Edible Thame is on the festival map!

TO celebrate British Food Fortnight VisitEngland, the English Tourist Board, yesterday showed off an Edible England food map to showcase the country’s best Autumn Food Festivals. The organisers of Thame Food Festival were delighted to find that their upcoming event on September 28, was one of a small handful of market towns selected.

VisitEngland also released figures exposing just what a ‘foodie’ nation we have become. Stats reveal that 13 million day visits last year involved a trip to a food festival or farmers’ market, and what’s more, 26.2 million of us want to go to a food festival this year. Research also reveals that almost 7/10 (68%) of us would like to buy local produce while on holiday and nearly 8/10 (76%) of us want to dine at restaurants serving local dishes.

Thame Food Festival patron and TV chef, Lotte Duncan, said: “A few years ago Thame hosted its first food festival with just a handful of stalls outside the town hall. Now, five years on, the whole town celebrates local food and drink at this landmark event in the food calendar.

“Today, people flock to Thame to enjoy a fantastic, free ‘foodie’ day out and to see Michelin-starred chefs rubbing shoulders with local growers and small-holders. Tom Kerridge, Raymond Blanc, Adam Simmonds, Shaun Dickens, Chris Godfrey and Mike North mix with an amazing array of local and artisan producers who managed to get a stall at the event. Everyone feels as strongly as we do about promoting local food and celebrating the fantastic growers and producers on our doorstep.”

Councillor Judith Nimmo-Smith, Cabinet Member for Economic Development at SODC, said: “We fully recognise the impact that great local food and drink has on residents and tourists alike. Not only do we support food festivals and farmers’ markets, we also launched theOxFood Trail App to help everyone discover more of them.”

PHIOTO: The giant Edible England map, made entirely of cake, unveiled yesterday, September 19, at St Pancras Station.