Apples, Banana Slugs : State Yields Cornucopia of Festivals

Make no mistake about it, Bub, this here is ‘choke country.

At one end of town is the Artichoke Inn; at the other, the Giant Artichoke Restaurant. In between, a sign spanning the main street claims Castroville as the “Artichoke Center of the World.” From under that sign pass fully 85% of all the homely but toothsome thistles grown in this country.

Money and Attention

How better, then, to have a little fun, raise a little money and attract a little attention than to publicly and prodigiously lionize the artichoke?

This tiny coastal farm town 70 miles south of San Francisco has been at it for 28 years, attracting upwards of 50,000 ‘choke-aholics every September and making its annual Artichoke Festival one of America’s biggest crop parties.

Along with the equally popular Gilroy Garlic Festival, Castroville’s ‘choke fest also is helping to make California the country’s most festive farm state, with a cornucopia of crop celebrities sprouting from Oxnard to Dinuba.

Plenty of states have a festival or two to celebrate their top crops--from Washington apples to Florida oranges; some put on a dozen or more pageants. None, however, can match the variety and number of festivals in California, where hardly a week passes without someone celebrating something somewhere, either exotic kiwis or good ol’ sweet corn.

“They are springing up all over the place now, to celebrate any vegetable or fruit or object you can think of,” said Budd Perez, volunteer booster of a successful Strawberry Festival in, of all places, Prunedale. “You can’t hardly find a place without one any more.”

The number of California festivals now approaches 100--not counting county fairs or general-purpose “harvest festivals.” Eight towns sponsor apple festivals, four celebrate blackberries, and at least 14 fete wine, grapes or both.

Banana Slug Festival

The trend has gained enough attention to prompt parodies in several of the state’s more hip small towns. Monte Rio, for example, hosts the annual Banana Slug Festival--the “Slugfest”--and Coulterville sponsors a Coyote Howling Festival, while Forestville and Columbia both honor poison oak.

Elizabeth Poole, publisher of The Paper, an alternative weekly in Monte Rio and the banana slugs’ best friend, said the Slugfest began as a joke because other small towns had something to celebrate “but nothing will grow under our (shady) redwoods . . . except the banana slug.”

The panorama of agriculture honored in California is remarkable. South Carolina may salute hominy grits and Maine the wild blueberry, but California parties for just about anything that grows on trees or sprouts from the ground--from almond blossoms to zucchini.

Some crops are natural California celebrities--avocados, oranges and dates--but who would have guessed the Golden State also had soft spots for potatoes and cotton and dry beans? Seafood also has been caught up in the trend: clams, crabs, squid and salmon all have their own festivals; three towns champion the crawdad.

Flower festivals also have begun to blossom, with festivals starring lilies and begonias, rhododendrons and daffodils. Festival fever has even hit several cities entirely without agriculture--Pacifica, for example, plays host to the Fog Festival and Sutter Creek celebrates sourdough bread.

Several things account for the flourish of festivals, organizers said. Many are started to raise cash for local charities. Other festivals are thrown by growers to promote their produce.

A spokeswoman at the California Department of Food and Agriculture said the festivals were one factor behind the economic rebound now being enjoyed by the state’s farmers, who last year grossed $14.6 billion for growing 530 different crops.

‘Terrifically Important’

“The festivals are terrifically important to marketing wine,” noted Marian Baldy, wine-marketing specialist and agriculture professor at California State University, Chico. “They introduce a lot of people to small regional wines in a very low-key way, away from that intimidating atmosphere so often associated with wines.”

Indeed, the Almond Blossom Festival in Ripon has helped California’s almond growers crack the tough Japanese market by giving them a cheery, crop-specific event to which they invite important Japanese importers and retailers, an official at the California Almond Growers Assn. said.

The Kiwi Growers of California, meanwhile, believe that their Kiwifruit Blossom Festival in Chico this spring helped further open the domestic market to their decorative South Pacific fruit. California, they note, is not only the biggest state in population, but also a frequent national trend-setter.

Prickly Problem

The kiwi festival moves to a new town each year, pointing out a potentially prickly problem--California’s bounty is so diffuse that some growers choose not to sponsor festivals because they cannot decide where to hold them.

“Production is spread all over the state and it would be difficult to pick one spot for the festival--you’d risk offending a lot of people,” said Wade Whitfield, president of the California Iceberg Lettuce Commission in Salinas.

Although many festivals are designed to break even and a few manage to lose a little each year, others raise large sums of money. The Prunedale Strawberry Festival in June, for example, raised $30,000 to $40,000 for its sponsors, the Lions club and North Monterey County Mothers’ Club. Perez said the money will be used for scholarships, local scouting groups, a new park and other benefits for the city’s 1,500 residents.

Informal Operation

No one yet tracks the total amount of money raised by all crop festivals in California, although the state Department of Food and Agriculture is starting to take a closer look at them. One problem in accounting for the money is that many festivals are run informally, on a year-to-year basis.

Most festivals are sponsored by nonprofit, community-based groups, but the field has grown enough to spin off professional advisers and suppliers. Gamut Promotions of Stockton, for one, specializes in organizing new festivals, and Wine Concepts of Oakland is one of several outfits that supply festivals with glasses, gift boxes and other souvenirs.

Amateur festival organizers who cannot afford or choose not to employ these professionals still can get help from other amateurs at established festivals, even if they promote the same produce. Festival producers in Selma and Dinuba, two small San Joaquin Valley cities about 14 miles apart, cooperate with each other even though both towns hail the hearty raisin--Selma in May and Dinuba in September.

