Gourmets Dig In at Festival of Tastes

Munching on food ranging from ostrich meat to flaming Saganagi cheese, gourmets exercised their palates Saturday at the Taste of Ventura County.

“It tastes more like beef than it does like a bird,” said Boyd Croxen, 64, of Oxnard as he bit into an ostrich burger. “There’s no fat on it at all. If I lived on this I’d lose my tummy.”

Wife Tina, 49, turned out to be a more timid taster.

“It seems too alien,” she said, declining a morsel. “I’m sticking to chicken.”

With more than 45 restaurants, wineries and microbreweries participating through today in the event at Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, there are gastronomic goodies for both the adventurous and the conservative.

Even better, the thick marine layer that shrouded the harbor in sea mist Friday night and early Saturday finally relented, treating festival-goers to a taste of sunshine, too. Not that the weather had deterred the hungry hordes anyway.

“We’re well on our way to 10,000 by the end of the night,” said festival coordinator Susan O’Brien. “We’re up probably 25%” over last year.

Booth cooks feverishly sliced, sauteed and simmered to accommodate the large crowds.

“We’re selling it faster than we can cook it,” said Firefighter Ron Brubaker of the Oxnard Fire Department’s three-alarm firehouse chili.

Howard Freiburg, owner of four ostrich farms that are home to almost 5,000 of the African birds, estimated his booth would serve nearly a ton of the exotic meat in the form of sausage, burgers and jerky during the festival.

At up to $6 a pound for ground ostrich and even more for other cuts, the price may not be to everybody’s liking. But the taste usually is, Freiburg said.

“It has the same flavor as beef, but it has one-eighth the fat, one-third the calories and half the cholesterol,” he said. “You can have your steak and eat it too.”

The undisputed hit of the festival is the buffalo shrimp created by Oxnard’s Pier 17, the judges’ selection as the festival’s finest food. An ever-present line stood to wait for the lightly breaded shrimp, saturated in a hot sauce that packs a delayed punch and served with a soothing, blue-cheese-like dressing.

“Killer, man,” said Simi Valley resident Tom Gallegos, 28, as he shoveled shrimp. “I eat two or three plates of these things all the time.”

The festival continues today from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a “Big Band Bash” that includes music by Ventura’s Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. The $6 admission is waived after 5 p.m.