Geoff Coleman’s workshop is one of several demonstrations worth watching at the Thame Food Festival, declares Helen Peacocke

Perhaps it’s the historic setting that makes the Thame Food Festival so special. By staging the festival in the Market Place, with its Jacobean Town Hall, fascinat-ing pubs and picturesque streets, while offering free entry and arranging plenty of car parking space, all the ingredients for a veritable feast of good things are in place.

The festival first took place in 2008, beginning life with a handful of stalls set up in the Market Place to promote and celebrate the wealth of local food producers, restaurants and cafes.

Other towns have attempted to stage food festivals but not always with the success that Thame has enjoyed since that exciting day six years ago when a group of local food enthusiasts got together.

Over the years all manner of local food producers have attended the festival, adding their own unique contribution to the occasion. At this year’s event, on Saturday, Ricky Jeffrey, from Egg House Charcuterie, will be running a sausage-making workshop in the Town Hall at 3.30pm. It will be a hands-on experience and participants get to take a pack of sausages home with them.

Ricky and his wife Emily believe that the best meat comes from people who care as passionately about how the animals are reared as they do about the quality of the food they produce. The art of charcuterie dates right back to the middle ages. It is the art of curing, salting and smoking to preserve meat. Although the French may claim the name — which means cooked meat — charcuterie has been practised in the UK for centuries. It’s the art of making tasty preparations from cooked pork though other meats are often used too.

Ricky has been a butcher since leaving school and over the years has developed a true passion for his work which calls for complex skills that take time to develop. Emily comes from a family of food-lovers. She cooks and works alongside Ricky, helping him to create recipes for both The Egg House in Kimble and their pig roast and barbecue business.

Another demonstrator conducting a hands-on workshop is Master Baker Geoff Coleman who will be showing visitors how to knead and shape dough and turn it into attractive loaves. His workshop will take place at 11.30am in the function room above the Swan Hotel. He will also be talking about sour dough and explaining how to make a sour dough culture at 1pm in the Stonewall Gallery.

Geoff’s father opened the first family bakery in Thame in 1972. Geoff now runs that and another shop in Wheatley so he has been connected with the festival from the start when just a handful of local traders got together to raise the culinary profile of Thame. He is confident that his workshop will give people a taste of all the techniques he teaches during his bread-making workshops that he runs regularly at his Thame shop.

“People are becoming more and more interested in artisan bread and are eager to learn a few tricks of the trade, because some things that you need to know about handling the dough you just won’t find in a cookery book,” he said.

He will shape dough into plaits, cottage loaves and even turtle shapes and demonstrate general moulding techniques.

Geoff has watched the festival evolve over the years and is thrilled that it is now attracting such a wide audience.

“I am sure it’s because the festival is free. Yes, people pay to attend the workshops, but that’s all. Entrance is free. And so it should be.”.

Other foodies, chefs, cookery writers and broadcasters who will be demon-strating during the festival include festival patrons Lottie Duncan and Raymond Blanc, restaurateurs Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi, food writer Tom Kerridge, food writer and broadcaster Jonathan Phang, British baker and food writer John Whaite, television cook and writer Sophie Grigson, and Emma Collen. TV chef David Mooney will be at the show too.

There are workshops on raw taste and pasta making at the Town Hall for children, who are also invited to book a session at the Cottage Bakery where they can see behind the scenes.

For more information about chefs taking part in this year’s Thame Food Festival or to book a workshop visit www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk