Stone Food & Drink Festival

Stone Food & Drink Festival, now in its fifteenth year, seems to be going from strength to strength. Held over the first weekend in October, the 2019 Festival drew huge crowds to the Staffordshire town. As on a number of other years, I joined them to sample food and drink from local traders and further afield as well as take a look at some of the demonstrations and talks.

It was touch and go whether I’d actually make it to the Stone Food & Drink Festival this year.

The 2019 Festival was held Friday 4 – Sunday 6 October but, like so many other people I know, I’d come down with a very nasty cold that left me almost completely zonked out. But after a few days of moping about, feeling sorry for myself, I was determined to go to the Festival on the Saturday. One small problem though: I’d lost my sense of smell and taste!

Thankfully, by morning (and after judicious inhaling of bowls of steaming water with menthol, eucalyptus and lord knows what in), I’d managed to get some of those sensations back. Phew!

Driving from our home in Cheddleton, myself and my partner ID, planned to take advantage of the Festival’s Park & Ride (which, due to recent heavy rainfall, was deftly switched from Aston Marina to Little Stoke Cricket Club). Incredibly, we managed to get a place in one of the town car parks. But we were amazingly lucky to find one, so it’s generally advised to plan on using the Park & Ride if you’re not going via public transport.

First Stop: Stone Farmers’ Market

Before going to the main Festival site at Westbridge Park, we wanted to stop at the excellent Stone Farmers’ Market held in the High Street. We shop there quite regularly and, always busy and lively, it’s a good place to take friends or family when they’re visiting.

Actually, the market is inextricably linked to the Festival, the first one being part of the very first Stone Food & Drink Festival back in 2005. It was such a hit that it went on to become Staffordshire’s biggest farmers’ market and is now held the first Saturday of every month.

Knowing there would be lots of tempting street food at the Festival, we managed to resist our regular Farmers’ Market breakfast: a sausage bap from Park Hill Farm, made with their own free-range pork.

From the dozens of stalls, we came away with a couple of favourites plus something from a supplier new to me. From The Port of Lancaster Smokehouse I got two big pieces of smoked pancetta (great in pasta dishes like Spaghetti Carbonara or in a sausage and bean stew) and, from Aston’s of Coven near Wolverhampton, some traditional homemade faggots. For my taste, as someone who doesn’t like an overly strong offal flavour, these faggots have just the right amount of offally-ness.

The supplier new to me was Beaudesert Park Farm near Cannock Chase. Besides rare breed beef and venison, the farm also produces goat and I bought a stuffed goat breast. The next day I slow roasted it. The meat had a good flavour and the fat made some excellent crispy roast potatoes.

After stowing our Farmers’ Market goodies back in the car, we took the short walk down to the main Festival site at Westbridge Park, along with a growing stream of other people as lunchtime approached.

Stone Food & Drink Festival

When you see the size of the Festival, it’s extremely impressive to realise that the event is run by a team of volunteers, including tourism and event management students from Staffordshire University.

All profits are invested back into the Festival, continuing the work of promoting Stone as a destination and highlighting the great produce available in Staffordshire.

More than that, although the main Festival takes place the first Friday, Saturday and Sunday in October, there’s actually Festival-related events in the run-up as well. Take a look in the Programme and you’ll see events like the Lymestone Brewery Chilli Off competition, Pub Orienteering (yes, that is a thing) plus a host of Festival specials and discounts at many of the town’s bars, cafes and shops – from chip butties at The Pheasant Inn to live music and tapas at Granville’s.

From the map above, you can probably see that most of the stalls and marquees are distributed around the edges of the site, leaving the central area open for seating and general milling-about.

Although the weather turned out pretty decent, this year there were also covered seating areas which would have been invaluable had the heavens opened.

There’s so much at the Stone Food & Drink Festival, that I think it’s probably best split into a few categories, just like in the Programme.

EAT

I know it’s a cliche, but you really are spoilt for choice when it comes to the street food available at the Festival.

There’s always a range of different cuisines, loads of which are bound to tempt you whatever your tastes.

Among many others, I spotted Mukaase Afro-Caribbean Food (where I remember having a warming curry patty in the rain at last year’s Festival) and buttermilk chicken from one of my favourite Stone restaurants Little Seeds. I can highly recommend the moist-yet-crispy-chicken, having had it both in the restaurant and at the town’s new-ish street food night, Feast Stone).

A couple of other stalls that caught my eye were Thai food from Nui’s Kitchen (also a regular at Leek’s Totally Locally Sunday Supplement market) and burritos and nachos from Let’s Go Mexicana.

As we often do, other half and I decided to share a few dishes. It’s always a good idea to do that when there’s loads of choice. That way you get to try even more things.

First off, we were both drawn to the whacky sounding The Mighty Soft Shell Crab. Besides the crunchy crustaceans in a tempura batter, they were also selling chipirones or baby squid.

Squid

Much as I love soft shell crab, I don’t think we’d had chipirones since the days we travelled a lot in Spain, so that’s what we plumped for. Both the crab and the squid come with a tortilla and salad but, knowing there was plenty more to try, we opted out of those.

There was a choice of sauces to go with the seafood: sweet chilli, creme fraiche or (our pick) a creamy saffron flavoured mayo which went well with the tender squid in its light, crispy coating.

The food stall that probably drew the most attention was that of Flamin’ Rooster BBQ. And no wonder. Cooking over coal huge slabs of beef brisket and pork belly, steaks and chicken, the finished hunks of meat hanging above, it made a smoky, dramatic sight.

I must say, if I’d been in slightly better health, not a lot would have kept me from a portion of jumbo pork belly and brisket served with fries and salad.

