Ahh, the huckleberry! Anyone who has spent significant time in the Mountain States of the U.S. has surely encountered huckleberry jams, syrups, and milkshakes, and the taste is unforgettable. They look like blueberries but, as a food (as opposed to horticulturally, about which we know nothing), there are two main distinctions: they tend to be seedy, and the flavor, to us, is like a more intense combination of blueberry and blackberry. They only grow wild – all efforts to farm them have failed. While they are generally associated with the Mountain States (they are the state fruit of Idaho), plenty of huckleberries can be found elsewhere – they are abundant in New York forests, for instance. Continue reading
Category: June (Page 2 of 2)
Have a rooster that won’t shut up? Bring him to the town of Rogue River in Oregon on Saturday, June 25th and he might just make you a little spending cash. That’s the date of the 63rd annual Rooster Crow, held since 1953. Each competing rooster is watched for 30 minutes and the one who crows most often is the winner. If you don’t have a farm background you might be surprised to learn that the winning rooster typically crows over 60 times in that half hour. That’s over twice a minute. Imagine living with that outside your bedroom window! Continue reading
The first Alma Center Strawberry Festival was held way back in 1945, and the local Lions Club upholds the tradition to this day. First thing to know about this three-day party: there’ll be strawberry shortcake! Isn’t that enough? But there’s more: how about brats (this is Wisconsin, after all) and chicken and hot pork sandwiches? Continue reading
Louisiana Peach Festival, Ruston LA, June 24th and 25th 2016
The peaches that hang from the trees in north-central Louisiana orchards are ripe and ready to eat from mid-June through mid-July. Until 2011, some of these locally grown peaches were peeled and cut up by volunteers. Then the Louisiana Tech Dairy incorporated them into the locally beloved peach ice cream that was only produced for the two days of the Louisiana Peach Festival in Ruston (the flavor was too labor-intensive for year-round production). Continue reading
Are you a seed spitter? A really, really good seed spitter? As in, can you break the world seed spit record of 68 feet, 9 1/8 inches? Because if you can spit a watermelon seed farther than the current world record, you will be awarded a bonus prize of $500. That’s in addition to the regular cash prizes awarded in the World Championship Seed Spitting Contest to be held at the Luling Watermelon Thump this year. Continue reading
The Italian-American fishing community of Gloucester, Massachusetts has sponsored an annual festival to honor the patron saint of fishermen, St. Peter, since the early 1900s. The Italian section of Gloucester will be decorated with colored lights, fifty archways, flowers, and a life-size statue of St. Peter from Wednesday, June 22nd through Sunday, June 26th. There will be five days of live musical entertainment and sporting competitions, including the famed Greasy Pole Contest and the Seine Boat Races. Continue reading
2016 is the 74th year for South Carolina’s “oldest continuing festival.” The Hampton County Watermelon Festival begins next Saturday, June 18th, and will continue through Sunday, June 26th. Most, but not all, of the events take place in the town of Hampton. Some of the edible highlights: Continue reading
Tekoa (pronounced tee’-ko), a small eastern Washington town, is holding their annual Slippery Gulch Celebration next weekend (Friday, 6/17/16 through Sunday, 6/19/16). Tekoa gets a jump on the festival proper with a fishing derby on Wednesday and a “Royal Tea” Thursday evening, the 16th. Friday night will see a teen game night and adult dance. Saturday’s the biggest day, beginning with the Chamber breakfast at 7:30 a.m., which, in the past, has included German sausage and cinnamon rolls. Continue reading
Hot summers call for cool watermelon! For over half a century the town of Monticello, just east of Tallahassee in northern Florida, has put on an annual celebration of this ultra-refreshing summer fruit. Jefferson County has been a major supplier of fruit and seeds to the rest of the country since the late 1800s. This year’s 65th annual festival began last Saturday (6/6/15) with all the pageants and will continue through Saturday the 20th of June. Continue reading
Strawberry Days, Glenwood Springs CO, June 17th through 19th 2016
The dates? Friday through Sunday, June 17th through the 19th, 2016. It’s the 119th (119th!) Annual Strawberry Days in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Pie Day is Friday at 9 am at the First United Methodist Church. The food booths open at noon Friday in Sayre Park. There will also be a beer garden. The food highlight of Strawberry Days has to be the free strawberries and ice cream handed out on Saturday after the 10 a.m. parade, in Sayre Park (named Strawberry Park for the weekend). Fresh, local strawberries will be available for purchase all weekend. And don’t skip the Rotary Pancake Breakfast Sunday morning. Continue reading
Marysville Strawberry Festival, Marysville WA, June 11th through 19th 2016
The town of Marysville in Washington state is situated between the Cascade Mountains and the Puget Sound, in a region where rainfall, sunshine, and soil conditions are ideal for the growing of strawberries, a major local crop. In 1932 town leaders gathered with the thought of coming up with some way to publicize the local berry, and the Marysville Strawberry Festival was born. Today it’s one of the oldest festivals in the state. The 2016 fest will run from Saturday, June 11th through Sunday the 19th. Continue reading
A pink tomato festival. With no prior knowledge of the event we would have assumed that this is a celebration of a locally grown tomato that ripens to a pink (rather than deep red) color (there ARE such tomatoes). But no… what they are celebrating, here in Bradley County, Arkansas, is a variety of tomato that ships well if picked when the tomato tops just barely turn pink (ripening further after picking). That pink tomato is now the official state fruit and vegetable of Arkansas. Continue reading
Times have changed! Here’s how we began a story about Harlan’s Poke Sallet Festival a decade ago: “Think you make the best poke sallet in Harlan County? Want to pit yourself against Kentucky’s finest poke sallet cooks? Want to know what poke sallet is? Then attend the Poke Sallet Festival in Harlan, Kentucky this week. . . . Poke sallet meals will be available at Jac’s Coffee Shop, Mary’s Country Store, and the Coal Miners Cafe.” Those days (and those three restaurants) are long one. We see no mention of the poke sallet cooking contest on the festival website either. Today, poke sallet serves as more of a regional mascot than an edible at the festival, which focuses on fun and games and entertainment. Continue reading
This year (2015) marks the 106th Lebanon Strawberry Festival in Lebanon, Oregon, which was started in 1909 to celebrate the Mid-Willamette Valley strawberry. The festivities begin today, Thursday, June 4th and continue through the weekend, at Cheadle Lake Regional Park. Continue reading
The white bass (or sand bass) is the state fish of Oklahoma, and spring is the time for local anglers to catch ‘em. Madill, Oklahoma celebrates with the annual National Sand Bass Festival, held this year (2015) from June 1st through the 6th. This 41st festival, which was first held in 1963 (the festival was not held from 1976 through 1987), will mostly take place downtown on the square. There will be arts and crafts booths, a car show, a midway, a fun run, horseshoes, fishing of course (presumably not in the town square), terrapin races, food booths, and free live music. Continue reading