Entry in Parade

“We have an entry in their parade each year, and they have an entry in ours,” said Lisa Powell of the Dinuba Chamber of Commerce.

Promoters said that well-run festivals seem to be successful regardless of the number of similar events elsewhere.

“Even though there are so many of them, people still seem to love them,” Clay said.

Some events are a hit despite themselves. The Banana Slug Festival attracts so many folks it can no longer fit inside the largest restaurant in Monte Rio, population 1,000. Worst of all, some fair-goers have suggested the Slugfest be more professional.

“We don’t want to be a success,” Poole lamented. “It has been a joke all along, really.”

Festivals are particularly popular in those states--such as California and Georgia--with diverse agricultural economies and a large variety of specialty or seasonal crops struggling to work their way onto consumers’ shopping lists.

Mississippians, for example, set up tents for more than a dozen crops and catches, from cotton and sweet potatoes to catfish and mullet.

‘Something to Celebrate’

“We are always looking for something to celebrate,” said Ginger Croce of the Mississippi Division of Tourism.

One thing Mississippians do not honor with a festival are magnolias--even though Mississippi is nicknamed the Magnolia State. It’s a curious but common occurrence: there is no Sunflower Festival in Kansas, the Sunflower State; no Palmetto Pageant in South Carolina, the Palmetto State, and not even a Nutmeg Night in Connecticut, the Nutmeg State. There is, however, a Spud Festival in Idaho, the Spud State--as well as festivals for everything from sagebrush to huckleberries.

“We are closely associated with potatoes, but we really have so many other things to offer people,” said Georgia Smith of the Idaho Division of Travel Promotion.

Whatever they promote, most festivals follow a similar format.

Recipe Booths

There usually is a parade, and always a few tasting booths offering samples of the honored product and recipe booths suggesting innovative ways to prepare it--french-fried artichoke hearts, for example.

Often, festivals proudly point out that a cook could make an entire meal of their crop. For the edible thistle, such a meal could start with an artichoke aperitif and, if not careful, end with some artichoke ice cream for dessert.

Country and bluegrass music are universal, as are funny souvenirs. T-shirts and etched wine glasses are de rigueur, it seems, but here is no place to stop the excesses. Castroville offers a dizzying stock in the artichoke theme: salt shakers, trivets, cookie jars, candles, napkin rings, potholders, coffee mugs, plates, towels, aprons, hats, place mats, coasters, cookbooks and cards.

Impart Information

And, of course, there were artichokes themselves: large or small, fresh and frozen, canned or bottled, marinated or pickled, whole or in parts. There were even a couple of varieties of mayonnaise, custom-made for artichoke dipping.

Often, festivals take the opportunity of a big crowd to impart information about their favorite foodstuff. Tracy’s Dry Bean Festival informed lima lovers and garbanzo groupies that scientists are working feverishly to relieve beans of the pesky polysaccharide responsible for their flatulent reputation.

Snickers aside, the California Dry Bean Advisory Board is firmly convinced that its August festival--the first of what it hopes will be an annual event--was a success.

“I was well pleased by the results,” said Jerry Munson of the industry’s advisory board. “It’s a good way to let people know what dry beans can do.”

CALIFORNIA CROP FESTIVALS

MONTH CROP LOCATION January Carrots Holtville Mushrooms San Mateo February Citrus Cloverdale Crabs Crescent City Dates Indio Mustard Saratoga Oysters Cayucos March Almond Blossoms Ripon Banana Slugs Monte Rio Chowder Crescent City Wine Monterey April Asparagus Stockton Butter and Eggs Petaluma Cherry Blossoms San Francisco Daffodils Volcano Oranges San Bernardino Rhododendrons Eureka Wine Solvang May Apricots Patterson Corn Coyote Howling Coulterville Crawdads Isleton Dairy Orland Kiwifruit Blossoms Various cities Lambs Willows Mushrooms Morgan Hill Potatoes and Cotton Shafter Raisins Selma Squid Monterey Strawberries Arroyo Grande Strawberries Oxnard Tomatoes Cutler and Orosi Wine Citrus Heights Wine Healdsburg Wine Paso Robles June Cherries Beaumont Strawberries Prunedale July Blackberries Westhaven Crawdads Riverside Crawdads Sacramento Garlic Berkeley Garlic Gilroy Garlic West Hollywood Lilies Smith River Pears Courtland Tomatoes Woodland Watermelons Kingsburg August Apples Sebastopol Blackberries Clearlake Blackberries Covelo Corn La Habra Dry Beans Tracy Grapes Napa Greek Food Sacramento Lambs Dixon Poison Oak Forestville Salmon Klamath Tomatoes Sacramento Wine San Luis Obispo Zucchini Hayward September Apples Boonville Apples Fortuna Apples Yucaipa Artichokes Castroville Begonias Capitola Blackberries Mt. Shasta Broccoli Greenfield Fog Pacifica Grapes Lodi Onions Vacaville Poison Oak Columbia Prunes Yuba City Raisins Fresno Raisins Dinuba Seafood Crescent City Sourdough bread Wine Livermore Wine grapes Sonoma October Apples Anza Apples Julian Apples Oakhurst Apples Paso Robles Avocados Carpinteria Brussels Sprouts Santa Cruz Cheese Riverbank Clams Pismo Beach Cotton Corcoran Grapes Cucamonga Grapes Escondido Olives Corning Pumpkins Half Moon Bay Pumpkins Manteca Wine Delano Wine Torrance