Elisabeth Luard, Rosemary Barron, and Natalie Wheen at Eat Your Words!
[This is one in a series of blog posts written by Charlotte the Intern. Tune in daily to find out about what she’s been up to, what she has been learning about, and all of the crazy things she does as part of the Manna from Devon team.]
Hi there! Have you missed me? I’m sorry, I know I totally went AWOL last night. You see, I’ve been really busy this week, and I was just too tired last night to sit down and put pen to paper (so to speak). Outside of the normal schedule of curry classes and incredible amounts of bread (more on that tomorrow), I’ve been finalizing the schedule for Eat Your Words, the sort of fringe book festival that’s the newest part of this year’s food festival. I’ve written about it here on the blog a couple of times before, here and here. But now, the schedule is finished!
We have so many great chats lined up, but one of the ones I’m most excited about is the conversation between Elisabeth Luard, Rosemary Barron and Natalie Wheen. These three incredibly talented women will be talking about “The Real Mediterranean Diet”, which will go beyond red wine, pasta, and pizza to share with festival guests their experiences of the real food practices of the Med. Eating in that region is really about the quality of the ingredients, and a seemingly innate understanding of balance, and food traditions have been passed down for generations. This means that the common sensical food practices that used to characterize all cooking and eating, like preserving produce to be used over the winter, still survive there though they have been lost in so many other place. It is a different way of healthy eating.
These three women will share their experiences in the Mediterranean, and teach us all a little bit about what we can learn from the natives of these sun-drenched climes!
And they certainly have a lot of experience with it.
Elisabeth is an award-winning food writer and journalist that grew up in a diplomatic family, spending her childhood in South America, Spain, and France. She raised her own family in a remote valley in Andalucia, that incredible region of southern Spain known for bright seafood and Jerez sherry wine.
Rosie’s expertise is Greece: she owned a cookery school based on the island of Crete and her book, “Flavours of Greece” is highly acclaimed. She has written extensively on Greek food and culture for publications all over the English-speaking world.
Finally, Natalie is a writer and radio broadcaster who also produces olive oil on the tiny Greek island of Lesvos. Her Avlaki olive oil label is known for its high-quality, organic oils with incredibly fresh flavors.
I am so excited to hear what these three have to say about a region that has such a rich traditional food history, and one that I personally have come to love very much in the last ten months. And the chat comes with a tasting of some of the wonderful recipes from their cookbooks! As if there wasn’t reason enough to go already.