Eat Sheffield award winners
We were delighted to be the Best Event category winners in the 2014 Eat Sheffield Awards. The judges admired the creative menus and professional delivery of our events highlighting the 30th Anniversary of the Friends of the Botanical Gardens event in particular.
The occasion in June coincided with the opening of the Himalayan Gardens and the menu was derived from local grown foods with their origin from the Himalayan region.
Its actually amazing how many plants have edible derivatives and links to food crops which have been developed from them. Obviously there is some need to be careful about what is actually used in terms of both food safety and collection. For example although certain populations may have eaten say Indian Pokeweed they may have become accustomed to it and we could find we have allergic and other reactions. For interest here is some information from the web site Plants of the Future which is a very useful resource of over 7000 plants focusing on their usefulness to humans.
“Indian pokeweed Phytolacca acinosa – Poke salad (‘poke salat’) is considered part of traditional southern U.S. cuisine, where it is cooked three times in three changes of boiling water to remove some of the harmful components.[14] Toxic constituents which have been identified include the alkaloids phytolaccine and phytolaccotoxin, as well as a glycoprotein.
Anyway here is the winning menu from the event!