Arkansas celebrates summer with a picnic table's load of food festivals and other events that put the "eat" in f-eat-ure attraction.
Purplehull peas, tomatoes, peaches and watermelon are on the menu this month into September, as some of the state's tastiest festivals hit the plate.
Besides, baseball isn't baseball without hot dogs. The circus would be a sad clown with no cotton candy. And what would a chuckwagon race be without a chuckwagon? Un-herd of.
Here are some of the best-seasoned, seasonal events to tie one on -- a bib, that is -- now through the end of summer, Sept. 22:
TIPS OF THE MONTH
Fifteenth annual Art of Wine Festival, Thursday-Saturday at Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville: three nights of food paired with more than 400 wines.
• What's to eat: five-course dinner Thursday, hors d'oeuvres and wine tastings Friday and Saturday.
• What's happening besides: silent auctions for wine, at-home dinners and entertainment wares.
More information is available at waltonartscenter.org or by calling (479) 443-5600.
THE 'MATER THAT MATTERS
Fifty-ninth Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival, Friday-Saturday in Warren, south of Pine Bluff. The event celebrates a variety of tomato that Bradley County farmers have been growing since the 1920s -- one that ripens to pink on the top.
• What's to eat: tomatoes, all-tomato luncheon, tomato-eating contest. The official Bradley County Tomato Festival Cookbook tells 850 ways to eat a tomato. Even tomato cake is a possibility.
• What's happening besides: Lone Star concert at 8:30 p.m. Saturday; souvenir T-shirts the ruddy color of the honoree: star of beauty pageant stage, screen-door philosophy and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
More information is available at bradleypinktomato.com or by calling (870) 226-5225.
PEAS RALLY
Twenty-sixth annual Purplehull Pea Festival: June 27 in Emerson, population 368, in Columbia County, south of Magnolia.
• What's to eat: The Purplehull Peas and Cornbread Cook-off varies from the classic Southern pot 'o peas and cornbread to salads, jellies and condiments that include the star legume.
"Pea meals are served from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.," festival spokesman Bill Dailey says. "That usually consists of
purplehull peas, cornbread, slice of onion, slice of tomato, maybe a pepper, cobbler and a drink."
Also called "Southern peas" and "cow peas," purplehulls are related to "less tasty" black-eyed peas, according to the festival's website. The festival also includes a contest to see who can shell the most peas.
• What's happening besides: Contestants tear up a 200-foot-long course in the World Championship Rotary Tiller Race.
The purplehull "reigns in local backyard gardens," Dailey says. The tiller race "grew out of the fact that tillers are used to grow the peas in those gardens."
More information is available at purplehull.com or by calling (870) 547-3500.
OUI-OUI-OUI ALL THE WAY
French-theme Fleur Delicious Weekend, July 7-12 at restaurants, galleries and shops all through Eureka Springs in Northwest Arkansas.
• What's to eat: wines and pastries, wine dinners, chef presentations, desserts.
• What's happening besides: Cooking demonstrations, wine glass decorating, waiters' race at 3 p.m. July 11 on Spring Street downtown.
"Around the world, cities have waiters' races that fall on or near Bastille Day," festival organizer Ilene Powell says. Bastille Day, July 14, marks the start of the French Revolution, 1789. Waiters race while carrying loaded trays. The idea is an event that gives people in restaurant service "recognition for their hard work," she says.
All sorts of French-tried things happen, Powell says. "Last year, we had sightings of Marie Antoinette all around town."
More information is available at fleurdeliciousweekend.com or by calling (504) 421-2461.
THERE'S THE BEEF
Arkansas Steak Cook-Off Championship, 1-7 p.m. July 18 at Benton Event Center, Benton.
• What's to eat: steak dinners and grilled appetizers.
• What's happening besides: steak-eating contest, helicopter rides, music.
More information is available at bentonchamber.com or by calling (501) 993-7502.
VINTAGE CELEBRATION
Thirty-second annual Altus Grape Festival, July 24-25 in Altus in grape country between Russellville and Fort Smith.
• What's to eat: grapes, grape pie-eating contest, wine tasting, wine by the glass, ice cream, kettle corn.
• What's happening besides: grape-stomping contests both days, wine-making contest. Grape-growing festival chairman James Dahlem provides grapes to stomp as well as grapes to buy.
"Most of the time," he says, "when people taste one, they say, 'Oh, wow!'"
More information is available at altusgrapefest.com or by calling (479) 667-7967.
EAT THE PEACH
Johnson County Peach Festival, July 30-Aug. 2 in Clarksville. Organizers date the start of the festival to 1938.
