By Joy Watters and Graeme Cleland

THIS YEAR’S Dundee Flower and Food Festival attracted record crowds over the weekend, with 25,500 people drawn to what is now acknowledged as the best event of its kind in the country.

The turnout marks a 10% increase on last year.

Visitors were queuing well before opening time on Saturday and yesterday, and later cars began backing up in all directions from the entrance to Camperdown Park.

The increase in the show’s popularity, with beautiful sunshine throughout, delighted the organisers.

Lord Provost John Letford, chairman of the City of Discovery Campaign, said, “This year’s show was an unqualified success with a record number of visitors.

“The flower and vegetable displays were a sight to behold and the cookery demonstrations in the food marquee were as popular as ever. Each element of the festival was first-rate this year and it certainly lived up to its billing as Scotland’s premier event of its kind.”

The ambit of this year’s festival extended beyond gardens and food to music, arts and crafts and a range of trade and produce stalls.

Saturday’s emphasis was on organic, both the produce itself and its use in some delicious recipes.

Celebrity chef Nick Nairn and staff from his cook school at Port of Menteith, near Stirling, decamped to Dundee to demonstrate their skills.

It was Nick’s fourth visit to the Dundee festival and he said he was delighted to be back. “There’s always a great reception here.”

Nick’s cookery philosophy brings together healthy eating and good Scots produce. He chooses organic, and produce grown by his wife in her garden is used in his school. At Dundee, he was sourcing locally to get the freshest ingredients and best of flavour.

Nairn Cook School lecturer John Webber and senior tutor Alan Mathieson cooked up several mouthwatering meals over the weekend in the food tent.

Nick created two demonstrations featuring such treats as scallops, pancetta and lemon butter sauce, chicken saltimbocca and hot banana and lemon souffle.

Nick’s advice to the shopper wanting to buy organic but feeling supermarkets charge over the odds for such produce is to look for an organic box scheme, of which there are several in this area, to go to farmers’ markets or grow your own.

“The great thing about box schemes is that you don’t know what you are going to get. You will be introduced to new fruit and vegetables and learn how to cook them,” he said.

Well-known organic gardener Bob Flowerdew was also at the show on Saturday and yesterday, tasting some of the chefs’ meals and talking about his approach to gardening.

It was his first trip to Dundee and he enjoyed the sunshine, as a previous trip north of the border was characterised by heavy rain.

He was full of praise for the children’s tent as a good means of bringing forth a new crop of gardeners.

Bob, a farmer’s son from Norfolk, waxes eloquent about gardening in all forms. He rejects an over-rigid approach to horticulture, typified in his comment, “Why not have daisies on the lawn—how else are children going to make daisy chains?”

People should not feel constrained to follow what they see but make their own choices while “making this little bit of the planet greener.”

In one of his talks he spoke of the benefit of eating organic. While there is a debate on whether it is better nutritionally, he said the taste of home-grown organic food cannot be beaten.

Interestingly, he advised the gardening public not to listen to experts (he describes himself as a “Bob of all trades”) who were not interested in producing the tastiest food.

He was speaking about the garden from the point of view of someone who grows for themselves, not for perfecting produce but growing for the table and getting the most flavour.

He said some growers sprayed apples 14 times, only four to protect the crop and the rest to make it look good. The home gardener had the advantage of not having to do this. “People are now aware that a chemical solution might work, but may not be what they need.”

Bob has been on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time for 12 years and has particularly enjoyed the programme since its makeover. “We stopped getting the questions in advance and this made it more spontaneous.”

Visitors to the show were keen to put their queries to Bob.

Celebrity TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson was at the show yesterday demonstrating how to cook healthy organic food and talking about the GI diet.

He said he enjoyed attending such events. “I think if you get a lot of enjoyment out of your life then you should put something back, and it’s good to come to a new area and see new things,” he said.

“Scotland has some of the finest produce available. I source lots of ingredients for my restaurants from here so I’m always happy to come up and may-be get the chance to discover something special.”

Antony was pleased to hand out prizes to the winners of the Tayside Healthy Choice Awards. He paid tribute to the premises in Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross that have provided healthy food choices to customers over the past year.

Three premises met the strict criteria to achieve the National Scottish Healthy Choice—the cafeteria of insurance company Axis-Shield, and the Kingsway Campus cafeteria of Dun- dee College were both highly commended, while Out to Lunch within the school of nursing at Ninewells achieved commended level.

The smell of smokies being cooked by Iain Spink filled the air outside the food tent and attracted the attention of both celebrity chefs, Nairn and Worrall Thompson.

Iain comes from a long line of fish merchants in Arbroath and began working in the family business full-time at the age of 16 in the well-known fish processing business R. R. Spink and Sons.

He said, “It’s been great to hear guys like Nick Nairn and Antony Worrall Thompson saying nice things about my smokies and being at the show has really helped my business, it’s taken off in a big way.”

* The winner of our Baxters luxury hamper competition was David Smart of Torridon Road, Broughty Ferry.