|
||||||||||||||||||
|
Hokitika Wildfoods Festival
As well as the food and drink experience there will be continuous entertainment all afternoon. For information on the next wild food festival, including merchandise, dates and how to contract for ticket sales, click onto the website www.wildfoods.co.nz.
When Hokitika held its first Wildfoods
Festival back in 1990, organisers did not realise that huge following
it would attract.
A local woman, Claire Bryant, had been
looking for an activity with a West Coast theme to mark the completion
of the project. 'One day the idea suddenly came to me
that wild foods was it. Coasters are self starters, they're innovative
and help each other too. They took enthusiastically to the idea. ' she
said. Hokitika's first Wild foods Festival attracted
a crowd of 1800 people who gathered on the Quayside to 'taste the West
Coast'. There was a wide range of food on offer at the 28 stalls including
prize winning venison goulash, possum pate, vegetable kebabs, smoked
eel and whitebait patties.
Formed in 1910, the band was made up of
men who had immigrated to the West Coast from all parts of the world,
bringing with them a rich range of musical tradition. The Kokatahi Band
has entertained at every Wildfoods Festival and will be back again next
year to lend a distinctive West Coast flavour to the event. Entertainment has always been a key feature
of the festival. Clowns, folk singers, buskers, skydivers and many other
acts have combined to add something special to festival day. There are
also cooking demonstrations from a wide range of experts and home brew
competitions which feature some distinctive West Coast products. And
no West Coast function would be complete without a bush dance. Festival
goers love this unique local institution.
The first Hokitika Wild foods Festival
won a West Coast Tourism Award of Excellence and it was decided to turn
it into an annual event. More recognition followed. The festival was
a finalist in the prestigious American Express New Zealand Tourism Awards
in 1991 and 1993. And the winner of the 1996 South Island's Most Unique
Events Award.
A bushman's hut serving billy tea brewed
as the old timers used to drink it was one of the most popular stalls
and there were many other West Coast products coming in for special
attention. After all huhu grubs don't taste the same without the subtle
rimu or kahikatea flavour available only in this region. Westcargots,
too, are unique - a local snail cooked in white wine. Then there are
delicacies like gumboot milkshakes, gorse flower wine, spagnum moss
candy floss, high protein earthworms, blue fin tuna, scollops, whisky
sausages, mussels, possum and bambi burgers, kumara patties, home made
ice cream, pigs trotters, West Coast whitebait and the list goes on. Festival organisers have had to balance
MAF regulations with people's expectations of what a West Coast Wildfoods
Festival is all about, with meat like possum and rabbit needing careful
screening before it can be sold to eat. A workshop was held in Hokitika
to inform stall holders on these issues and a good working compromise
has been established. Those feeling adventurous will be able to try
possum again next year, while the National Heart Foundation's 'Wild
at Heart' competition will encourage stall holders to produce healthy
wildfood.
The old style West Coast bushman was often
a solitary individual but any early visitor chancing on his hut in the
bush could be assured of the best in hospitality. Much has been written
about early treats like camp oven bread, cooked to unique West Coast
|
