Season's Eatings Late summer and fall are the best times to travel to food fests. A sample of the tastiest
By Paul Lukas

(MONEY Magazine) – To my left is a big-bellied guy gnawing on a pork rib. To my right, a fellow of similar girth is being interviewed by a TV crew as he butchers a whole hog. All around me are tents and booths with signs out front that say things like "Pork, Sweat and Beers" and "Play It Again Ham."

Is this a butchers' convention? A swine-industry trade show? A livestock exhibition? No, no and sort of: It's the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest, just one of more than 1,000 food fests you can visit across America every year.

At this particular three-day event, over 200 teams descend upon Memphis and cook about 30 tons of pork in an attempt to be named top hawg. The cooking teams make their wares available for public consumption after the final judging, and it's fun to walk around the festival and watch them tending their meat. (As one buddy of mine put it, "You can tell each team's pecking order based on their belly sizes.") There are plenty of commercial barbecue booths and beer vendors to help satisfy the cravings you're bound to work up along the way, all of which add up to a great time for 'cue fans, about 30,000 of whom show up each year. (For information about next year's festival, go to www.memphisinmay.org.)

Food festivals aren't unique to America, but America is probably the best country for them because our varied geography, agriculture and ethnic population pockets provide such a wide range of regional culinary heritages. Plus we love to eat, and if you can eat it, chances are there's a food festival for it, from the mainstream (strawberries, tomatoes, almonds, raisins) to the exotic (octopus, tripe, rattlesnake, even bull's testicles).

So if Memphis in May's beer-and-bellies scene isn't your bag, don't worry; lots of other options are out there. Things were a bit more restrained, but just as delicious, a month earlier in Astoria, Ore., home of the annual Astoria Crab and Seafood Festival, where some 12,000 visitors milled about two massive tents sampling everything from crab, salmon and oysters to the offerings of Oregon's many excellent wineries. (For more info, go to www.el.com/to/astoria.)

I enjoyed my spring visits to Memphis and Astoria, but the best times for food fests are late summer and autumn, the traditional harvest periods. With that in mind, here's a rundown of some of the more interesting festivals over the next few months. I've personally sampled the goods at several; of others I've only heard tales and hope to attend them soon. But all undoubtedly provide their own unique contribution to the taste of America. (For information on finding places to stay, see the box on page 164.)

AUGUST

Spiedie Fest, Endicott, N.Y.; Aug. 5 to Aug. 8 (607-761-2475; www.tier.net/balloonfest). Spiedies--cubes of pork, beef, veal or lamb that are skewered and grilled after intense marination--are a delicious regional food unique to upstate New York's Binghamton area (see Lost in America, March 1999). The key is the marinade. No two are alike, but this annual festival features enough spiedie vendors and cook-off contestants for you to sample just about every recipe permutation imaginable and decide which you like best. In case spiedie overload threatens to set in, there's also a hot-air balloon rally, an antique-car show and live music.

Blueberry Festival, Machias, Maine; Aug. 20 to Aug. 22 (207-255-6665). Robert McCloskey's classic children's book Blueberries for Sal was set in Maine and with good reason. Maine produces 98% of the nation's lowbush blueberries, and this event celebrates the local crop with blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes and a blueberry baking contest, along with other traditional New England fare like lobster and chowder. For those who just can't get enough blueberries, the Wild Blueberry Festival takes place the week after in Union, Maine from Aug. 22 to Aug. 28 (207-594-5563).

SEPTEMBER

Millersport Sweet Corn Festival, Millersport, Ohio; Sept. 1 to Sept. 4 (740-467-3943). Locally grown sweet corn (or Millersport gold, as they like to call it in these parts) is the star of this heartland festival, now going on its 54th year. More than just a food fair, this is a full-blown country carnival, complete with rides, games of chance, farm-equipment displays and square dancing. There's even a festival queen, dubbed the Sweet Corn Sweetheart. (I got the 1997 honoree to autograph my program--now that's a souvenir.) But despite all the accompanying hullabaloo, it's the elemental simplicity of the delicious, buttery corn that lingers in the memory--positively addictive.

Applejack Celebration, Nebraska City, Neb.; Sept. 18 and 19 (800-514-9113). The Cornhusker State is known primarily for beef and corn, but the orchards around Nebraska City produce more than 36,000 bushels of apples annually, and this festival has been celebrating the local harvest each year since 1969. In addition to the loads of apple pie, caramel apples, apple cider, apple pancakes and so on available for sale, there are contests for pie baking, apple peeling and even seed spitting, which makes this one of the most playful of America's many apple festivals. Non-apple attractions include an antique-car show, a crafts fair and go-cart races.

Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta, Santa Fe, N.M.; Sept. 22 to Sept. 26 (505-438-8060). A bit more upscale than most food fests, this event showcases 75 of Santa Fe's top restaurants and 75 world-class wineries. Don't expect to see funnel cake at this fair; the sophisticated food offerings (many of which focus on chili peppers, New Mexico's top cash food crop) run more along the lines of chipotle-stuffed chicken and filet of beef with chili sauces. There are also food and wine seminars, demonstrations by professional chefs, tours of local farms and the surrounding countryside, and horseback rides.

OCTOBER

Gumbo Festival, Bridge City, La.; Oct. 8 to Oct. 10 (504-436-4712). In New Orleans, a city known for its food, gumbo stands out as the signature dish. This event, which takes place just across the river from the Crescent City, is the biggest of the area's several gumbo fests, with more than 120,000 annual attendees. Along with literally thousands of gallons of gumbo, the festival also features local specialties like jambalaya, as well as rides, games and live Cajun music.

Georgia Peanut Festival, Sylvester, Ga.; Oct. 16 (912-776-7718). Georgia produces about 40% of America's peanut crop, and the Worth County area, where this event has been held each year since 1963, is the self-proclaimed Peanut Capital of the World. The world's biggest peanut butter and jelly sandwich was assembled here in 1987, but you can't count on that sort of thing happening every year. What you can count on are boiled peanuts, deep-fried peanuts, roasted peanuts and peanut brittle along with a parade, a crafts show and a dessert recipe contest. And if you're in the mood for more goobers, the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, Ala. takes place less than a month later from Nov. 5 to Nov. 13 (334-793-4323).

Still hungry? See Barbara Carlson's Food Festivals, which lists more than 400 annual food events and provides regional-history background for most of them.

Award-winning travel writer Paul Lukas is still working off the weight he gained while researching this story.