CELEBRITY chef Keith Floyd said he felt it was his duty to promote home grown Lancashire food.

The TV cookery show host launched the Pennine Lancashire Festival of Food and Culture at a dinner at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel in Clayton-le-Moors on Friday.

And he said: "We are part of a multicultural society but Britain as an island takes products from across the world on the whole.

"This food festival is incorporating the different cultures within our society whilst celebrating home grown produce.

"And I believe it is up to us, and myself as a chef, to promote our produce.

"There is great fish and other foods that are grown here in Lancashire and the country that young chefs today can promote.

"When I was a young boy we didn't have a great deal of money, I used to catch fish and so forth for dinner, like a hunter gatherer.

"And on one level this festival gets to the grass roots of food in the same way.

"I enjoy events in the north of the country, down south they are very reserved. I find audiences up here very receptive.

"I was in Sheffield and I could have been Mick Jagger on the stage the way the I was welcomed by the audience.

"If I can support things that make people feel good about food and themselves I regard it as an honour. "I feel I am giving something back."