Children Have Your Say: National Vote for Children's Favourite Meal

19 June 2009

What is our children’s favourite dish? Curry is said to be the nation’s most popular meal, but what would kids say?

The Children’s Food Festival is calling on children across the country to vote for what they want to eat – more than anything else. Voters can win a cookery course at the Raymond Blanc Cookery School.

Eating habits are linked to health as well as to behaviour, concentration and learning. We think we know what children like to eat – but do we really? This vote will tell us what children want to eat and the Children’s Food Festival will show kids how they can eat to stay healthy. Sophie Grigson will cook a healthy version of the winning meal at the Children’s Food Festival on 27 & 28 June.

Run by the Northmoor Trust, the Children’s Food Festival aims to improve children’s health and wellbeing by introducing them to new foods and cooking through colourful and fun hands-on activities. Children can try out all kinds of cooking, from baking bread to sushi rolling in the Kids’ Kitchens. Other highlights include: open fire cookery, bicycle-powered smoothie-making, the observation beehive, the Vegetable Orchestra and The Smell Tent run by the Academy of Culinary Arts.

Children can vote for their own favourite meal or choose one from a list of suggested meals, drawn up in consultation with children. The list includes:

• Bangers and Mash
• Chinese Stir Fry
• Chicken and Chips
• Chicken Curry
• Macaroni Cheese
• Pasta and pesto
• Toad in the Hole

Children can register their vote by going to www.childrensfoodfestival/vote

The vote closes on Monday 22 June 2009. The first Children’s Food Festival drew crowds of over 16,000 and the Northmoor Trust expect even more at this second Festival – to be held on the Trust’s Farm, ten miles south of Oxford.

Sophie Grigson says that her son has a passion for pasta:

“When we went to Italy a few years ago, when he was around 11, he was quite disappointed to discover that they didn’t serve pasta for breakfast. He’d hoped he could eat it three times a day, but just had to make do with twice.”

The line-up of chefs demonstrating at the Festival includes: Patrons Raymond Blanc and Sophie Grigson, Annabel Karmel, Stefan Gates from BBC’s popular Gastronuts, Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nora Sands and Sam Stern, the Teenage Cook.

New for 2009 are the Baby and Early Years Area and the Chocolate Tent. Talks and demos in the Chocolate Tent include the ‘chocolate evangelist’ Sara Jayne Stanes, Chairman of the Academy of Chocolate and Damian Allsop, The ‘Merlin of Chocolate’. Green and Blacks will be giving demos on ‘how to taste chocolate’ and the Roald Dahl Museum team are helping children to make Willy Wonka recipes.

Website: www.childrensfoodfestival.co.uk.

Editor’s note

High res images of all chefs may be downloaded from www.childrensfoodfestival.co.uk/press

Interviews with Sophie Grigson or Eka Morgan, the Festival Director can be arranged via:
Cath Nightingale:
01865 513969
07798 665629
cat@studionightingale.com

Date and time: Saturday 27 (10am – 6pm) and Sunday 28 June (10am – 5pm)
Place: The Northmoor Trust Farm. The entrance to the Festival will not be via Northmoor Trust offices, please use Postcode OX11 9BG and see the website for directions: www.childrensfoodfestival.co.uk

Car: £10 per car on the gate
Shuttle Bus: £3 per adult from Didcot Parkway railway station
Cycle or Foot: £3 per adult.
All activities at the Festival are free!

"It's so wonderful to watch children and their families discover how joyful and creative cooking can be. Come and join us!”
Raymond Blanc, OBE, Festival Patron

“The Children’s Food Festival is something different, unique and extremely special.”
Sophie Grigson, Patron

Back to news page...