I have a weakness I should declare. Show me a stall with a handwritten sign, a small queue and someone explaining exactly which field their grass-fed meats came from, and I will stop walking. It is not a sensible weakness. It is a very happy one.
The weekend in Wales
On Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September, the Welsh market town of Abergavenny hosted its food festival for the 28th year. More than 120 producers took over the town, spread across 11 venues, with over 80 chef demonstrations, talks and events. On Saturday night there was a celebration at the castle, with tickets at £30 for over-12s, and under-16s went free to the festival itself.
The festival describes itself as “born here, built here, run by people who live here”, which you can read on the festival’s own site. That line matters more than it seems, and I will come back to it.
The smartest price on the poster
As a parent, the first thing I look for on any event poster is what it will cost to bring my child. Free entry for under-16s changes the whole sum of a family day out. The spending goes where it should, on food you cannot get anywhere else, rather than on getting through the gate.
Besides this week’s other food and drink story. In Munich, a litre of water at Oktoberfest averages €11.13. In Abergavenny, the most expensive part of the day is likely the cheese you could not resist. Both are wonderful. Only one leaves your wallet feeling respected.
Small makers, real businesses
Here is the part I find most interesting. For a small producer, a weekend like this is not just a party. It is a shop window, a market research exercise and a sales channel, all at once. They meet customers face to face, test new products, hear what people like and sell without a supermarket taking a large share of the price.
This is the opposite of the model Costco reported this week, where a giant chain keeps its margins thin and makes a large part of its money from membership. A small maker has no card at the door. Every sale has to earn its place, one taste at a time. Neither model is better. But when you buy from the person who made the thing, a much larger share of your money stays with them and in the town. That is what “run by people who live here” really means in pounds and pence.
How I spend at a food festival
I go with a rough plan and a bag. I taste widely, buy less than I want and choose things I will actually use in the next fortnight, because a jar that sits in the cupboard until spring isn’t really a purchase. It was an optimistic thought with a lid.
I explored why the table matters so much in The Table Is Where the Life Actually Happens. A food festival is that idea taken outdoors: the pleasure is not in owning more food; it is in the people, the stories and the meal you come home and cook.
The takeaway
A good life does not always need a large bill. Sometimes it needs a small town, a free gate for the children and a producer who knows the name of their cows. Abergavenny has been proving that for 28 years, and I suspect it will keep proving it long after the big tents in Munich have raised their prices again.
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