By 
Latvia’s relationship with the forest and the fields will take centre stage in Zaube on Saturday, 5 September, when the Zaube Wild Culinary Festival returns for its tenth edition. The free event in Zaube Manor Park, in Cēsis municipality, combines a food market, cooking demonstrations, lectures and hands-on activities around ingredients gathered from Latvia’s natural landscape.
The festival is a timely expression of Latvia’s late-summer food culture. Mushrooms, berries, herbs, fish, game and preserved produce are not presented simply as seasonal commodities, but as part of a living body of knowledge passed through families and rural communities. The organisers describe this year’s theme as “Source of Strength”, inviting visitors to explore the flavours, skills and experiences that connect food with place. ([wildfoodfest.lv](https://www.wildfoodfest.lv/?utm_source=openai))
A meeting point for traditional and modern cooking
The programme brings together professional chefs, home cooks, anglers, hunters, nature specialists and craftspeople. The festival’s official programme lists masterclasses led by chef Ingmārs Ladigs of Re-chef and chef Kristaps Reimanis, as well as sessions from Latvian host Māra Zemdega and demonstrations by Zaube’s hunters’ and anglers’ club.
That mixture is central to the event’s character. Professional cooks can introduce new techniques, while local participants contribute recipes, preservation methods and practical knowledge about ingredients. The result is less a conventional restaurant festival than an open-air exchange between culinary expertise and rural experience.
The Cēsis tourism service describes the festival as a meeting between intangible local heritage and contemporary professional cooking. It highlights traditions including the preparation of game, the collection and use of wild herbs, and the long-standing Latvian practices of mushroom and berry gathering. ([visit.cesis.lv](https://visit.cesis.lv/lielakie-pasakumi-cesu-novada-2026/?utm_source=openai))
Food as a form of local identity
For small communities, events such as Zaube’s festival can do more than attract visitors for a day. They create a public setting in which local producers can explain how food is made, where ingredients come from and why particular recipes matter. The market element gives visitors an opportunity to meet makers directly, while lectures and demonstrations make the knowledge behind the products visible.
One of the festival’s features this year is a presentation of “meadow meat”, connected with the Latvian Fund for Nature’s “Product of Natural Meadows” concept. According to the Cēsis tourism information, the initiative presents meat from animals fed on diverse meadow vegetation and links food quality with the maintenance of species-rich grasslands. ([visit.cesis.lv](https://visit.cesis.lv/zaubes-savvalas-kulinarais-festivals-svin-10-gadu-jubileju-ar-temu-speka-avots/?utm_source=openai))
The programme also includes a public preserving competition. Organisers invited visitors to bring a jar of their own savoury or sweet preserve, with entries judged by festival-goers for taste and appearance. It is a small but telling detail: preserving is both a practical response to the harvest season and a way of expressing household creativity.
A rural event with a broader message
Although the festival is rooted in Zaube, its subject reaches beyond one parish. Wild ingredients are increasingly part of conversations about regional food systems, low-waste cooking and the value of seasonal produce. The event offers those themes in an accessible form, through tasting, conversation and demonstration rather than abstract discussion.
It also presents rural Latvia as a place of knowledge and experimentation. The forest is not merely scenery, and traditional food is not treated as a museum display. Both become resources for contemporary cooks, producers and visitors looking for a closer connection between landscape and everyday meals.
The festival takes place from 11:00 to 17:00 in Zaube Manor Park. Entry is free. Cēsis municipality’s event listing confirms the date, while the municipality’s Amata administration lists the festival among the weekend’s public events and gives a longer operating window for the site. Visitors should check the organiser’s website for the latest programme details before travelling. ([pasakumi.cesis.lv](https://pasakumi.cesis.lv/pasakumu_teritorijas/cesis/?utm_source=openai))
Comments