OISF Food Events 2018
There’s an opening lunch of Orkney seafood to follow the session on sustainable fisheries research, and the afternoon looks at further aspects of the sea for the future.
After the first of the afternoon talks comes a tea break provided by Orkney Fair Trade Group, with the opportunity to enjoy some local cakes and biscuits and browse amongst some Orkney food books and Fair Trade products. There will be further afternoon tea breaks on Friday, and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week following.
On Friday the lunches of Orkney fare in the Peedie Kirk Hall begin. The lunches take place over six days, with each day a varied mix of items to choose from – salmon, beef, cheese, savouries, cakes, with tea and coffee to follow and at 1 pm the daily One O’Clock Toast to a well-known Orcadian.
There will be an Orkney supper too, if you cross on the 5.45 pm ferry from Stromness, to join the community in the Hoy Kirk for the annual Festival Friday evening outing. It’s an opportunity to make an island visit and get back to Stromness pier by 10.30 pm.
The Family Day on Saturday 8th will feature freshly prepared rolls and Orkney ice cream, and then on Sunday there is the afternoon tea at Skaill House. To mark this year’s centenary of the birth of the Orkney film-maker Margaret Tait, who lived in a cottage on the other side of the Loch of Skaill, there will be a showing of her film Land Makar. It depicts the life of her neighbour Mary Graham Sinclair, working on the land, and the film will be followed by a traditional Orkney tea in the dining-room of Skaill House.
The evening of Tuesday 11th is an opportunity to find out more about the science of gin in Kirkwall’s Kirkjuvagr distillery, in the company of members of the industry’s leading professional body, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, the IBD. The following morning, Wednesday 12th, they will run a Miniature Whisky School in the atmospheric setting of the Eunson Room at Highland Park distillery. On the Wednesday afternoon they leading a bus tour of the Highland Park and Scapa distilleries, an ideal opportunity to see both from the inside. And on the Wednesday evening the IBD will host a presentation on ‘Distilleries Lost and Reborn’ – the story of older distilleries in Easter Ross and the new community-owned one that has now produced its first spirit.
The closing ceilidh will also feature a supper of local fare, with refreshments. And for more information about Orkney food and drink products to take home, the Festival had produced two pocket guides, to Orkney’s Peedie Producers and to Bere and Beremeal.
