Date: 31/01/2008
Speciality foods ranging from gluten-free sausages to gourmet ice cream, and olives to oils, will serve up a real treat for the taste buds at the next Buxton Fine Food Fair at the Pavilion Gardens.
About a quarter of the exhibitors at the free event, to be staged on Saturday 16 February, will be new to the fair, offering everything from speciality teas, biscuits, preserves and chutneys, to locally-produced beehive products and French wines from small family vineyards.
There will also be culinary-related products, such as Mediterranean cookware and tableware, and kitchen items, such as aprons and tea towels.
Several local exhibitors are among the new attractions at the Fair, which aims to showcase fine local and regional produce, along with speciality foods from all over the world.
Hathersage-based Hope Valley Farm will be selling ice cream cones and tubs featuring a range of flavours, from Simply Stanage plain dairy ice cream, to more exotic offerings, such as whisky and ginger.
As well as producing everyday ice cream flavours named after their cows, such as Camilla's Vanilla and Ermintrude's Chocolate, the family-run business is also developing a range suitable to serve as dinner party desserts, including flavours such as pannacotta.
Specialist butcher Malcolm Burnham, of The Sausage Company, Buxton, will be selling gluten-free sausages, made to a traditional Border recipe, using a blend of 11 herbs and spices, and also dry cured bacon.
Originally from the North East, Malcolm was inspired to create the gluten-free product after a friend, suffering from coeliac disease, complained he hadn't eaten a decent sausage since being diagnosed several years before.
Translucent heather blossom and wildflower honey, mead, honey marmalade and beeswax products are among the items produced in the Peak District by Mark and Mandy Dennison of Daisybank Apiaries, Newtown, near Longnor.
Holders of the Peak District Environmental Quality Mark (EQM), the Dennisons can also arrange gifts, such as honey hampers and wedding favours, and hold regular beekeeping and candle making workshops.
"Our Regional Food Fairs, staged regularly last year, proved very popular, so we thought we would add extra value in 2008 by broadening their scope," said Councillor Tony Kemp, High Peak Borough Council's Executive Member for Economic Regeneration.
"The new Buxton Fine Food Fairs now include speciality foods from around the world, plus food- and cookery-related products, to offer even more choice to discerning consumers from the High Peak and visitors from further afield. Anyone searching for something just that little bit different is sure to find something to appeal to both their taste buds and their budget."
Further Buxton Fine Food Fairs will be held on Saturdays 15 March, 19 April, 10 May, 14 June, 13 September and 15 November.
This year, the Pavilion Gardens also plans to stage a series of Jewellery Fairs, showcasing hand-made items by a variety of specialist producers, on 21 and 22 June, 26 and 27 July and 11 and 12 October.
Anyone interested in exhibiting at future Buxton Fine Food Fairs and Jewellery Fairs, is invited to contact organiser Christine Marrison on 01298 23114.
For further information, please contact the Pavilion Gardens on 01298 23114, or visit www.paviliongardens.co.uk.