A new home for the Scottish Wild Food Festival

It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to finally write a blog about the new home of the Scottish Wild Food Festival, and the new team (incorporating lots of the previous team) hoping to take it forward. My name is Oona, and I’m the owner of Tir na nOg Holistic Centre, the venue for next year’s event, and part of a collaborative event team made up of not just the venue space, but also our on-site event production company, Moonrise Productions CIC, our foodie partners at The Soup Dragon, and most importantly, a growing community of foraging and wild food experts keen to share their passion for Scotland’s natural abundance.

The first Scottish Wild Food Festival in September 2019 was part of a ‘Wild Wonders’ project by Forth Valley LEADER to increase community awareness of wild food, encourage people outdoors to explore, and create connections with foraging enthusiasts internationally too.  The first event at Cardross Estate in 2019 was a great success, with lots of positive feedback from the hundreds of people who attended, and lots of enthusiasm from participants for building the event year on year.  Many of the facilitators expressed interest in carrying on past the two events that funding had been secured for, and when the possibility of bringing the festival to Tir na nOg was suggested, we were keen to put together a proposal for taking the event on, and excited to be more involved in the second scheduled festival.
In the intervening whirlwind of inactivity that was 2020, we saw dates for a May festival and hopes for a September reschedule both evaporate, but there was nonetheless plenty afoot behind the scenes, paving the way for the festival to take root, and hopefully thrive, here at Tir na nOg (near the village of Drymen, and close to Loch Lomond). So, please sharpen your pencils and get ready to mark in a new weekend of foraging delights in your diary in late spring of 2021, final dates to be confirmed very soon!

At 2021’s event, you can expect more of the family-friendly, informal festival atmosphere that was appreciated in 2019, and a similar combination of learning experiences unveiling the wonders of foraging in your local and not-so-local spaces.  There will be workshops and talks on the delicacies, teas and remedies to be found in abundance in hedgerows and woodlands; organic and artisan offerings from Scottish food producers; outdoor cookery demos; and of course oodles of food and drink to be enjoyed over the weekend and inspire your foraging year.

The new site here at Tir na nOg is a great mix of high quality permanent facilities (including the full-time home of the Soup Dragon café, whose owners Alex and Stephen contributed to the 2019 event and are part of the new team taking the event forward), and beautiful natural spaces, which offer an abundance of foraging finds.  At the end of a year that has turned daily life upside down in so many ways, for so many of us, it seems that one of the more positive side-effects has been a reawakening of our appreciation of the outdoors, and the pleasures to be had in simply being able to explore our natural surroundings.  For me, certainly, I have been surprised by the new discoveries made here in woodlands that I have wandered in for over 30 years, and as an absolute foraging novice it’s been fascinating to learn snippets from some of the Wild Wonders foraging collective and Mark Williams of Galloway Wild Foods, who are responsible for many of the original and upcoming  festivals’ offerings, as they showed us nOg folk some of the hidden treasures under our noses.  I look forward to many more discoveries here on site as we prepare for the festival itself and welcome more facilitators and visitors.

In the meantime, we hope to be sharing wild food info in regular blogs on here from some of the facilitators who will be offering free and bookable workshops, some snapshots of the Tir na nOg site to give you a sense of the space, and updates on additions to the festival program as we finalise plans.

So, onwards, and outwards, to 2021 and all that it offers!  See you in the woods!