Jars on display for the Marmalade Awards (Photo Hermione Hasell-McCosh)
When: 2nd & 3rd March 2013, 10am – 4pm
Where: Dalemain Mansion and Gardens, near Penrith, Cumbria
£: Festival entry Adults 4.50 and children free. To enter the Marmalade awards visit www.dalemainmarmaladeawards.co.uk before 17th February.
What is it?
Next month Dalemain Mansion and Gardens host the Marmalade Awards in Cumbria. Everyone who sends in a jar gets their marmalade tasted by a panel of expert judges in the hope of winning a bronze, silver or gold award. The overall winners of the competition get their marmalade sold at the iconic grocer, Fortnum and Mason in London. Their recipe will be carefully reproduced and sold on those revered shelves with a percentage of profits going to charity.
Marmalade Awards & Festival (Photo Hermione Hasell-McCosh)
Entries to the 2013 awards are now open and jars from every type of marmalade maker are welcomed with categories catering for children, serious artisan and commercial producers, B&B owners and even those abroad in the international class. If you enter the awards, you also help raise money for two worthwhile charities, Hospice at Home and Action Medical Research for children. All amateur entry fees go direct to charity – since the contest was launched eight years ago £90,000 has been raised.
If making some top-notch marmalade is not your thing then why not eat it instead? The Marmalade Festival gives you the chance to view the entries for the awards, taste over 200 different marmalades, attend workshops, lectures and even a marmalade church service. The most famous marmalade lover of them all, Paddington Bear presides over the Festival itself making guest appearances.
The programme of events also includes a food fair, crafts, Peruvian music, Paddington Bear, children’s activities including marmalade making and book readings, llamas and wine tasting. The event kicks off National Marmalade Week which encourages people to try, buy or make marmalade.
More info: www.dalemainmarmaladeawards.co.uk