FOOD, glorious food. Maybe not pease pudding and saveloys, or even jelly and custard, but almost everything else and most of it grown, reared or made locally.

Even the exotics like coffee and spices were being sold by people with good Yorkshire addresses.

Sired last year by local enthusiasm, out of desperation, the Dales Festival of Food and Drink is a lusty infant and the success of the second festival in Leyburn at the weekend seemed assured even before we reached the market place.

Visitors who'd chosen to park and walk, on a fresh May morning, instead of taking the shuttle bus were streaming back to the parking field with two, three or more carrier bags. A quick study of dealers' stickers on the parked cars showed many had travelled some distance to be there.

The belief that the English aren't interested in food was either trampled underfoot or suffocated in the crush in the food hall marquee.

They came, they tasted, they questioned, they compared and discussed. Squeezing into that stall and tiptoeing to see this, I heard talk of cooking methods, ingredients and what would go with what. For an uninterested race we were doing a pretty good impression of foodies.

Such foods, too. An unexpectedly wide range of smoked goods included not only cheese and fish, but also the delicately-flavoured smoked beef and lamb from the Dales Quality Meat Company, newly-launched at the festival. Jewel-tinted preserves; deep, glowing honeys; sausages of many flavours; cakes; puds; pies (with the "nowt left" notice waiting ready); dairy foods; organic veg and real ale.

It went beyond food; strawberry cream, lemon zest and tutti frutti were actually soaps made from natural ingredients and there was cheerful pottery tableware and solid wooden kitchen boards ... I'm bound to have missed someone.

And there were so many familiar faces behind the stalls, faces whose stories I knew, but faces known only from photographs. I'd been putting our Great North Country Fare features on the page during the year-long campaign and it was good to recognise so many of "our" people there.

Food is about nothing if not farmers and the festival's farming display underlined one of the organisers' original aims - showing off the good husbandry, skills and care which go into farm products.

Watching experts use a skill you'll never have is always a treat, no matter how many times you've seen someone shear a sheep.

Old-style fairground shows and live music provided diversions in the market place but there was more in the way of food, too.

The town centre car park was home to the theatre marquee, with day-long demonstrations - cookery, cheese making, chocolate making, floristry and the local primary school joining in to show the importance of healthy eating.

As the school's involvement shows, the festival spreads out to the wider community. Well, there's this great bandwagon in the market place, so why not jump on board - and they did.

We ate ecumenically. Lunch with the Methodists was a creamy broccoli and cheese flan on a plate which still staunchly proclaimed itself as Wesleyan Methodist.

Afternoon tea - fat brown pot with two cups each and a well-spiced teabread - came from the C of E, which also sold Traidcraft foods and offered floral displays in the church. At the other side of the town centre, the Society of Friends was selling Traidcraft goods, too.

Loose change could be dropped into a bucket in the food hall for the Friarage Hospital baby unit and, outside, a collector rattled a box for Chopsticks, which helps local people with learning disabilities. Car parking was marshalled by Royal British Legion members, with donations buckets handy.

There were knock-on benefits, too.

Those who walked to or from the parking field were popping in to businesses en route like the Tea Pottery and the Wensleydale Railway Association shop, where Sir found yet another postcard of Sir Nigel Gresley for his collection.

We can't have been the only festival visitors who remembered we needed some everyday item and nipped into a market place shop to find it.

It knocked-on beyond the town. As we'd pass the gates, I'd said, we could also go to the tulip weekend at Constable Burton Hall. So we did, were very glad we had, and now want to go back to see the garden in summer.

Judging from faces we saw again in Leyburn, others were following the same route to the festival. Maybe they, like us, will read the festival leaflet stuffed into the sensibly-sturdy carrier bags handed out in the food hall.

They'll look at the many attractions listed in the area and plan future visits. More knock-on! Leyburn is, after all, "a town for all seasons", as its signs proclaim.