By Jessie Crabtree
On the 20th October, The Fine Food and Dining Society put on their annual trip to the BBC Good Food Show and I too had the pleasure of attending. At 8.30am on Sunday morning, I made my way to the front of Madras College to meet with the excitable foodies and set off on the long journey to Glasgow (the furthest I have made it out of The Bubble this term). Walking the streets of St. Andrews early on a Sunday morning was a somewhat odd experience; the roads were deserted and the telling sight of Dervish remains were scattered everywhere…
When I arrived at the bus I was handed my ticket and told I was going to be attending a cooking demonstration given by THE Tom Kitchin. A sneaky google on the bus (I might love food, but in no way can claim to be an expert) whilst the other foodies were busy conserving their energy/ sleeping, revealed that Tom Kitchin is a Scottish born Michelin Star holder. With this news to whet my appetite, I joined the others napping.
This was my first trip to Glasgow and I savoured the small taste I had of the city before arriving at the SECC. The SECC was positioned in a very scarce landscape accompanied by some most unusually futuristic buildings… a far cry from St. Andrews. We were told to divide and conquer and off we went, bags at the ready, to collect the free samples, find ourselves a bargain and even a celebrity.
The first thing that hit you when entering the venue was the smell; there were wafts of cakes, burgers, spices coming from each and every direction. The second thing that (literally) hit you was a man dressed in a giant chilli costume handing out leaflets advertising his vegetarian sausages. Highly surreal. We moved quickly on.
We visited a number of stands serving alcohol, sampling tasters from the Edinburgh Gin Company, whiskeys, Baileys-esque drinks and a variety of spirits. After a while the initial amusement of having mini shot glasses of alcohol had worn off, and I was beginning to regret my decision of forgoing breakfast for an extra fifteen minutes in bed. Feeling embarrassingly tipsy for eleven in the morning, I made it my mission to find myself some food and at a food show this did not prove such a hard task…
The SECC was split up into a number of areas making it easier to locate exactly what you were looking for. There was the Producers village, the Scottish village with a wonderful selection of Oatcakes, Porridge, Tablet, Whiskey – anything and everything you could possibly want. There was even a Great British Bake Off Village; with the BBC again benefiting from the craze of baking that has swept the nation following their highly popular TV show. I was distraught at discovering I had missed seeing Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry after finding myself more than a little addicted to the show this year (I hope it is not just me who has been planning their Tuesday evenings around the show…).
I sampled spices, oils and vinegars, meringues, brownies, ice-cream, smoothies, biscuits, curries; you name it, I tried it. The BBC Good Food Show was, not surprisingly, full of delicious and wonderful food and I left feeling completely stuffed. After a good three hours browsing the floor, we made our way to the Supertheatre to see the demonstration by Tom Kitchin. Apart from the forced name-dropping of Tesco (the sponsor), Tom’s demo was captivating. In the space of about 40 minutes, he showed us how to make two delicious and easy dishes (pumpkin soup and cullen skink) and you could even smell them from our seats in the arena!
All in all, my day out to the BBC Good Food show was amazing, if a little tiring. Thank you to The Fine Food and Dining Society for organising the trip! There are however some things I wish I had known before I had gone, so below I have written my top four tips…
[Us and Tom Kitchin!]
1) BRING WATER! It was almost impossible to buy water at the show and when I did find it, it was ridiculously expensive. You will need water after walking around all day, the venue is hot and you also want to be in possession of a drink when you ambitiously decide to try the extra hot chilli oil when really all you can deal with is medium…
2) Take a camera – even though I did not get to see Mary Berry, if I had I would have wanted a picture to show my friends and family!
3) Dress appropriately – it gets very hot in the venue so no need to bring a coat if you are driving straight there, the venue was also quite large so flat shoes are a necessity. Above all wear something you feel comfortable in; I made the mistake of wearing a white cardigan that malted everywhere so I had to spend the whole day walking around looking a little like a sheep. I would have had a much better time had I not been worrying about that all day…
4) Talk to the stall holders! My friend writes a food blog and she managed to blag herself a few samples. Even if you do not manage to get free stuff, it is much more polite to talk to the people you are taking the free food off and it really brightens their day!