Today I went to the Abergavenny Food Festival. I bought this stuff (click through to flickr for notes telling you what it is), tasted lots more stuff, and went to to a talk on “Do we need to be challenged by dinner?”, chaired by Jay Rayner (Observer food critic) and debated by Sat Bains (Restaurant Sat Bains) and Jason Atherton (one of Gordon Ramsay’s mob, exec chef at maze) on the “pro” side and Stephen Bull (The Butcher’s Arms in Woolthope) and Shaun Hill (The Walnut Tree) on the “con” side. I recognised all these people, albeit mostly from Masterchef and The Great British Menu, for I am a peon.
I was a bit out of my depth (a show of hands at the beginning showed nearly half the audience had eaten at the Fat Duck and at least half a dozen had eaten at El Bulli (!), prompting Rayner to ask “how the hell did you get a reservation? Did you have mine?”) but it was a witty and interesting debate. I was also amused by, when it came time for questions from the audience, Rayner knew every questioner by name — I think there were a lot of chefs in the audience.
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