Thursday 27 October 2011

Friday 23rd September 11 York Food Festival

A really busy day, with two Food Festival events.  My friend Steve had said he might be able to move the fruit press, as his cycle can carry heavier loads than mine, so I called him and asked if he'd be able to come in half an hour.  He said 45 minutes.

I got it ready, in the drive, and collected some apples from down the garden, and some plastic sacks for the pressed apple pulp, and a few other bits and bobs.

I took the crusher on my trailer and we managed to fit the press into Steve's Danish load-carrying Nihola tricycle. We cycled slowly in to the City Centre, and unloaded in St Sampson's Square, next to all the 'Edible Schools' stalls.

I had a stall with several trays of apples and pears, delivered by an Abundance volunteer, along with a chopping board, some plastic cups, jugs and bottles and a bucket for washing the apples, as some were windfalls.  I'd brought a couple of bottles too, and a knife for cutting the apples in half.

I got busy and prepared a load of apples before the first group arrived; my job was to show small groups of York school children that apple juice came from apples.  This might seem obvious to some readers, but many kids are so completely separated from nature that if you ask them where apple juice comes from they'll say 'a carton' or the name of a supermarket.  So a project has been set up called Edible Schools, to help educate children about food.

I did a series of crushing and pressings, going all day, one group after another... getting the children to operate the crusher quite a bit and then dishing out apple juice to anyone who wanted it.  It went down really well!  Lots of people came to see what was happening and had a bit of juice.  I really enjoyed myself, but was glad when the last group had gone, and I cleaned up the equipment with a hose which was in St Sampson's Square, near my stall.

Steve came to pick it up again and I zoomed home, only to come back in again for a York Rotters stall in the evening.  This was fairly quiet, but I had a nice time with Pat, and some free food.

A long day, but really worth while.

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