Real Food Festival 2010

Saturday brought more drizzle and cold winds so I decided to while away the day with a friend at the Real Food Festival at Earl’s Court, hoping to find some producers of gluten-free food. Seriously, it is snowing in Scotland. What is going on?

The main draw was a cooking demonstration by Thomasina Miers from Wahaca (see yesterday’s post) in case she cooked up some tacos!

We were greeted by a huge water buffalo at the entrance then scurried around the stalls looking for the “Chef’s Theatre” (not quite Kitchen Stadium!) Thomasina did indeed cook tacos but the tortillas she made were unfortunately wheat tortillas so I didn’t pick up any tricks. In 40 minutes she rustled up a bacon and red chard taco, a tomato and courgette taco and a mozzarella quesadilla. The highlight of the demo was the chipotle sauce that topped the dishes. We snuck up the front to taste the tacos at the end of the demo.

I was delighted to find a few gluten-free suppliers dotted about the festival. One of my favourite GF brands is Doves Farm Organics. I rate their pasta because the taste and consistency is very close to real pasta. Doves Farm were showcasing their GF cookie range. I bought a packet of Double Chocolate Cookies for English Boy to try because they are delicious and taste like normal cookies. First score of the day!

Next I came across The Bath Pig‘s wheat, gluten and dairy free chorizo. At home we gobbled it up on an antipasto plate and for breakfast with poached eggs. The Bath Pig chorizos are made using 100% natural ingredients so no breadcrumbs, artificial colours or stabilisers. Plus it’s delicious. Score number two.

The third find of the day was Burtree Puddings‘ Gluten-Free Sticky Toffee Pudding with Sticky Toffee Sauce. I think this one doesn’t need much explanation. The toffee sauce is so rich with double cream and English Butter that any trace of chalky GF flours is smothered. They are utterly scrumptious. Now I remember seeing them on Rick Stein’s Food Heroes so they are famous puddings. The only problem was that the sauce was so rich it made English Boy feel a bit crook thus defeating the purpose of me buying him a treat. Still… I would eat it again!

After all of that pudding I’ll have to eat salad for the rest of the week but it was worth it.