Grab Your Granny's Recipe

Posted by Berwick Food Festival on Aug 13, 11 09:38 AM in Bloggers

Has your favourite chocolate cake recipe been passed down the family for generations? Do you always cook your lamb casserole the way your Mum taught you? If so Slow Food Berwick on Tweed would love to hear from you.

As part of its Slow Wisdom Campaign to pass food knowledge between generations they are now collecting these family favourites. The recipes will be displayed and a winning selection demonstrated at this year's Berwick Food Festival on September 10th -11th.

Slow Food is a global organisation which takes the protection of our food heritage very seriously. The Slow Wisdom Campaign particularly focuses on preserving family recipes and cooking methods so they can be passed on to future generations. Slow Food will be collecting recipes over the summer and a team of volunteers will be busy testing them out. The best will be displayed at the Berwick Food Festival and the winners will be invited to help cook their recipes in the Demo Kitchen with a professional chef.

The project is being co-ordinated by Helen Henderson. A member of the Slow Food Committee and co-owner of the Fenton Centre is Wooler, she explains the importance of the project, "Taking time to teach the younger generation to cook fosters good eating habits and a positive attitude to food from an early age. Many of us look to our parents and grandparents for advice and inspiration and we want to celebrate the wealth of knowledge we have in the region. I use at least three of my father's recipes every Sunday when we do Sunday lunch in the Fenton Centre and I'm now passing them onto to my children so I understand the importance of teaching people to cook in this way."

Slow Food Berwick plans to get all generations of the community involved including individual members of the public, schools and community groups such Guides, Scouts and The Women's Institute. Helen and her team will be visiting a number of groups to talk about the project and give cookery demonstrations and would be delighted to hear from any groups who would like to get involved.

During the week after the festival Barry Smith, Store Manager of the Co-operative in Berwick upon Tweed has agreed to display the recipes on the community notice board and then there are plans to incorporate them into a Slow Food recipe book in time for Christmas.

For more information please email SlowWisdomRecipe@hotmail.co.uk or contact The Fenton Centre, West Fenton, NE716JL

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