Dartmouth - Food Festival

It's the weekend of 25th October and the 2025 Dartmouth Food Festival is in full swing. The wind and the rainy weather has given over to crisp cool sunshine with occasional light showers that you can usually see coming down the river valley.

The Pelican of London, a splendid, three mast vessel moored up on the town quay, normally in pride of place as a focus of attention, is having to take second place to a whole swathe of marquees that are set up along the South Embankment.

Currently there are hordes of people queing patiently to get into the first of the marquees adjacent to the passenger ferry gang way. Its a one-way pedestrian system and so it can be a little frustrating at times. However, it would be chaos if people were free to roam in any direction.

The place is a little different to a scene from the day before of an empty marquee and a view of the estuary beyond its rear walls.

Every inch of space is now filled with the awnings themselves butting up against the edge of the quay and tied securely to the bollards. On the other side, there are various dead weight devices to help anchor down the awnings if the wind picks up. There isn't even space to sit in the riverside of the covered seating on the embankment.

There was a kind of trial run on the Friday and we ventured out after a frustrating morning's work. I think I took my own personal cloud with me because I couldn't get into the spirit of it. I nearly fell out with one vendor who tried to get me to smell his black pepper. "I don't need to smell it, I kown what it smells like!" Churlish and unfriendly I know but at least it stopped him moving in to get me to part with £27 for a small bag of the long Kampot pepper corns that were the same price as a hunk of venison on a stall further on. (I bought the venison on Saturday though!)

My mood didn't improve as I went to look around the street food stalls in Royal Avenue Gardens and

reached a nadir after I had bought a lamb and harissa wrap for the princely sum of £15. Really, £30 for teo fancy sandwiches at lunch time. Without wanting to go on - the price of a piece of venison!

Strangely, my ill humour seemed to dissipate as I sat in the gardens and ate my lunch. Perhaps I was just hungry!

Saturday started a whole lot better. For a start, the sun really was out despite occasional showers and we had decided on fish for dinner today and so I had an excuse to head for the stall in the market. Here, one of my favourite places to shop for provisions, I acquired a kilo of hake loin, some samphire and a few slices of smoked salmon.

The hake here cost more than the venison ( which seems to be my benchmark for this occasion) but it offered four indulgent portions and the salmon was an excellent lunch for the two of us when served on cranberry and squash sourdough from the only artisan bread baker at the festival.

The crowds were beginning to swell by the time that we sallied forth in the afternoon. In fact it was manic. I soon decided that any thought of getting some pictures of the place was a bad idea. Fortunately we were only really looking for the venison and perhaps some interesting teas. The latter search was a failure as there was no such offering amongst all the coffees.

However the venison was acquired for £17.00 as it was a slow cook joint rather than a straight roasting cut. After a brief exchange with my better half about who was going to pay ( and I lost naturally enough), we headed out of the crowds.

It was a little better further along the South Embankment and that gave me a moment for reflection on the origins of the foods. After all I had no idea where the venison came from nor who had actually sold it to me. Indeed, a twisted corner of my mind suggested that I had no idea what meat I had just bought. It could be an opportunistic way to dispose of a mother-in -law after all. I think I have probably delved a little too far into my psyche here and perhaps I should leave such meanderings to the contents of my novels. The Head Gardener for example. A macabre little tale if there ever was one but ,as one might say, "A cracking good read!"

Still for the avoidance of doubt, I am pretty sure that it is venison and, whilst she lived, I was quite fond of my mother-in-law ...

Whilst I feel that the festival was a little short on primary provisions such as herbs and spices, teas , pulses, interesting vegetables - that sort of thing - I did manage to find the stall for the Isle of Wight garlic farm ( or some such name). Here I bought three smoked garlic cloves and three others of a name I cannot remember.

They all smelled good and the smoked was going to be. paired with the venison when it came to cooking it. The image of the partially plundered bulb does not do justice to the smell of the thing (naturally).

Getting into the swing of spending at l;ast we also managed to finish off the day with the purchase of two terracotta glazed bowls which we needed for hte micro-wave. To the question, "Are they microwaveable ?" we received an enigmatic answer that involved terracotta naturally absorbing water (and not to let that happen) but I think it all wrapped up to a "Yes" . Only time will tell.

That was Saturday pretty much wrapped up. All I

needed was a few images at night of the festival in rest which , as you can see below, were picked up when I took our dog, Gandalf, for his late evening walk before bed.

Sunday was a quiet start, probably something to do with the clocks changing. Pity no one told Gandalf. He had me up at 04.50 new time for his morning walk. Still not too bad really, I could hear a large dog barking in one of the buildings on the Quay, possibly the Royal Castle.

At a more manageable time, we ventured forth into the crowds again. The purpose was to see if we had missed anything ( we hadn’t) and to buy some more breach from Vickys Bread and to find out where they deliver to in Dartmouth. (Sadly they don’t , the nearest is probably Kingsbridge.) We nearly bought some pies - they looked really good but to be honest I am on a dietary purge at the moment - so that was a bust.

Slipping down Nelson Street for the first time for a few days, I found that Joe’s Bar was setting up an alfresco dining area complete with paintings on the walls and full service on the long table.

Really like the paintings but was too embarrassed to take pictures there and then.

Got three of them later and they are set out below.

Not food as such but certainly food for thought.

Online it seems that they were painted by the late Bas Kennedy of Dartmouth but I can’t find anything else about him ( or her ).

So what was the take on the weekend? Well for a start the street food was pretty pricey by local standards. Were there any intersteing ideas or suggestions to be gathered? Perhaps there might have. been in hte tents where the demonstartions were held but I had neither the time nor the patience for those. The place was heaving with visitors and it seems that for every human family there was at least 1.3 dogs. Poor old Gandalf really struggled with the crowds and we had to keep to the back streets like lepers to avoid all the cockerpoos and other look alike dogs.

It was with a kind of relief that Gandalf and I walked the Quay on Monday morning. The whole scene with no cars in sight reminderd me of the city scenes in I am Legend ( or for those of an older persuasion - The Omega Man). So all I needed now was the zombie apocalypse!