THE ingredients might come from home, but the recipes will come from far away at this year's Bridport Food Festival. Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Thai chefs from in and around Bridport will demonstrate how to use Dorset produce in their international dishes as part of the festival's varied programme of events, starting today and culminating in the main three-day event at Asker Meadows from June 27 to 29.

Amanda Streatfeild, chairman of Bridport Local Food Group which runs the festival, said: "We were very keen to show that local food does not have to be steak and chips. You can make lots of things using local ingredients.

"We'd been trying in previous years to involve several very good restaurants in the town of Bridport along the lines of Thai, Indian and Chinese. But this year one of our committee members is Shige Takezoe, a Japanese chef who runs a small restaurant in his home just outside Bridport. He was good at going round and getting the other restaurants involved. They are part of our food culture; they buy the food locally and we were very keen to get them involved."

Shige who lives in North Chideock was holding a sushi-making masterclass today and will stage a one-night-only Japanese restaurant at Marsh Barn on Burton Road on Thursday.

Shige explained: "I will be doing two sittings, one from 6pm to 7.50pm and the second from 8pm to 9.30pm. There will be a maximum of 50 places in each sitting and I will do all the cooking myself."

Shige trained as a chef at Old Thorns Golf and Country Estate in Hampshire nine years ago and has been cooking since. Although his dry ingredients come from London, all his fresh ingredients he buys locally. Indeed, without the produce he buys from his local suppliers, he explains, he would not dream of attempting to cook Japanese food, which relies heavily on the quality of ingredients.

He elaborated: "I buy my meat from Framptons, my fish from Samways and my vegetables from Bridget's Market. There is a really good choice here in Bridport. Where else in this country would you find three good butchers and fishmongers in the town? It's impossible."

Other international food events will include a sizzling workshop on authentic Indian home cooking with Helen Choudhury from the Taj Mahal restaurant tomorrow and a counterpart on Chinese cookery from Mrs Ho of K Yuen on Wednesday.

Michael Michaud of Peppers by Post in West Bexington, who is also on the organising committee, will host the cookery demonstrations in the demonstration marquee on Saturday and Sunday, the theme of which will be exotic cooking using local ingredients. It is a theme close to his heart. "I'm from Maine in the States," he explained.

"But as Lebanese and French Canadian I come from an immigrant family and I'm an immigrant here."

Michael's work with chillies - he discovered that the naga morich, which he found in an Asian shop in Bournemouth, was one of the hottest chillies in the world - has made him many friends in the immigrant communities here in Dorset.

Like Amanda, Michael emphasised that international recipes could add value and variety to local food.

"The ingredients do not have to be really exotic," he said. "They can be things like chicken and potatoes."

During the festival weekend, June 27-29, there will also be a chance to sample some of Dorset's most unusual produce including Michael's chillies. "We are going to have a stall there and we are going to do Peppers by Post bonsai peppers, plants with small peppers growing on them to be used in the same way that people use pots of herbs in their kitchens," he said.

Then there will be biodynamic meat, blueberries from the Dorset Blueberry Company and cheese, meat and vegetables from across West Dorset.

Another festival theme this year is Year of Food and Farming,' a national campaign to bring together schools and farms. The highlight of this will be the judging of the Easy-Peasy gardening competition, organised by Washingpool Farm Shop and Really Cool Seeds of West Bexington. The gardens will be transported to the festival field for display, and the results of the competitions announced at noon this Sunday.

Nor is the event just about food. Bridport Round Table will be organising a beer festival, starting this Friday evening and running until Sunday afternoon, with a barbecue by the Lions Club on Friday night and another by the Rotary Club on Saturday. Up to 30 beers and ciders will be on offer, alongside live music and other entertainment such as a coconut shy and bouncy castle, in a family-friendly atmosphere.

For a full programme listings and more information, visit www.bridportfoodfestival.org.uk