JAMIE OLIVER’S TOSSET
FEAST FIASCO
It had been publicised for
several weeks, although those of us involved in the local background research
had known about it for several months. A
revival of the Tosset Feast of Stalmine in Lancashire, to be filmed for Channel
4 today, 14 August. Details were kept top secret, but it didn’t take long for
someone who’s been a news librarian and parliamentary researcher to work out
that filming was to be done by Fresh One, the film company owned by the
celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Anyway, so far so good. The centrepiece of the
programme, one of a series about forgotten foods, was to be the Tosset Cake,
Tosset being assumed to be a corruption of St Oswald, once the patron saint of
the parish church in Stalmine.
A link for the history and
recipe –
Once the wraps were off,
publicity began in earnest in the five parishes of Over Wyre. Big recreation of
the Fosset Feast up at Parrox Hall in Preesall! Everybody from the five Over
Wyre parishes is invited (that’s upwards of 11,000 people).
What the production
company didn’t tell anybody was that attendance was going to be limited to just
350 people. Hundreds of disappointed people, children as well as adults, were
turned away, some having travelled quite a distance on public transport rather
than add to parking problems (me included.)
There’s no egg in the
recipe, but plenty on the faces of the production company and organisers. And I
rather think that Jamie Oliver’s name is going to be mud in the Over Wyre
villages for a long time to come.
PS the programme went out on Friday 17 Jan 2014. In fairness to Jamie's film company, the programme was hugely entertaining and I enjoyed it. Caveats remain, however.
PS the programme went out on Friday 17 Jan 2014. In fairness to Jamie's film company, the programme was hugely entertaining and I enjoyed it. Caveats remain, however.
