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Land of plenty - JERSEY
Through the melee of the St Helier fish market, I spotted oysters, glistening on crushed ice at an irresistible £2 per half dozen. Having collected a tray of gaping mollusc's with one hand and a plastic beaker of steely cold Muscadet with the other I shuffled gingerly through the crowd, struggling to balance them as I went. Founded 22 years ago, the Jersey Food Festival offers more than 100 opportunities to share a tradition of groaning tables and loose belts, with the nine-day event culminating in the Sunday food fair in the streets of Jersey’s capital.

Imagine a party of 10,000 people, driven by continuous samples of fresh and affordable dishes from restaurants, bistros, pubs, cafes and two Victorian markets. Then comes the backdrop of stalls and bunting, street entertainers, locals picnicking on pavements and mainlanders struggling with oysters. I had begun limbering up for the event some 48 hours previously with a festival lunch at the Michelin-starred Village Bistro at Gorey on the island’s eastern coast. Beneath the exposed beams and dried grasses, I slowly came to terms with my first Jersey Jersey’s annual International Food Festival begins next weekend. An awesome tempura of bream with crab and guacamole salad and sweet chili sauce. “On Jersey they like their appetisers big,” advised a nearby fellow diner The pan-fried fillet of local brill with fresh scallops, Jersey royal potatoes and carrot and pesto dressing was a further glorious example of a community doing what it does best. Then someone mentioned dessert and I hunted for a white flag of surrender. I stepped up the training at St Brelade’s Bay’s four star beach side Hotel Horizon, with dinner from Italian guest chef Vanni Dal Pan among the mirrors and chandeliers. Midway through Vanni’s five courses, I wanted to ask the recipe for his risotto con funghi porcini but my courage failed me. I imagined a temperamental, heavily bearded giant. coaxing his filetto di solgilola towards unimagined frontiers of perfection. Perhaps, at some future festival, the enigmatic chef will appear take the applause and scribble the ingredients on my napkin. Sensibly the festival organisers punctuate the lunching and dining with opportunities to “walk up an appetite”. At Bouley Bay I Joined a free tour Blue Badge guide Sue Hardy leading a two-hour stroll through the woods, farms and lanes that rise from the granite harbour The gentle climb took us through fields of buttercups and free-range chickens for a view of the Normandy beaches, 15 miles away Below us in the bay nestled by the shore, sat the Water’s Edge hotel, with crab, scallops, plaice and sea bass on its lunch menu. In the afternoon of the food fair I had lost track of time, plotting the day by my intake of oysters, marinated octopus, Thai crab cakes, a “posh ploughman’s” of brie and stilton. three crevett~”. and one large wild boar sausage in white wine and lemon sauce. The queues for grilled chicken escalope and warmed Mediterranean vegetables with Mozzarella cheese suggested we were well into lunchtime. In the produce market, with its glass roof and antique wrought-ironwork, a string quartet played beside an ornamental fountain of cherubs, lilies and tropical fish. Close by a group of teenagers wearing replica England soccer shirts demolished a tray of sandwiches of rib-eye steak and roasted red onions. To the strains of a passing Scottish pipe band, I did full justice to a toffee and banana tart. As the shadows lengthened, 10,000 partygoers headed for the pubs. From out of the fish market, there suddenly appeared a trolley of empty oyster shells. “Sad, isn’t it?” said a kindly red faced gent with a straw Panama. “But they did not die in vain, you know”

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