Tenth Wakefield rhubarb festival begins

From pork pies to candy floss and from cakes to ales, market stalls lining the precinct are offering a range of rhubarb related goodies.

Trader Howard Nicholson is selling a rhubarb and ginger gin, the product of nearly seven years of academic brewing research at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University at the Deliciously Yorkshire Market.

He said: "We are always trying to come up with new product ideas. We might make 150 different versions of the same idea until we feel happy with it. The rhubarb and ginger gin is our latest new flavour and it has been around for about 18 months.

"There has been an unbelievable reaction to it here in the rhubarb triangle today. It has got an initial smell of rhubarb and initial taste of rhubarb, quite sweet, then you get a kick of ginger following it."

Inside the demonstration tent, there are more rhubarb recipes to try with local and national TV chefs showing the hundreds of visitors how to cook up their favourite dishes.

Stephanie Moon of Rudding Park Hotel kicked off today's line-up followed by TV chef Rachel Green, star of ITV Yorkshire’s Flying Cook and World on a Plate, and Heather Copley, who runs Farmer Copleys in Pontefract.

Heather served up smoked mackerel fillet with a lemon vinaigrette, belly pork with mash potato and rhubarb sauce, and a chocolate and rhubarb mousse.

Wakefield Grammar School Foundation pupils and David Jones of Bier Huis will showcase their recipes in the kitchen this afternoon.

Elsewhere, street entertainers, Dame Ruby Rhubarb and stilt walkers Roo and Barb are mingling with crowds and market traders, as the buzz of the first day of the Festival of Food, Drink and Rhubarb continues.

This year there are also cookery master classes and a family crafts and play fun zone on Brook Street.

Coun Les Shaw, Wakefield Council's cabinet member for leisure, culture and sport, said: "There is so much going on through the three days so don’t miss out on this fantastic weekend in Wakefield.”

The festival runs until 5pm today and continues between 10am-5pm on Saturday and 10am-4pm on Sunday.

For further information about what's still to come, keep checking the Express website, visit www.wakefield.gov.uk/rhubarbfest or follow @MyWakefield #rhubarbfest on Twitter.