Chefs champion local food

5:40pm Wednesday 19th November 2008

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Celebrity chefs Sophie Grigson and Celia Brooks Brown gave live cookery demonstrations at Oxford’s Covered Market yesterday to encourage shoppers to buy local produce.

The chefs launched the two-day food fair, which also features chefs from Oxfordshire restaurants Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at Great Milton, Quod Brasserie in High Street, and the Big Bang in Walton Street.

'Hopefully shoppers are going home with great ideas and will be encouraged to buy food in places like the Covered Market or the Cowley Road'

Sophie Grigson

Oxfordshire food writer Ms Grigson, who presents cookery programmes on the UKTV Food channel, prepared halibut with a Turkish nut sauce, while London-based Ms Brooks Brown chose a Hungarian mushroom and nut paprikash.

Ms Grigson said: “The Covered Market is a great place for a cookery demonstration and lots of people came along.

“Hopefully shoppers are going home with great ideas and will be encouraged to buy food in places like the Covered Market or the Cowley Road.

“This is a fantastic idea – I’d like to see them do it again because it encourages people to support local shopkeepers.

“People tend to forget about the Market from time to time and we want to keep it tip-top.”

Ms Brooks Brown, who runs gastronomic tours of London’s Borough Market, and presents the BBC show Market Kitchen, added: “These live cookery demonstrations are a good idea because people can smell and taste the food and get a good look at it – it’s a great way to convey recipes. It’s about showing people how easy a recipe can be to make, and inspire them to rush home and do it themselves.

“When people buy local produce they are putting something back into the local community, and they know the food will be fresher than if it just comes out of a supermarket warehouse.”

Mum-of-three Fiona Twigg, from Bicester, said she enjoyed the demonstration, and added: “Sophie really made the cookery look fun.

“I try to buy local produce whenever I can and I often come to the Covered Market, mainly for the fruit and veg.”

Students from Oxford and Cherwell Valley College in Oxpens Road also created a leftovers soup, and traders showed shoppers how to make pasta and festive cakes.

Oliver O’Dell, of city centre management company OX1, said: “We would like to make the Covered Market a much more interactive shopping destination.

“It took a little while to get chefs to sign up for this, but it’s something we would like to do more often.

“It’s a long-term aspiration to have a permanent studio kitchen in the Market and then we can get school pupils involved on a regular basis, a bit like Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food.”