Menu moments

HOW would you like a late brunch with Richard Whiteley, lunch with a hungry Viking warrior and Yorkshire high tea with Brian Turner? What do you mean, you've just lost your appetite? You had better get it back again because they will all be at York's popular Food and Drink Festival, which kicked off yesterday and runs right through until Sunday, September 22.

This year's festival has a packed menu of tasty treats on offer. Here are just a few tantalising titbits from the Food Theatre to get your juices flowing.

Saturday, September 14

Teresa Ibbotson, from the Durham Ox at Crayke, will be presenting an entertaining personal account of emigrating from Italy to Scotland and demonstrating some of the weird and wonderful dishes which resulted from this colourful clash of disparate cultures.

The tone will then take a Swiss twist when Betty's chef Lee Jones cooks up traditional dishes that reflect the tea room's Swiss roots.

Sunday, September 15

Michael Whiteley, from the Grange Hotel in York, will lead his brigade of chefs in an attempt to break the record for the number of pancakes produced in half an hour.

A Viking warrior will appear in the theatre to call - rather loudly we can presume - for some Viking Age food from Diana Naish of At Home Catering, assisted by a contingent of local children.

Staff from York Dungeon will be joining forces with students from York College to dramatise the dangers of slips, trips, burns, cuts and stabbings in the kitchen. Be warned, this is not for the faint hearted!

Monday, September 16

GNER chefs from across the network will be getting all steamed up when they are challenged to cook a three-course meal suitable for a train journey.

Perhaps they could appeal for help to the lively team from Channel 5's Open House with Gloria Hunniford, who will be on hand to solve festival-goers' kitchen problems.

Tuesday, September 17

YORK'S resident Malay expert Jennie Cook will provide a demonstration of Nyonya, a fusion of Malay and Chinese food.

Dr Eileen White, editor of Feeding A City, will illustrate the importance of changing fashions for imported spices during the Elizabethan and Medieval periods.

Continuing the spicy theme, Mohammed Aslam from the Aagrah group of restaurants will reveal secrets of Kashmiri cooking on a journey of exploration through many of the region's most popular dishes.

Wednesday, September 18

TV chef Sophie Grigson will be cooking dishes from her latest book, Organics. Michael Hjort, from Melton's and Melton's Too in York, will be continuing the healthy theme by creating sugar baskets and cages, fudge and toffee, explaining the basics of sugar work as he goes.

Thursday, September 19

SOUS chefs are number two in the kitchen but they will be number one in the Food Theatre when a group of sous chefs from around the county take to the stage to produce a range of hot and frozen desserts such as baked alaska and ice-cream gratin.

This should bring the temperature down to just the right level for Andy Moscrop, representing Mash Relief Chefs, who will be creating an ice sculpture on stage, and Sarah Maultby, from the Castle Museum, who will be demonstrating how ice cream was made before the invention of the domestic freezer.

Friday, September 20

THIS looks set to be fishy Friday with York fishmonger Richard Fowler challenging some of York's chefs to cook fish dishes from the morning's catch.

Andrew 'Bones' Jones of York Archaeological Trust will be explaining how to preserve fish without refrigeration, while Magdalena Chavez cooks traditional Andalucian fish in salt.

Saturday, September 21

Michael Hjort, of Melton's restaurant, will be making the most of local produce when he cooks up tasty treats from the Yorkshire Pantry cookbook using ingredients available on the Yorkshire Pantry Market in the Festival Market Place.

Chefs Kenny Noble, from the Blue Bicycle, Jason Plevey, from Melton's Too, and David Spencer, from York Pavilion Hotel, will also be talking Tyke when they join forces with celebrity chef Brian Turner and TV wine expert Charles Metcalfe for a varied event dedicated to reproducing the 'flavour of Yorkshire'.

And Laura Mason will be taking a trip down memory lane to show how the pancheon (a coarse earthenware pan) was used as a bread-proving pot in traditional farmhouse kitchens.

Sunday, September 22

THE finale of the festival will be a day of finals. Compere and principal judge Germain Schwab, from the two Michelin Star restaurant Winteringham Fields, will be watching over the final cook-off and announcing the winner of the competition to find the best young chef in the city.

And the Food Glorious Food Inter-Schools Challenge, sponsored by Denby Pottery, will be reaching its hard-fought climax.

If all this sounds like too much watching and not enough eating, you could always join one of the Roving Feasts that will be criss-crossing the city from September 15 to 19.

A £23 ticket entitles you to a starter, a main course, a dessert, a coffee and a drink of your choice at three different eateries.

Each rove has a distinct flavour, from Mediterranean one day to Latin the next, and there is an air of mystery about them all as your destinations are only revealed when you are ready to move on.

Updated: 09:00 Saturday, September 14, 2002