|
|
Banner file photos
The crowning of last year’s Turnip Queen, Betty Latham. |
|
|
The turnip head contest inspires great creativity. |
|
Turn up the fun
It’s more than tuber appreciation
By Elspeth Pierson
Banner Correspondent
EASTHAM — When asked how the Eastham Turnip Festival was born, organizer Trisha Ford just chuckles.
“It started for no particular reason,” she says. “[The Friends of the Library] were doing a brainstorming session for programming ideas, and it just struck us as kind of funny.”
What started as a good laugh, however, has grown into something much bigger. About 400 people turn out each year to the Eastham Elks Club for the annual Eastham Turnip Festival. The Eastham turnip has long been renowned for its sweet flesh and superior taste, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2003 that the town started to celebrate it. It seems the festival may have something of a sibling rivalry with the Wellfleet Oyster Festival; as Ford puts it, “Wellfleet has their oysters, but we have turnips, and they are much funnier.”
Especially when you shuck them. This year’s festival will feature a turnip-shucking contest in which competitors are timed to see who can peel a turnip the fastest.
And the goofiness doesn’t stop there. In their fifth year as organizers, Ford and the rest of the Friends of the Eastham Library will be putting on quite a show. The festival begins Saturday at noon, and the fun goes ’til 4 p.m. Highlights of this year’s festival performers include the Turnip Tappers, the sounds of Eastham musical phenomenon the Remaynes, World Music Fiddler Denya LeVine and various other local talents.
The day will also decide the outcomes of several anticipated contests, including the Turnip Cook-off (bring your dish to the festival by 1 p.m. to have it judged), the turnip photography contest, and of course the crowning of the next Turnip Queen.
Betty Latham will be back to give up her crown, but Ford has a difficult time saying to whom. “It’s a murky arduous process to decide who will be the next turnip queen,” says Ford, “I really can’t predict who it will be.”
If you are looking forward to trying your hand again at turnip bowling, however, be sure to check in at the library before the festival. The alley is under repair and may not be ready for the big day.
New this year will be a festival cookbook, “First Encounter with a Turnip, and Other Local Treasures from the Kitchens of Eastham,” put together by the Friends of the Eastham Library. The cookbook will be for sale for $9.50 and features recipes for not only turnip dishes but also other local foods including clams, oysters, bluefish and cranberries. The Friends collected the recipes from past years of the festival and compiled them using an online printer. The cover features local artist Willow Shire’s rendition of First Encounter Beach overlaid with a giant dreamlike turnip.
When asked what she thinks the turn-out for this year’s festival will be, Ford says, “Every year we’ve gotten a hundred more people, but I deliberately did less publicity this year.” It seems people find out either way, and with a predicted crowd of 500-odd turnip lovers, there should be more than tuber appreciation to go around.
|
Cabral pier under contract
Voters will weigh firehouse, housing & community center
Sewer Construction Update
School lunch menus
For Your Information
Outer Cape Worship Services
|
|
|
|
|
Nov 15th, 2007