Celebration of good taste helping local producers' businesses to grow
Both producers and public are invited to be part of our annual celebration of Yorkshire Food.
The Yorkshire Post Taste Yorkshire Food Awards 2009, in association with the York Food & Drink Festival, aims to applaud the people who make a living from growing and baking and brewing and producing world-class foodstuffs.
This year, consumers will also get their opportunity to decide who is best by voting in a Reader Award poll. All the Taste Awards winners will be announced at a dinner at York Guildhall at the climax to the York festival which runs at various venues in the city from September 18 to 27.
This year the 13th York Food & Drink Festival adopts the theme Crude Food – meaning natural or raw, unadorned or simply-prepared food.
A programme of events with this theme in mind includes foraging for food, great tastings of simply prepared food, organic food, slow food and even the effects of food and drink on the body.
A daily Slow Food taste workshop allows attendees a comparative tasting of specific unadorned foods, apples from Ampleforth Abbey or moorland mutton, for example. Michael Hjort, the festival director, said: "More than ever people are really thinking about the food they eat – the cost, quality and provenance.
"We want to highlight that getting back to basics doesn't compromise on quality or cost the earth. Festival goers can go on a foraging course – an urban forage along the river bank or a seaside forage – finding food in the wild".
Against the stunning backdrop of historic York, the Festival is packed with events for everybody, cookery demonstrations, dinners, educational workshops (adults and children) Yorkshire farmers' and guest food markets and an ale trail.
The Yorkshire Post Taste Yorkshire Food awards are open to food producers from anywhere within the county who sell their foods commercially. There is no entry fee.
There are six judged categories:
n Butchers and meat
n Dairy
n Growers
n Handmade (jams, pickles, chocolates, etc)
n Local brew
n Pies
The judges' decision will be final – and this year one of the judges can be you. Help us choose the best food that comes out of Yorkshire by taking part in the Reader Award tastings to be held at the York Guildhall on Monday September 21 from 11am to 3pm. You will be invited to taste from a shortlist of products that will have been drawn up by the Taste Yorkshire judges headed by Michael Hjort, the director of the York Food Festival. Michael is an independent chef restaurateur at Melton's and Melton's Too in York.
If you are a producer and would like to enter the Taste Awards, this is what to do: Enter quickly and easily online via the Yorkshire Post website at www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/taste. Alternatively, telephone 0113 238 8956 to request an entry form by post. Your entry will state who you are, what your product is, where it is sold, why you think you should win. The deadline for entries is Monday, July 20. The email address is michael.hickling@ypn.co.uk. Postal entries should be sent to Michael Hickling, Yorkshire Post, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1RF, marked Taste Yorkshire. These initial entries will be filtered down by the judges to 10 in each category. If yours is successful you will be asked to send in your product – or a small range of products – for the judges' tasting session in August. A shortlist of finalists, three in each category, will be published in Country Week towards the end of August and winners will be announced at the awards dinner at the Guildhall in September. This will be followed by two pages of coverage in Country Week devoted to the winners and runners-up.
n If you have any queries relating to the awards, please phone 0113 238 8956 to speak to Michael Hickling.
n The rules: All entry forms must be submitted to the Yorkshire Post by July 20. Entrants should be producers, not retailers, who make their goods in Yorkshire. The products must be commercially available at the time of entry.
n Log on to www.york
foodfestival.com or call 01904 466687.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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