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Long Table Feasts fit for a King or Queen foodie

Eat like kings and don’t leave the kingdom, this could easily describe the trendy farm based Long Table Feasts.
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Eat like kings and don’t leave the kingdom, this could easily describe the trendy farm based Long Table Feasts.

Farm-to-table feasts are next-level communal seating, which reconnects urban diners to the origins of their food. The theme is not uncommon, celebrating the harvest is one of the oldest stories in the world and long table dinners embrace the celebration preThanksgiving. The joy in sipping locally brewed beverages along with local prepared produce is as tribal and communal as a celebration can hope to be.

If you attend one of the locally organized Long Table Feasts, you will usually be served with family-style plates and meticulously prepared foods served and shared while placed in an uncommon location to add a bit more natural art to the setting. Often the tables are in a field, on a street, on a bridge, or on a racetrack.

They allow the natural setting and earthy foods to remain the superstar centerpiece of the night. The mission is to engage locals with their farming neighbours along with celebrating seasonal foods available in close proximity.

Neighbours meeting neighbours that alone is enough for me to want to ignore the world problems and really feel the sense of community. These dinners are more than a fancy meal, these dinners are a communal meal with a chance to talk to the farmer who grew or raised the contents on your plate. It is a new way to present and change local food culture.

The visual of a single long table set on an extraordinary site, existing in a place for just that day in grateful appreciation is somewhat breath taking and worth finding a babysitter.

The ability to enjoy a local meal with conversations around where it was grown and with the farmers is part of the goal but so is a good swath of the ‘good food’ movement.

There have been many Long Table Feasts throughout the Central Alberta, if you have missed them, no need to fret.

There are some dinners to inquire about and do it fast, they often sell out. To point you in the right direction and to spread the gospel of local producers around Central Alberta there are some serving local fare right here in Red Deer as well as our neighbouring community.

Feast on Main in Innisfail features their first long table Aug. 18th an event to support local farmers and ranchers.

Although it is also designed to celebrate the beautification of their community and to bring people to their main street, the proceeds are for youth groups and to support the local arts. Feast on Main is brought to you by the Innisfail Town Theatre and the Town of Innisfail along with many local businesses helping, donating and volunteering.

The Urban Farm Long Table Dinner Aug. 18 held on the racetrack in Red Deer wants you to experience the farms involved with a predinner tour out to some of Central Alberta’s finest producers such as the pastures of HGB Bison Ranch in Olds and out to Hidden Valley Garden’s fields. The tour doesn’t stop there; it will bring you to Red Deer’s own Troubled Monk Brewery. For the dinner, entertainment includes the sweet sounds of the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra set to an equine dance with the majesty of the horses.

Don’t wait to celebrate the local harvest in October, enjoy the sights and scents of late summer with your neighbours, with good food and find a Long Table Feast near you.

Sharlyn Carter lives in Red Deer and is a foodie with a gypsy soul. You can find more on social media and the web as Market Gypsy.