• What's to eat: peach cobbler cook-off and jelly contest, 11 a.m. July 31; peach eating contest, 2 p.m. Aug. 1.
• What's happening besides: peach pit spitting contest, softball, greased pig chase, egg toss, gospel singing, horseshoes. Street dance at 9 p.m. July 31, Diplomats concert at 7 p.m. Aug. 1.
More information is available at jocopeachfestival.8M.com or by calling (479) 754-9152.
MELON BALLS
Thirty-ninth Hope Watermelon Festival, Aug. 6-8 at Fair Park in Hope near Texarkana, far southwest Arkansas.
• What's to eat: watermelon, lots of it. Hope claims the world's largest watermelons -- melons that weigh hundreds of pounds.
Hope Chamber of Commerce president Mark Keith goes on with the menu: "Funnel cakes, catfish, alligator -- we have a vendor from north Louisiana -- Cajun, fried pies."
• What's happening besides: watermelon seed-spitting contest, music, watermelon-theme arts and crafts. Liverpool Legends, a Beatles tribute band, 7 p.m. Aug. 7; country singer Sammy Kershaw concert, 7 p.m. Aug. 8.
More information on the Hope Watermelon Festival is available at hopemelonfest.com or by calling (870) 777-3640.
• Watermelon weigh-off, contest to find the biggest watermelon in the region, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sept. 5 at Historic Washington State Park and Old Washington Farmers Market near Hope.
More information is available at historicwashingtonstatepark.com or by calling (870) 983-2684.
"When one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the angels eat."
-- Mark Twain
Thirty-sixth annual Cave City Watermelon Festival, Aug. 6-8 at City Park, Cave City, north of Batesville.
• What's to eat: watermelon by the sugary slice.
"My family raises watermelons, so I'm not the most impartial person to ask," festival organizer Julie Johnson says. That said, Cave City makes its own claim to counter Hope's bragging point of the biggest: "We have the sweetest."
Also: barbecue, catfish, hamburgers.
"Our local fire department grills the burgers," Johnson says, "and they grill some of the best burgers in three counties."
• What's happening besides: "Rind thumpin', lip smackin', seed spittin' good times," according to the festival's website. Concert by the country band Shenandoah, 8 p.m. Aug. 8
More information is available at cavecityarkansas.info or by calling (870) 307-9631.
CONCESSION STANDS
Events about things other than edibles -- but edibles, too -- include these on the menu of summer happenings:
Wynne Farm Fest, Friday-Saturday in Cross County. Rather than fete one food in particular, Wynne celebrates all the growers who work the fields around this tasty place north of Forrest City.
• What's to eat: Delta Smoke BBQ contest, Friday.
More information is available at crosscountychamber.com or call (870) 238-2601.
Arkansas Travelers, minor league baseball through August at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
• What's to eat: peanuts, hot dogs. As Charlie Brown said in the Peanuts comic strip: "A hot dog just doesn't taste right without a ballgame in front of it." And as they sing every seventh-inning stretch, "Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjacks."
"We do sell Crackerjacks," Travs spokesman Lance Restum says, "and we sell Petit Jean Hot Dogs."
More information is available at travs.com or by calling (501) 664-1555.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus show Built to Amaze, Aug. 20-27 at Verizon Arena, North Little Rock.
• What's to eat: "Funnel cakes, snow cones, lemonade," Verizon spokesman Jana DeGeorge promises, "and cotton candy for sure."
Details at verizonarena.com or call (800) 745-3000.
National Championship Chuckwagon Races and related events, Aug. 29 through Sept. 6 at the Eoff ranch, Clinton. Activities including trail rides start Aug. 29. Chuckwagon races are Sept. 4-6. Entertainers include country music performers Susie McEntire and Sawyer Brown.
• What's to eat: chuckwagon barbecue in Clinton on Sept. 1, chuckwagon cook-off Sept. 2.
More information is available at chuckwagonraces.com or by calling (501) 745-8407.
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New and old festivals hoist banners of contention on which event is the oldest (Johnson County Peach Festival), the longest-going continuously (Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival), the best attended, the most famous and, especially, the best tasting.
Harrison's Crawdad Days and the Atkins Pickle Festival came earlier this year. Fall brings an apple cart-load of farmers market bounty across the state, with Halloween candy for dessert.
Luckily, there is a way to deal with such an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord: some of everything and back for seconds.
Food aside, "it's about community roots," says Johnson of the Cave City celebration, for which watermelon provides a juicy reason to gather in the city park. "It's about family."
Style on 06/07/2015