LOCAL produce and its suppliers are to be celebrated in a week-long Festival of Forest Food this autumn. It will climax with the first ever farmers' market in Cinderford town centre on the final Saturday.
A packed week of events in the Forest and surrounding area is launched on Sunday October 24 by an Apple Day at the Dean Heritage Centre. It will display apples from local orchards, demonstrations of cider making and products associated with apples such as the Old Spot pigs which used to be fed on the cider pulp.
Pumpkins
"We have chosen the half term week so families can participate," explains Kate de Selincourt, a member of the Forest Food Links which is coordinating the Festival. "The final Sunday is also Haloween, so there will be pumpkins everywhere.
"The Festival is a way of raising the profile of the range of food and drink available in the Forest and Wye Valley," says Kate. It is sponsored by the Forest of Dean District Council through its departments of environmental health, leisure and tourism, and economic development.
Cheeses
Cheeses feature in a cheese fair at Lydney, organised by Chris Miller of the Swan, Pillowell, who retails 30 regional cheeses. Participants include the two Birdwood cheese makers, Diana Smart of Old Ley Court and Melissa Ravenhill of Birdwood House Farm. Other exhibitors are Blakeney's goats cheese maker Linda Feerick and Tidenham yoghurt makers Robert Adams and Andrew Johnson.
Sausages from local pork are the stars of the first Gloucestershire sausage competition, organised by Lydney's retired master butcher and charity fund raiser Dorothy Marshall MBE.
Sling's Freeminer brewery will offer tastings of its prize-winning brews. Newent's St Anne's vineyard and winery will highlight its own products and the wines it makes for other local vineyards.
Many farms and premises will be open for visits, such as Diana Smart's cheese making at Birdwood and Matt Dunwell's Ragman's Lane Farm at Ruardean. Becky Hoyland of Oaklands Park will be providing composting demonstrations, and there will be a chance to tour Oakland's beautiful walled vegetable gardens.
The final Saturday is marked by a farmers' market in Cinderford's Miners' Welfare Hall. A map and diary of events will be widely distributed nearer the time.
Open
"We are still building the programme and the Festival is open to anyone who wishes to participate," says Kate, author of the book "Local Harvest". Further information is available from council environmental health officer Roger Garbett c/o Council Offices, Coleford, or from Kate c/o Forest Food Links at The Woodlands, Whitecroft, GL15 4PL.