Our kids’s favourite meal is pesto and pasta, says the survey conducted for the Children’s Food Festival; they prefer it to macaroni cheese, bangers and mash, and even pizza. How great is that!
We had glorious weather for the second Children’s Food Festival this last weekend of June. Sophie Grigson and I are its patrons, and we were elated by the stunningly sunny skies above the Northmoor Trust Estate where the Festival is held. More than 14,000 families – at least 20,000 kids and their parents and cousins-by-the-dozens, came to see the fantastic attractions. In the Cookery Theatre I demonstrated to an audience of 1,000, including 300 kids, summer dishes made from local produce, some from the Manoir’s own garden. They ranged from soupe au pistou (which the Italians stole from us French) and chervil soup, to Maman Blanc’s chocolate mousse – the best ever, with no butter or cream, and hardly any sugar. Maybe it was not very p.c., but you should have seen the hundreds of little fingers poked into it to taste.
Kids saw the Farm with its Hereford and Gloucester cattle, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, quails and baby water buffalo; the Field to Fork Area, with sausage-making, sustainable seafood cookery, bicycle-powered smoothie making, bread making and honey tasting; the Food Miles Display, with ways to reduce our carbon footprint; the Grow Your Own Area, with Garden Organic - seeds and saplings to plant and take home. 

Maybe the most fun was Splat Cooking, where kids made home-made pasta using fresh ingredients that they could take home to cook for their tea. You can find out more about Splat at their website www.splatcooking.net
There was a serious part, too. The Debate was chaired by Sheila Dillon, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, with Greta Scacchi asking teenagers the question: Should celebrities promote junk food? The use of sports and movie stars to promote high fat, salt and sugar foods is on the rise. Many celebrities have been the face of junk food, but some stars properly insist that their image is not sold to certain types of food companies.
Above all, in our largely urban civilisation, children need to reconnect what they eat with the soil in which it grows. Quite apart from the pasta and pesto (and chocolate), the fact that this food festival takes place in beautiful farm land is something even the younger children present will have absorbed and will remember.
Unlike my generation, this generation of children is growing up with an ethical attitude to food, rather than  the laissez-faire stance of their elders; with knowledge of food rather than ignorance of it. We were told it was all right to eat badly and not pay attention to our food; these kids are convinced it is their right to know what they’re eating, and associate food with celebration. They’re growing up with a passionate interest in food, curiosity about tastes and flavours and concern about the environment. I’m excited and incredibly proud to be associated with this great event. www.northmoortrust.co.uk/home/childrensfoodfestival