Fried Festival of Flavours

This Thursday, Perth’s tenth Southern Fried Festival gets underway and here in the Small City office our mouths are watering at the prospect of some of the delicious food that will be on offer throughout this magnificent weekend!

The festival is renowned for the fantastic American roots music that echoes around Perth on the last weekend in July, but as well as giving your ears the chance to sample the sound of America’s south your taste buds can also get in on the act.

Once again the festival is dishing up some fine southern food, offering the people of Perth and visitors alike the chance to enjoy grub you simply cannot get anywhere else outside of America’s southern states. Horsecross Arts head chef, Martin Buchan, has once again teamed up with the fantastic Dr Peggy Brunache to come up with an authentic and inclusive menu, guaranteed to make your belly rumble.

It’s amazing how Perth embraces this festival. There’s such a buzz around the whole place for the weekend, it’s almost electric! Martin and Peggy are bringing back some old favourites including American Southern mac ‘n’ cheese – much to Holly’s delight – as well as introducing Friday Night Fish Fry, slow cooked Texas style BBQ brisket and more. To wash all that amazing food down, you’ll need to order a pitcher of the famous Alabama Slammer cocktail!

Peggy has been involved in Southern Fried since the very beginning, and she’s excited ahead of another fantastic weekend for the 2017 festival.

“It’s amazing how Perth embraces this festival. There’s such a buzz around the whole place for the weekend, it’s almost electric! There is really no other festival like this outside of the American south. Where else can you get fantastic American roots music and the food to match?

“The great thing is you don’t need to have a ticket to one of the paid gigs to enjoy the Southern food. It means we can include everybody, and they can come down and enjoy the atmosphere of this amazing weekend even if they have missed out on tickets.

“We’ll start serving the food on the Thursday right through until the Sunday and it’s such a fantastic opportunity to sample this authentic cuisine that you simply wouldn’t get to taste anywhere else in the UK!”

There are some great acts taking to the free music stages throughout the weekend, including Perth’s very own True Gents and the local Southern rockers Red Pine Timber Company, who will both take to the free outdoor stage on Friday. The stage is based on Perth Concert Hall Plaza, and the food will be available inside the concert hall building.

Peggy is proud of this year’s menu and how it accommodates people with different dietary requirements to make sure nobody misses out on this Southern celebration.

“We change the menu every single day of the festival so each day there’s something new to be tried. We’ve also made a great effort to ensure that our food is inclusive to all. That means we cater for vegans and vegetarians, provide gluten free food and can also offer halal chicken on request. It’s truly inclusive but it still retains that Americana authenticity.

We cater for vegans and vegetarians, provide gluten free food and can also offer halal chicken on request. “I personally love the Texas BBQ brisket we have on offer this year! We have four different kinds of barbeque sauce and they’re completely different to the sauce that you guys are used to here in the UK. Make sure you wash it down with an Alabama Slammer!”

The festival kicks off on Thursday evening with a celebration of the music of Chuck Berry at Perth Concert Hall. The free outdoor stage will be opened on Friday 28^th July by Perth’s True Gents and Red Pine Timber Company, and there are gigs taking place in venues throughout the city centre over the weekend. You can read more about the acts in our previous article here.

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You can still buy tickets for the festival and for more information you can head over to our ‘What’s On’ page.