Essex Food Challenge

After the exciting debate that opened the 2006 Essex Book Festival between Germaine Greer, Simon Heffer, Martin Newell and Ken Worpole, Insite launched in September 2006 the Essex Food Festival, the second event in the series Talk About Essex, with an exciting culinary challenge.

Insite in partnership with Essex Libraries sent Mark Baumann (star of the ITV series 'Baumann goes to Market'), and year six students from Birch Primary and Moreton Primary Schools in Essex, on a food challenge around the county researching and gathering produce. These ingredients were used for a special competitive 'cook off' event at the renowned Baumann's Brasserie in Coggeshall.

During the trip they were also accompanied by artist James Fletcher, who was invited to offer his own interpretation of the challenge with a collection of weird and wonderful images showing local produce in its Essex landscape. The exhibition toured Essex libraries and other venues in London during 2007 and a booklet containing all the images was also produced. You can see the collection of images in the gallery section of our website under the 'Food in Landscape' project:

'Innovative exhibition showing the county's rich diversity of locally produced food and drink with some of the most striking landscapes in Essex' - Essex Life Magazine

Clear here to download the evaluation report for this project (627Kb).

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This unique partnership ran from 2005 to 2007, delivering a total of ten cultural tourism projects that promoted Essex and empowered people to celebrate their unique identity.