As far as festivals go, the kind that celebrates fried food on bread is a pretty good one. This Sunday is the third annual New Orleans Po-Boy Festival. What exactly is a po-boy? Well, the definition isn't too concrete. You can put almost anything on a crunchy French loaf with sauce and call it a po' boy. Oysters, fried green tomatoes, shrimp, roast beef, ham and cheese, catfish, duck, barbecued meats. A bunch of New Orleans purveyors—including Acme Oyster House, Emeril's Restaurant, and Parkway Bakery & Tavern—will be stuffing miscellaneous foods (even French fries) into bread this weekend. And if you're somehow not that into po-boys, the festival will also feature another New Orleans sandwich icon: the muffuletta. Next...
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[Reuters] The famous La Tomatina festival, a tradition held on the last Wednesday of every August since the mid-1940s, took place today in Bunol, Spain. The epic tomato-launching battle all starts with truckloads of rotten red tomatoes and people prepared in bathing suits and goggles. Catapulting, chucking, and all forms of splattering ensues until 100 tons of tomato guts covers the small town. Related Tomatoesareevil.com, Where Tomato Haters Unite How do YOU Make a Tomato Sandwich? [Talk] 'Oda al Tomate' by Pablo Neruda, an Ode to Tomatoes...
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If you live around Des Moines, Iowa and don't know what you're doing March 1st, here's your solution: attend the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. $30 will get you six hours of bacon-filled activities! More information at Bacon Unwrapped....
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Southern Foodways appears weekly as part of our collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization based in Oxford, Mississippi, that "documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South." Dig in! In January 2007, we headed to Atlanta, where we showcased SFA films and celebrated local chefs, musicians, and brewmeisters for the first-ever Potlikker Film Festival*. For those of you who were able to join us, you know what a good time we had. For those of you who missed it, you got another chance when we took the the Potlikker Film Festival on the road to Houston, in July. In Houston, we headed to St. Arnold’s Brewing Company, where we screened films by SFA filmmaker Joe...
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I have been to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival many, many times, yet every time I don't go, I feel that I'm missing something profoundly important. Especially now, with New Orleans's cultural heritage under siege post-Katrina, I am kicking myself that I haven't made plans to go this year. What makes the festival great to me, however, is not the parade of big-name musicians appearing every day, though it is a unique experience to see artists like Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, and Bonnie Raitt play in this unique setting. What makes it great is the local and non–big-name musicians and cooks playing and cooking at the smaller stages and tents.I saw Ricky Dillard practically levitate the Gospel Tent...
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