Devon Fire & Spice Festival turns up the heat at Powderham
Last weekend, the beautiful deer park of Powderham Castle saw traders and visitors revelling in the Chilli and BBQ festival fun. Overlooked by the Castle, the grounds were filled with the bright colours of the festival flags and gazebos, and many visitors took to wearing colourful sombreros to keep off the sun.
Caterers provided a great variety of food, from Moroccan to pizza, and traders from near and far brought their chilli sauces, marinades, hot smokers, cheeses, ceramics, brownies, chilli plants and more, which saw the public leaving with bursting bags of goodies.
The heat was on in the chilli eating competitions, where each day members of the public took to the stage eating increasingly hot chillies. Hosted by Clifton Chilli Club, competition was fierce with Sophie Reid from Plymouth crowned champion on Saturday, and Shahina Waseem reining ‘UK Chilli Queen’ on Sunday with her 38th consecutive chilli eating competition win.
The sauce tasting tent saw a constant stream of visitors casting their votes for the best trader made chilli and BBQ sauces, with the South Devon Chilli Farm among the local champions with their chilli jam and chilli chutney.
Westcountry band Black Friday took to the music stage on both days with their high energy home-brew of folk and Celtic punk music. Big Joe Bone performed his foot stomping bluegrass on the Saturday, and Busta Groove got the public dancing with their lively covers on Sunday.
The cook-off zone was busy on Saturday with visitors of all ages on barbecues competing to make the best burger. Andrew Cromwell managed to wow the judges and was awarded 1st place and a ProQ Frontier Elite Smoker. On Sunday, teams competed in the regional heat of the Chilli Cook Off, where team
“Chilled Out Chilli” from Weston Super Mare came 1st and are now through to the next round.
Cooking demonstration by local chef Vicki Montague, ‘The Free From Fairy’, was a great success, showing her audience how easy and fun gluten free cooking is, especially when you add some chilli. Alastair David of Darts Farm demonstrated the art of butchery to a packed Demo Tent, and to show us the core of everything chilli, Joy Michaud and Matt Simpson gave talks on how to grow chillies, and how to make them even hotter! Alyson from Hot Smoked, and Laurie from Passion and Smoke had the public visit their stands to demonstrate how to use BBQs and smoking equipment.
Children spent their time running through the inflatable obstacle course, jumping on the bouncy castle, having their faces painted and eating delicious ice creams supplied by the Devon Vintage Ice Cream Van Company.
Festival Director Miles Halton reported: “We were lucky enough to have perfect festival weather which allowed the event to come together just as we wanted. It was a great first year event, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it grows and develops over the next few years.”
Dates for 2019 will shortly be announced.
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