Following the success of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Midsummer activities in 2016 at the Fairy Portal Camp, family fun filled celebrations return with the Midsummer Roman Feast on Sunday 25 June.
Inspired by the RSC’s Rome Season with the productions of Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus, audiences are invited to join a Roman festival in a day on the Avonbank Gardens in Stratford-upon-Avon. Roman festivities were characterised by decadence and excessive feasts; the wealthy seeking to impress with extravagant dishes and unusual delicacies; food often appearing to be one thing and turning out to be another.
Working with the RSC to create this lavish feast will be renowned food designers Blanch & Shock who will present a three-course meal, interspersed with moments of performance. Blanch & Shock find creative and unusual ways to explore and illustrate ideas through food. Their projects have included ‘Feast of the Dead’ in Hastings, with collaborators, Dens and Signals, to create a feast as part of Root 1066, the town’s commemoration of the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings; and being part of the current Wellcome exhibition ‘Electricity: The spark of life’ where they will be cooking a dinner inspired by the use of artificial refrigeration.
Mike Knowlden from Blanch & Shock said: ‘The menu for the Midsummer Roman Feast imagines what the Romans might have been eating in Stratford-upon-Avon at the time that the Empire reached Great Britain. We are preparing some ingredients that they might have brought with them, and some wild ones that they would have found here. It’s been exciting to research such old recipes and find the meeting points of their cuisine with the way we cook today. You can expect some unusual herbs and spices, a little splash of gore, lots of honey and some decadent Roman party tricks.’
