Food and drink festival offers taste of our island
The tastes and textures of Manx produce were showcased in fine style at the Food and Drink Festival over the weekend.
Specially-erected marquees at the Villa Marina gardens in Douglas housed one of the island’s largest gatherings of producers, with stalls cooking up samples and revealing preparation techniques.
Also found around the grounds for the Saturday and Sunday event was live cow milking, have-a-go wheat milling and butter making, as well as some of the lambs and beef calves whose parents were rescued in the snowdrifts that hit the island so heavily in the spring.
Special guests were the ‘Fabulous Baker Brothers’, Tom and Henry Herbert, who also appeared in the Manx LitFest area, and signed copies of their cookery books at the storytelling marquee.
The pair were also there to judge the I Love Manx chef competition.
Tantalising taste buds in the final was Marcus Purcell, head chef at the Glen Helen Inn, who cooked up a poached fillet of Manx beef, with thyme-infused poached egg and chips cheese and gravy. He was, however, pipped to the post by Joan Mowat of Tanroagan restaurant in Douglas’ winning dish of Manx queenie pie with smoked bacon.