Bristol Organic Food Festival

Faced with the jeopardy of eating organic chocolate with lavender or sea salt to save the lives of my family, it'd be a close run thing.  Lavender in our household is used as a sleeping aid dried in small pot pourri bags and nestled snugly under the girls pillows.  Will and I have resisted on the grounds that it's a girl thing.  And it gives the postman something to leap over or walk through depending on how energetic he's feeling as he cuts through to our neighbour's garden in the relentless shaving of precious seconds from his mail round.  Sea salt is a boon to cooking but has no place in a piece of chocolate.  As I bit down onto the sample (thankfully only the size of a wonky pea), my sweet and savoury taste buds went into hyper drive.  After a moment of complete confusion, I had an intensely unsatisfying cloying sensation around the sides of my throat roughly where the glands swell up during a nasty cold.

But of course that's the beauty of an organic food festival.  A great opportunity to sample weird and wonderful combinations so prepare yourself for some off notes.  Take nutmeg rice pudding for instance.  I'm prepared to accept that adding a dash of nutmeg to a rice pudding is an old-fashioned culinary classic but making the nutmeg the starring role is wrong.  Very wrong.  Avocado oil.  Avocado oil?  "It has a very high smoke point, so it's excellent for searing fish like salmon", said the well-rehearsed lady at the stall.  Wikipedia puts it at 520^oF, which is not far off how hot the car felt at several points on holiday in Italy.  I note that olive oil is no slouch at 468^oF, which is more than enough to form a crust on a piece of fish, albeit one particularly rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, so although I'll happily concede that avocado would triumph over olive in an oil Top Trumps battle, methinks the avocado smoking point benefit is somewhat overkill.  However the colour was awesome.  Intensely green like freshly cut wet grass and it coated the bread cube pleasingly.  But the taste was a huge disappointment, which is possibly why it's mainly used in lubrication and cosmetics.  Which compels me to allay any Hulk fans' fears over the availability of matching skincare product colours.

Boabab root powder was just one of a plethora of health foods and roots on display with an imaginative range of health benefit properties.  "It's like a lemonade apparently," from a woman eyeing the mixture in a thimbleful plastic sampler cup.  She took a swig, screwed up her face and caught my eye.  Wouldn't recommend it, she seemed to be communicating.  In the spirit of trying new stuff and persuaded by the claims of bringing energy to my body I had a small sip.  Expecting a lemonadey taste, I got nothing other than what I supposed ground up root mixed with water would be like – a bit gritty with an earthy flavour and not very pleasant to look at.  A bit like licking your lips after you've just been tackled on a muddy rugby pitch.

Caramelised onion hummus split the family right down the middle.  I liked it.  Vick hated it.  The kids abstained. As did non-dairy chocolate.  Rice powder substituting the milk content.  Moll couldn't get enough of it, at least until the stallholder asked her to move on.  Iz and Will scrunched up their faces and made straight for the Yeo Valley yoghurt bonanza for a third helping to cleanse the palate.

And then finally to the crepe stand for the kids and the Bristol Caribbean wrap stand for a fiery jerk chicken for us.  Delicious and a fitting end to a wonderful afternoon's sampling.