This weekend my Dad and I went to a Chilli Festival in Wimborne St Giles, in Dorset. I have never been to any sort of food festival before but I really enjoyed this, and I'm not even a huge lover of chilli's - I'm more on the mild to medium chilli vibe.
St Giles House and grounds
This was the 5th Chilli Festival held at St Giles' House and grounds and what a wonderful venue, with over 50 different food/market stalls, full of different chilli sauces and dips to try before you buy, along with cheese, chocolate, ice cream, cider and many other stalls. There was a lot of variety considering it was a chilli festival - there was definitely something for everyone, no matter how much (or little) spice you wanted.
A selection of some chilli sauces from one of the stalls
You could buy plants too so we decided to buy a chilli plant called a 'stumpy, which is a dwarf chilli which has around 20,000 Scoville units - meaning that they are classed as a medium heat chilli, perfect for cooking with. I loved how cute they looked, obviously meaning they would not blow my head off if I ate one...right?
Stumpy Dwarf Chilli Plant
We noticed a cider tent so headed straight there, when we noticed they also did a chilli cider my Dad was set on getting one. He bought the chilli cider which came complete with a chilli. I tried a bit of the chilli and ginger cider, which was refreshing but you still got a bit of a kick. However I settled on a pint of medium cold cider as I'm not a great lover of ginger.
Chilli Cider - Bridge Farm Cider
I came over all brave and decided to try the chilli cider, and was pleasantly surprised! It was smooth to the taste but had a kick to it whenever I breathed in for around 10 minutes afterwards. My Dad loved this, he even ate the chilli when he had finished the bottle!
All these ciders were brewed at Bridge Farm in Dorset, and they were well worth a go. Very refreshing but it was great to try something a bit different.
This was the chilli sauce that was so hot that it blew my Dad's face off, but he then proceeded to buy a bottle of it! That man is so hardcore it's ridiculous.
The last event of the day was a chilli eating contest, which was just amazing, how these guys did it is beyond me! One bite of a Jalapeño and I'm not let alone a chilli that is 100X the heat!The final chilli they ate was a Dorset Naga which has a 923,000 rating on the Scoville rating, to put that into perspective a jalapeño is 2,500 - 5,000 Scoville.Damn that's hot!
Finally I finished off the day with a Pimms, you can't go wrong. Have you ever been to any food or drink festivals that you would recommend? x
