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Dundee Flower and Food Festival: Celebrity chefs impressed by ‘magnificent’ show

Chefs Paul Rankin and Nick Nairn proved an entertaining double act.
Chefs Paul Rankin and Nick Nairn proved an entertaining double act.

Crowds flocked from across Scotland for the Dundee Flower and Food Festival over the weekend.

Organisers hailed the event a huge success after up to 25,000 people attended the three-day celebration in Camperdown Park.

Competitions included flowers and floral arrangements, fruit and vegetables, baking and handcrafts, wine, honey and preserves.

Celebrity chefs Nick Nairn and Paul Rankin were the star guests pulling people in to their cooking demonstration double act.

The pair used Scottish produce to create grouse and monkfish dishes in the kitchen to the delight of the audience who packed into the food tent.

Nairn joked of his culinary sidekick: “I am enjoying showing everyone how much a better chef I am than him.Click here for a full photo gallery“We have had very good audiences throughout and they seem to like the banter of the Celtic cooks.

“We are also shamelessly promoting our new television series which airs next summer.

“We are enjoying using local produce like the grouse we made, which has all come from the Dundee area.

“We also used some beautiful fish which came from Peterhead.”

He joked that the fruit and vegetables on display in the produce tent were so good that his fellow chef kept trying to steal them.

The claim was firmly denied by Rankin, who did admit to being very impressed with many of the local trade stall sellers who offered him samples.

He said: “I have been enjoying the festival as it is not often you get a show where the food and flowers come together so well.

“People keep throwing pies, cheese and chocolates at me it’s been magnificent.

“There is so much going on, with local chefs and I have been really getting into what local producers are doing.

“Some of them are really world class and I was really impressed with the chocolatier Iain Burnett who I saw in the Discovery Food Marquee.

“As a foodie anorak I enjoy seeing these things and I also enjoyed talking to the potato man from the James Hutton Institute.”

Representing the flower side of the festival were the Beechgrove Garden team, who were on hand all weekend to give advice to the public.

The show’s George Anderson said it was important to encourage more young people to become involved in horticulture.

He said: “There is a constant need to nurture it and that is the secret to being a good gardener.

“The biggest test is to keep young people interested in growing so we can continue events like this.

“Gardening isn’t instant and once you’ve got it, it’s worse than a dog, you have to keep looking after it all the time.”

The TV gardener’s former student Gregor McGillivray is now a horticulture course leader at Dundee and Angus College, helping to hand down skills to the next generation.