25 Sep 2023
James Cameron visits the St Albans Food and Drink Feastival and tries to sample as many dishes as his stomach can cope with…
It’s that time of year again, when the great and good of the Hertfordshire food stall world descend on St Peter’s Street to compete for your money and stomach space at the annual St Albans Feastival.
These outdoor events live and die to an extent by how the weather is, and this year it was pretty perfect. There was no bucketing rain nor blazing sunshine, and the fact that it looked fairly unpromising this morning might have contributed to the fact that it seemed quieter than usual.
This was all to the good, as it can get pretty overwhelming. The sheer range of options on offer, plus the continual teeming masses of humanity partaking of them, mean that those with a lower tolerance for stimuli can find it a bit much. Possibly in recognition of this the organisers provide a safe zone by the Arena where you can take a little break from the hustle and bustle, luckily none of us needed it today as the vibe was a lore more relaxed this time around.
As is our usual routine we started by doing a circuit of the entire festival, to check out what the options are before we decided to commit to anything. There were a number of familiar faces, including stalls that are present on the regular Saturday market such as Pedalling Pizza and Comida Brazil, but also establishments such as Craft & Cleaver and the Portland Arms that had shed their usual brick and mortar coatings to venture out in only a skimpy tarpaulin.
There were also lesser spotted chefs making a rare appearance in St Albans. Vietnamese cuisine seems to be the flavour of the day from multiple vendors, but you could also compare how countries as geographically diverse as Korea and Jamaica fry chicken.
Despite the length of St Peter’s Street being chocked full of vans there were still a few sad absences. Whether they have called it a day or could not be bothered to make the trek to St Albans I was sad to not see the Belgian Fries van which first introduced me to Samurai Sauce, and Killa Waffles were similarly missing.
It is a personal disappointment that I cannot try every single dish on offer. What would be perfect for me would be some sort of taster card you could buy at the start, then get it stamped as you went round trying reduced versions of participating vendors’ offerings. A chicken wing here, a momo there, it’s something they might want to consider for future years.
As it was I tried to find the smallest dishes on offer to avoid getting too full too quickly. I spectacularly failed with this when I bought a chicken pasty from Jen’s Pasties, and was presented with a pastry roughly the size of Cornwall. Theoretically I did not have to eat the whole thing, but once I had the first bite I was committed to see things through to the delicious end.
Something the organisers of the festival can’t do anything about is the lack of hands when it comes to street food. If you want to simultaneously experience both the food and drink that’s on offer then your choices are limited to foodstuffs that can be held and eaten with one hand, generally because they are wrapped or encased in something.
There are a smattering of tables around the place, but these disappear quickly. However the rate of turnover on these is high so if you’re happy to hover you can usually find somewhere to rest your weary food before too long.
I was also blessed with a couple of helpers who could hold my pint if I needed to take a quick snap or had to record a particularly witty bon mot. These helpers also required feeding, and the vegan one was particularly well serviced by the Little Panjab Food Company, who had a wide range of vegetarian and vegan combinations. He went for a form of Thali, the highpoint of which was a particularly tasty Dhaal.
The other helper acted like a typical teenager and disappeared for the afternoon with his friend so I cannot say much about his Korean fried chicken other than it looked very nice and he didn’t let me taste it.
All this walking around town had built up enough of an appetite that I was able to have another go on the street food roulette, and I paid a visit to Beigals and Beats. I am glad I pushed myself beyond my eating limits as this was the highpoint of the show for me, their Smoked Salmon bagel had a fantastic range of pickles that, combined with a lovely great slab of cream cheese, elevated the smoked salmon to a thing of beauty. The only slightly odd thing was that the bagels were lacking in holes, a fairly intrinsic part of their make up, and were more like baps with a dimple.
I would recommend arriving at the festival early, by the time I was making my second foray the queues had built up noticeably and there was quite a wait for my bagel. The longest queue of the festival was consistently at the Crispy Duck Rotisserie, which was either the most popular stall or the one with the slowest service, or both.
Apart from the food there was plenty of other attractions on offer. Drink for starters, with local brewers Farr Brew and the Three Brewers knocking around as well as multiple outlets for gin and the intriguing sounding ‘Old Vodka’. The Cookery Theatre at the top of town featured demonstrations from such local luminaries as Kat from Kat’s Oriental Cuisine and the team at Infuse.
I do wonder slightly about the benefit of these demonstrations as you would have to be a very confident cook to attempt to recreate a meal based on someone running it through once on a stage whilst being interviewed about their career, but I guess it was more about general tips.
There was also music by Christopher Place with, at various times, a very jolly steel drum player and a very passionate lady with a guitar. The coolest place to hang out, though, was by the Clock Tower where a man in purple robes and a pencil in his hair and his friend with turquoise shorts and a guitar who called themselves the Jukebox Duo blasted out classic rock tunes. Their enthusiasm was definitely infectious, as witnessed by the hugs they attracted from random passers-by.
I would struggle to last the entire afternoon at the Feastival. Once you’ve eaten the appeal of squeezing past large crowds to watch other people cook does wane somewhat (although I was sad to have missed Jon Watt’s ‘Marry Me Chicken’ towards the end of the day). Instead we grabbed some cakes from the Tall Cookie Lady and local stalwarts Brown Bread and headed down to Clarence Park.
Here we consumed tea and cakes whilst sitting on the grass watching the Fleetville Swing Band perform jazz standards. A much slower tempo than the festival proper, but I would argue one that’s more appropriate for a Sunday afternoon and, if the calendars align again next year, one that I would definitely recommend.
Photos by James Cameron
