fruit chutneys),
Orchard Apiaries, Patchwork Patés (artisan patés),
Rainha Santa Roast Hog (free-range pig roast) and Portuguese preserves,
Richard Haward’s Oysters (Colchester Native and Wild Rock Oysters),
Sarah Moore (cakes and snacks from impeccably sourced ingredients),
Sillfield Farm (rare breed pork),
Slow Dogs (Bratwurst hot dogs from free-range pigs),
The Mushroom Table (wild and cultivated funghi),
Utobeer/Beer2Love (expertly sourced real beers)
and more are being added all the time...
Following the September food festival a Christmas Slow Food market will run from Saturday 20th December to Tuesday 23rd. www.slowfoodlondon.com
Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic, member-supported organisation that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. The Slow Food movement aims to support small-scale producers who preserve the diversity of crop varieties and animal breeds, of agricultural practices, and of food traditions. It believes that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.
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