Field Day fes­ti­val has built a rep­u­ta­tion for intel­li­gent cura­tion and secur­ing exclu­sives – this year PJ Har­vey and James Blake are head­lin­ing, with artists such as Float­ing Points, Blos­soms, Goat and Fat White Fam­i­ly as part of the eclec­tic line­up. I’ll always be grate­ful to Field Day for man­ag­ing to entice the elu­sive Mazzy Star onto their stage in 2012.

The team are work­ing sim­i­lar mag­ic with their food offer­ings this year too, and as it’s the fes­ti­val’s 10th birth­day, they’ve curat­ed an even more adven­tur­ous glob­al feast of food traders. Many of them are a reflec­tion of the buzzy east Lon­don street food scene hap­pen­ing around the loca­tion of the fes­ti­val site, such as Born and Raised wood-fired piz­zas with anglo-inspired top­pings like Beef and Horse­rad­ish, plus some inter­est­ing traders from fur­ther afield. I spoke to a selec­tion who will be pitch­ing up at this year’s festival.

 Wholefood Heaven

The Whole­food Heav­en team are look­ing for­ward to get­ting back to the fes­ti­val this year, ready to serve up their Bud­dha Bowl veg­gie fes­ti­val feasts in a box. Their sig­na­ture dish is a deli­cious Mas­saman cur­ry with new pota­to, pineap­ple and soya chunks, along with crunchy car­rot and home­made kim­chi pick­le, a healthy serv­ing of flash-steamed sea­son­al greens and organ­ic brown rice. Plus hal­lou­mi if you so desire.

Bud­dha Bowl is run by life­long veg­e­tar­i­an and home­opath Char­lotte and her hus­band David, a pro­fes­sion­al chef. I asked Char­lotte about their Field Day expe­ri­ence. “We do a week­ly mar­ket at neigh­bour­ing White­cross Mar­ket and we see a lot of our cus­tomers at Field Day,” she says. “We love the music and atmos­phere, it suits what we do. We get tied up with serv­ing food, but if we get the chance we pop out and enjoy the music.”

Crabbieshack

Over from the Kent coast with their sea­far­ing burg­er menu are Crab­bieshack. Imag­ine soft-shell crab, coat­ed in their own her­by Old Bay bat­ter and then deep-fried for an intense flavour and superb crunch fac­tor. This gets deliv­ered to you in a brioche bun along with fresh sal­ad and their tasty sauce.

Dougie from the Crab­bieshack team had this to say about last year’s Field Day for­ay: “We loved it, it was one of of the high­lights of last sum­mer, and we got to see Pat­ti Smith!”

This year, Crab­bieshack are bring­ing a new dish for festie fans. “We’re serv­ing a spe­cial scal­lop dish with toma­to, pome­gran­ate, avo­ca­do mojo and almond aioli. That’s along­side our usu­al Crab­bieshack menu of soft shell crab burg­ers, sal­ads and fries”. Adds Dougie: “We are so excit­ed to be back for a sec­ond time at Field Day, the line up looks awe­some and in a very hec­tic sum­mer sched­ule it will be a plea­sure to spend the week­end in Lon­don.” Our plea­sure, too.

Dorshi

Annie Maes

Good and Proper 

While cof­fee has been show­ing off its cool and sexy cre­den­tials for sev­er­al years now, Emi­lie Holmes, a true tea afi­ciona­do, has slow­ly been work­ing a sim­i­lar rein­car­na­tion on the leafy brew. Yes, that ‘nice cup of tea’ has been put into its right­ful place, as a fine sin­gle-ori­gin drink to be enjoyed and savoured, and brewed prop­er­ly too. As the founder of Good and Prop­er tea com­pa­ny, Emi­lie Holmes offers a choice of good qual­i­ty teas from her fes­ti­val van, so this is a good time to forego the frappuccino.

The team have spent the last year end­less­ly tast­ing teas, to form their now more exten­sive col­lec­tion of black, oolong, green and white teas, as well as, for the first time, herbs. Each has been num­bered accord­ing to the order in which they dis­cov­ered, tast­ed and added them to the col­lec­tion. And the teas are brewed using the ‘Steam­punk’ – a machine offer­ing craft brew­ing tech­nol­o­gy which brings out the best in the teas nat­ur­al flavour. The Steam­punk will be mak­ing its way to the fes­ti­val too. And for those in need of a lit­tle some­thing to munch on to accom­pa­ny their brew, Good and Prop­er’s sour­dough crum­pets will fit the bill.

Liberty Cheesesteak Co

Also mak­ing a sec­ond appear­ance at Field Day are the Lib­er­ty Cheeses­teak Co – they are the mae­stros of the famous Philly Cheeses­teaks. I spoke to one of the part­ners, JP, a bona fide Philadel­phia man who has per­fect­ed the spe­cial­i­ty, a com­bo of ten­der rib-eye beef steak and their orig­i­nal cheese recipe in a Hoagie roll. The com­pa­ny are the only ones to bring the Philly spe­cial­i­ty to the coun­try and this year, they bring their food truck to the fes­ti­val site.

Any­thing else on the menu? JP says this year, there will be addi­tion­al good­ies on the menu, such as South Philly Style Ital­ian Roast Pork (pic­tured), and Buf­fa­lo Chick­en Cheesesteaks.

Field Day fes­ti­val, 10th and 11th June, Vic­to­ria Park,