London Vegetable Orchestra coming to Aylsham Slow Food Festival 2014

Aylsham celebrates fab food

Celebrating the fabulous food available in and around the town, Aylsham’s annual Food Festival, presented by Slow Food Aylsham, returns in October 2014 for its 9th great year.

Running from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th, the Festival will feature a mixture of old favourites plus some new attractions to keep more than just the food fresh!

Chief among the innovations this year will be a visit from the London Vegetable Orchestra. Appearances on BBC TV, radio and ITV have ensured that the group’s unique sounds are already known to a large audience. Crafting their instruments from a range of local vegetables, the Orchestra forms its brass section from courgettes, squashes and peppers, its wind instruments from carrots while percussion is provided from pumpkins. As Frank skinner, presenter of the BBC’s Room 101 commented, ” Health Experts say you should listen to 5 of their songs a day!”

The London Vegetable Orchestra will be running introductory workshops at Aylsham High School on Saturday 27 September and on Food Festival Saturday, 4th October, they will be in the Market Place with workshops and a full scale performance at around 1.00pm.  It’s all free but you do need to book for the September workshops at www.slowfoodaylsham.org.uk

The Orchestra is being brought to Aylsham with the help of Creative Arts East, Norfolk County Council and Broadland District Council.

Food Festival Saturday will also see Aylsham’s FARMA-accredited Farmers’ Market offering fresh food, all sourced from with 30 miles of the town, plus street entertainment in the form of magicians from Davenports Magic Kingdom. There will be Family Cooking workshops in the Town Hall and just outside, cooking demonstrations by top local chefs. Jazz band One Foot in the Groove will be on hand to provide music and when they finish at around 11.30, there will be more musical entertainment before the closing performance by the London Vegetable Orchestra.

Elsewhere, the Festival will be offering a host of food-related activities, including Kids Cooking Workshops in the Parish Church on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd October.  Friday morning will see special displays and tasters from the Country Market in the Town Hall and on Friday evening, students from Aylsham High School will be presenting the renowned Gala Dinner with after dinner talk from Blickling Hall’s ‘Mary and Kath’, the cook and scullery maid!

After all the excitement of Saturday, the 2014 Aylsham Food Festival will be bowing out with the legendary Big Slow Breakfast in Aylsham Town Hall. Members of Slow Food Aylsham and friends will be donning their aprons to cook up ‘Full English’ for 120 guests, including representatives from the county-wide Norfolk Food & Drink Festival. The Norfolk Festival runs from 30 August to 12 October and Aylsham Food Festival is proud to present its closing ‘feature weekend’.

Aylsham Food Festival is established as one of the premier events in Aylsham’s calendar.  With the exception of the Dinner and Breakfast, the whole Festival is free for the entire community so there’s no reason not to pop along, particularly on Saturday 4th when activities will start at around 9am, continuing until 2pm. You can find out more about Aylsham Food Festival at www.slowfoodaylsham.org.uk

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