Food 'n' Drink – Food and Drink news |

The second Food Festival in Sheffield is ready to serve starting next month. It has a menu of events that are designed to reach for more than just the local tastebuds. The event from July 4-10 will be held across the city in different venues and is set to be both a learning process of the palate and the plate for an expected 40,000 visitors.

Following the first event last year which put Sheffield in line with other big cities who have for some time been celebrating their wealth of culinary delights, food producers, chefs and experts the next one promises to be full of substance and value and fabulous gourmet taste delights.

While the center of the city will be a mini food heaven with loads of food tasting and wine slurping all around, there will also be a strong push to give people the cooking skills and knowledge of how to eat healthier as part of Let’s Change 4 Life the city’s scheme to help lower the obesity rates.

Events range from markets of local food to masterclasses and there will be over 30 events just for children at the Sheffield Children’s Festival and picnic community activities will also be offered. Complete with its own cows a temporary farm will be set up from Dungworth ice cream makers Our Cow Molly and will be sited in the pedestrianised city centre. Passers-by can milk cows and make ices out of liquid nitrogen.

Throughout the week Sheffield Hallam University’s Business School as well as local businesses and over 30 restaurants and bars will run chef demos and special offers. The most vibrant and biggest producers market in the city will line Margate and the real ale trail will help to celebrate the microbrewery culture in Sheffield as part of The Festival Real Ale Extravaganza.

Also 200 demonstrations and master classes will be staged at different locations around the city and they will range from tip on gourmet from top chefs to how to sessions about family cooking and home growing. There are also lessons planned in chocolate making and there will be cheese tasting as well.

Fans of real ale will be able to go out for a few scoops this summer, but they won’t be left with a hangover thanks to the student inventor of beer flavoured ice-cream.

The Pride of Sheffield Beer Ice Cream will go into mainstream production later this year, after being developed by Sheffield Hallam University food and nutrition student Anna Lowden (left in photo). Anna , 20, invented the tasty tipple-based ice cream during her gap year work placement at the city’s Hope Valley Ice Cream Company, after research showed men eat less of the popular dessert than women. And now several Sheffield pubs are to join the farm where it is produced by stocking the ice cream before it goes into mainstream production later this year.

There is an extra bonus for sweet-toothed snackers – the Pride of Sheffield beer ice-cream contains hardly any alcohol due to the production process. Anna said: “During my work placement I have to come up with a new flavour each month and I’ve been getting more inventive as I go along. We wanted to tempt more men to try ice cream and the result has been really popular – it tastes like the head from a pint of Pride of Sheffield. It’s great that we’ve used a local supplier – we experimented with some different beers but none were quite as successful as the Kelham Island Brewery’s Pride of Sheffield. It’s been a big hit with my friends and Hope Valley is in talks with several pubs to stock it as a dessert this summer.”

Anna is working with the Derbyshire-based company on a year-long work placement before she returns to Sheffield Hallam in September.

Stuart Basford, from Kelham Island Brewery, added: “It has been a pleasure to work with Anna on this project. Anna tried with several of our beers and we were happy to help with the tasting process. Eventually it was our Pride of Sheffield that gave the best taste. I think we have found the ideal dessert to follow one of our Kelham Island Pork Pies.”