Strawberry Festival Has Something for Only 1 Taste

There were strawberries everywhere. Strawberry shortcake. Strawberry pizza. And thousands of people eating them and even drinking them in cups and glasses of strawberry wine.

About 35,000 strawberry lovers attended the seventh annual California Strawberry Festival Saturday at Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard to indulge in an orgy of eating and drinking the little red fruit.

Although the two-day festival, which continues today, featured about 175 crafts and arts booths, a strawberry-blond competition, a strawberry shortcake-eating contest and a strawberry tart-tossing event, the biggest attraction by far was the food.

According to Kenneth C. Weiss, deputy county agricultural commissioner, Ventura County is the second-largest strawberry producer in the state. On Saturday it seemed as if a significant portion of the county’s nearly 4,000 acres of strawberries had found their way into the stomachs of the crowd.

Strawberry shortcake, strawberry pizza, strawberry margaritas and chocolate-dipped strawberries were consumed as customers listened to bands and wandered in and out of booths that sold everything from T-shirts to wind chimes.

“Why is it that we’re always migrating toward the strawberry margaritas?” asked one woman as a friend pulled her away from a booth to buy another drink.

And those who weren’t eating were usually watching someone else eat. The strawberry shortcake-eating contest, one of the highlights of the festival, drew a loud and spirited crowd that cheered and jeered contestants as they raced to eat strawberry shortcake in bowls--with their hands behind their backs.

“We’re going to blow this up poster size!” yelled Peggy DeBuyser, as she took a picture of her whipped cream-smeared friend Kenny Badoian, 24, from the Channel Islands, who won the contest for the fourth consecutive year by downing a bowl of strawberry shortcake in 7.29 seconds.

“Just throw it in your mouth and make sure you breathe because the whipped cream gets in your nose,” said Tony Dunham, the 19-year-old runner-up from Camarillo. “I didn’t eat anything all day to prepare for this.”

Many more strawberry lovers joined Badoian and Dunham in consuming bowls of strawberry shortcake at the “Make Your Own Strawberry Shortcake” tent, which is traditionally one of the most popular attractions of the festival.

People paid $3.50 apiece to design their own culinary creations, spooning huge gobs of whipped cream, strawberry preserves and berries on top of slices of shortcake.

When it was over, and the strawberry pizzas and other exotic concoctions had been consumed, many in the crowd stopped on their way out of the festival to buy baskets of fresh strawberries. A full tray of 12 baskets was priced at $8, and single baskets were $1 each.

As one family began preparing to go home, a mother who had just bought a basket of strawberries offered one to her son, who firmly refused, saying, “Mom, if I eat another strawberry, I’m gonna barf.”