VISITORS, artisan food producers, chefs, musicians and street food vendors declared the Budelicious Food Festival, which took place at the weekend, a great success.

Despite rain on Saturday, with Sunday being dryer, visitors still filled the Falcon Hotel to capacity. Rupert Brendon, owner of the Falcon Hotel, named the food festival ‘Budelicious’, and provided the staff led by Kelly Lee and Peter Gorton (Master Chef of GB).

Rupert also organised Foodie Fortnight with restaurants and cafes, which continues until the end of the month — see www.budelicious.org for participants and special offers.

Peter started the Tavistock Food Festival, and continues to be involved in the festivals in Exeter and Plymouth. Peter’s expertise and contacts proved to be key. He involved Chef’s Forum, which held a trade-only event on Monday for chefs in Cornwall.

Nigel Chadd said: “We sponsored Budelicious Food Festival, which is aimed at the general public, because we are a local firm and supply most of the hospitality industry in Bude. But truthfully we are wholesalers, and chefs are our real customers. Peter involved Chef’s Forum and this was a very important opportunity for us.”

Peter said: “We could not have mounted such an ambitious food festival without the financial support of Chadd’s Foodsmiths and St Austell’s Proper Job real ale. I called in some favours from some fellow chefs and persuaded a few local chefs to demonstrate one of their signature dishes. These chefs donated their time and effort and ‘demos’ took place every hour from 11am to 6pm, both Saturday and Sunday.”

Chefs included Tim Kearse of Olive Tree; David Sibley of Life’s A Beach; Connor Hawkins of the Springer Spaniel; Aaron Vanstone and Mike Dodson of the Falcon Hotel; Jamie Barriball of the Brendon Arms; Dan Heard of the Beach House Wet Fishmongers; Dave Sargent of Chef Sargie; Dez Turland of Brend Hotels; and Nick Hodges of Greenbank Hotel. Sue Proudfoot talked about cheesemaking and Rory Colburn from Tarquins Gin shared his knowledge and a few samples!

Peter added: “I created two gala dinner menus. On Friday night I worked with one of our festival sponsors, St Austell Brewery Proper Job. Marc Bishop, St Austell’s Beer Sommelier, talked about beer tasting and our guests were treated to a tasting of ten different small batch craft beers. Guests were challenged to match the beers with very different taste profiles to the menu I created.”

On Saturday night, Peter created an artisan producer tasting menu, using foods from the exhibitors. Included were Whalesborough’s Cornish crumbly cheese, Cornish chorizo from Norton Barton, Hillview Honey, Zach’s Ice Lollies, Mrs Gill’s Country Cakes, Flapjackery and Sabins Small Batch Coffee Roasters.

Fraser Proudfoot, from the Weir restaurant, brought his Argentinian wood-fired barbecue and cooked the main courses outside the Coachman’s Bar and Grill — Greek chicken souvlaki kebabs, and salmon steamed in banana leaves.

Gavin Roberts, and the team of Kernow Sausages Co, really got into the festive spirit. Saturday saw Gavin delivering a sausage making masterclass with a little assistance from budding young apprentices from the audience.

The children were able to mix, fill and tie their own sausages under Gavin’s expert instruction. A real crowd pleaser enjoyed by an audience, young and old.

Mark Muncey of Kernow Sausage Co exhibited in the artisan food hall, providing tasty examples and retailing packs of the company’s latest gluten free recipes, which are now available at the Atlanticway Farm Shop, Kilkhampton.

Last but not least, Emma and Andrew from the team provided gourmet hotdogs to hungry festival-goers with their pop-up ‘sausage shack’ next to two other street food tents.

Fionagh, Richard and the whole Harding family are involved at Norton Barton Artisan Food Village. In the artisan food hall they were one of 20 food and drink producers, tasting and selling their artisan rums, crackers and their Cornish charcuterie.

Fionagh said: “We are exhibiting at food fairs most weeks, and were at Hampton Court last week. We are better known further away, so it was a great opportunity to show our community what our Norton Barton artisan food and drink is all about.”

The Hardings were the ones to spearhead the previous Bude for Food Festival.

Budelicious also provided space to A Greener Bude. Deb Rosser, chair, said: “Budelicious was very well organised — a great forum for us to share our message with hundreds of people over the weekend, to make the town more sustainable. To receive support at Bude’s Food Festival was amazing and makes it all worthwhile.”

Music and entertainment was provided throughout the weekend by Launceston Popchoir, All@C Ukelele Band, Gary and Polly McCausland, Awel Vase, Karen Green and Magic Martin.

Unfortunately, the weather meant organisers were unable to provide a bouncy castle and toy library on site, but children were still kept busy decorating cookies and chefs’ hats, and learnt all about unusual fruit and vegetables. There was even a little visit from Barry the lobster!

A spokesperson from the Budelicious organising team said: “We must thank all of our sponsors, producers, chefs, street food vendors, entertainers, volunteers, staff and our festival visitors for braving the weather to come and support this fabulous event.”