Communities unite in Bradford for World Curry Festival

Cookery classes, some aimed exclusively at young children, with some of the best international and local curry chefs have been used to show people how to make delicious curries from scratch.

There is an emphasis on healthy eating as part of this year’s festival which is taking place over two weeks for the first time and sees the focus switch to locations in Leeds later this week.

Zulfi Karim, the event’s founder, said: “The festival this weekend has been spectacular. We have gone for a complete new format and it has been very well received.

“We use the festival to bring people together, that’s really what it’s all about. When people come together over food they realise they have more in common.”

Mr Karim said the festival programme was also being used to educate people about food sustainability and how produce such as pulses will have an increasingly important role to play in meeting the needs of a growing world population.

The festival was opened on Thursday with a grand gala dinner at Bradford Cathedral and as well as the cookery classes since then, there have been festival events held at places of workship across multiple faiths around the city. These culinary experiences have involved round table discussions about different faiths’ food cultures before a meal has been prepared from the same religious culture’s recipes.

When the action comes to Leeds there will be food samples given out as part of the festival programme at Wellington Place, on Thursday and Friday.

Yorkshire chef Stephanie Moon will be giving a coockery masterclass at Leeds City College’s Printworks campus on Saturday (September 24) and the festival’s finale will follow on the following Thursday (September 29) when Ken Hom, the master of the wok, will deliver a series of masterclasses and seminars on the culinary art of Asian cuisine.

For more information about the World Curry Festival, click here.