BRISKET

Instead, we decided on the smaller, but tasty, brisket-loaded fries. As well as the shredded, sweet and spicy, bbq beef there were crispy onions and cheese.

But, if me and Flamin’ Rooster are at the Stone Food & Drink Festival next year, there’s a pork belly with my name on it.

Of course after our seafood starter followed by meat and spuds, it was pudding time.

CHURROS

Strawberries and cream from the stall specializing in just that sounded good. But the early Autumn day drew us to hot churros, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, a pot of thick, melted Belgian chocolate on the side for dunking.

DRINK

One thing you can’t fail to notice as you enter the Festival site, is the long line of brewers, mainly local, running a fair way down the left hand side of the park.

This is the ‘Staffordshire Beer Garden’ and, judging by the crowds, it was certainly popular.

Among the more than a dozen bars was Joule’s. This is the Festival’s main sponsor and it’s soon returning to Stone with Crown Wharf: a purpose built taphouse, heritage centre and community theatre.

At the Titanic bar I was pleased to see that one of my favourite beers, Plum Porter, was available in its guise as the seasonal Grand Reserve, so I had a tipple of that.

Other local breweries with bars at the Festival included Stone’s very own Lymestone Brewery, Newcastle-Under-Lyme’s Weal Ales, Peakstones Rock based in the Moorlands and Slater’s Ales from Stafford. From the traditional cider-making country of Herefordshire were the likes of Gwatkin and Gillow.

wine, gin, cocktails

But if beer and cider isn’t your thing, there was also wine from Buzzard’s Valley near Tamworth, specialists in Prosecco and sparkling wine Just Perfect Wines, and wine estate Halfpenny Green among others.

Of course, these days, no food and drink event is complete without an array of gin producers. At the Stone Food & Drink Festival these included Uttoxeter based Nelson’s Gin and Staffordshire Gin from Silverdale. A glass of the latter’s Original London dry gin with Indian tonic hit the spot when I felt in need of another little pick-me-up.

There were plenty of other drinking opportunities around the Festival too – soft drinks and cordials, teas and coffees as well as the hard stuff.

The Borehole Gin and Cocktail Bar from Lymestone Brewery was popular. I was also pleased to see that this bar, like a number of others, was single use plastic free.

ENJOY

Suitably placed next to the ‘Staffordshire Beer Garden’ was the music stage, featuring live acts throughout the Festival.

We caught a bit of the set from local boys Stone Cold Sober(ish).

SHOP

Of course one of the big draws to the Stone Food & Drink Festival is the huge number of food, drink and kitchenware exhibitors from whom you can buy lots of goodies to take home. I think I read somewhere that there was around eighty this year!

The Gourmet Marquees were full of punters sampling and filling their shopping bags with continental salami, all manner of cheeses, pies and pastries, crisps, puddings and cakes.

There’s too many to mention here so for a full list of exhibitors, take a look on the Festival website.

I’ll just mention a couple of items that I think are well worth snapping up if you spot them: Bexton‘s smoked cheese and Burtree Puddings’ fantastic sticky toffee pud.

LEARN

As usual, the organizers put on a great programme of demonstrations, masterclasses, talks and tastings. These give Festival-goers the opportunity to see the people behind our local food and drink.

First off, there’s the Demonstration Kitchen featuring hourly presentations by chefs, cooks plus food and drink producers. All of these demos are included in the price of your Festival ticket and there’s no need to book.

It was good to see lots of folk from some of my favourite local eating places like the Moat House Acton Trussell, The Red Lion Bradley and Little Seeds in Stone.

Also featured were some people I’d first come to hear of through appearing on BBC Radio Stoke’s Thursday night foodie show The Takeaway. These included Chris Cohen, founder of Feast with Friends which provides home dining as well as food education, and Sarah Winkle who creates budget recipes as The Credit Crunch Cooke.

Also free with your ticket are Talks & Tastings with artisan producers. This year’s scheule included local brewers, wine and gin makers, cockails and cakes, plus award-winning Seed Chocolate, and seasonal game with Perry’s of Eccleshall, voted Britain’s Best Butcher.

Here’s Emma Cronin from Wild Pickle, giving her talk all about wild fermentation. The tent certainly had a intriguing aroma about it, so I think those jars of sauerkraut on the table were definitely doing their thing!

But if you prefer a more hands-on approach, then you could book a place on one of the Festival’s Culinary Masterclasses, including making some of that sauerkraut with Emma.

There was also wine and cheese tasting, decorating pumpkin cupcakes plus making pumpkin ravioli or sous vide cooked steak with Chris at Feast With Friends. Booking is recommended for these spots and there’s an extra charge.

FAMILY FUN

If you’re thinking of bringing children to the next Festival then it’s good to know that under sixteens get free entry if accompanied by an adult.

Once inside, there was plenty to keep them occupied too, including a free Foodie Discovery Trail.

If you’re eager to get them cooking from an early age, there was free classes with Kiddy Cook North Staffs. This year, your little ones could have made a pizza from scratch, as well as healthy cookies, apple and cheese scones plus noodles, all ready to cook back home.

There was also loads of free kids’ entertainment including Panic Circus with their clown and puppet shows plus circus skill workshops. Activities like face painting, crafts and crazy golf were available for an extra charge.

See you next year?

There’s so much to see, do, eat and drink at the Stone Food & Drink Festival that I think it’s well worth the entry price. This year it was just £7 per day. There’s also usually discounted early bird tickets available; follow the Festival on Facebook and Twitter to be the first to find out about those.

So, if you didn’t get to the 2019 Stone Food & Drink Festival, will I see you there next year?

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