Slow down and enjoy
New SlowFest a harvest celebration of food grown and prepared locally
By Christine Barbour
October 6, 2004

We live in an age of fests galore. There are jazz fests, rock fests, film fests, apple fests, jeep fests, Italian fests, Oktober fests — a fest for every imaginable activity, hobby, crop and occasion. If the pilgrims were alive today, I'm thinking they'd have us celebrating "Thanks Fest" at the end of every November.

"Fest" is short for festival and festivals are days of joyous celebration, dedicated to feasting and merriment. Our American surfeit of fetes says we must be one very merry culture, especially in the autumn when the crops are in and the larders are full and harvest celebrations seem to take place every weekend.

Harvest celebrations are splendid opportunities to gather communities together in gratitude for the blessings of the season's bounty. After all, our food does not really enter the world pristinely packaged in Styrofoam, shrink-wrap and resealable bags, but is born of the sun and the rain, and the dirt and the sweat and commitment of those who make their living off the land.

Harvest festivals help remind us of that.

So what better reason for the world's people to thank whatever gods they worship than when the hard work they've paid in has paid off, and disaster and crisis have been averted for another year? Every culture on the globe seems to celebrate the harvest with gratitude, ritual and festivity, sometimes with a touch of superstitious warding-off-of-future-evil thrown in for good measure.

The ancient Greeks and Romans honored Demeter (Ceres, in Latin), goddess of fertility and agriculture, with harvest festivals before the onset of the cold barren winter (brought on by Demeter's withdrawal into grief for her daughter, Persephone, doomed to spend half the year in the underworld.) The ancient Hebrews initiated Sukko — which this year began Sept. 29 and ends at sunset today — an eight-day celebration of joyous thanksgiving.

The Chinese celebrate the mid-autumn Harvest Moon with moon shaped cakes filled with sweetmeats such as nuts and sweet bean paste. English people traditionally celebrated the bringing in of the last crop with the making of corn dollies (really made of wheat) said to embody the corn spirit and saved over the winter to ensure a good harvest for the next year. Africans celebrate the harvest of grain and yams, the Japanese and Malaysians celebrate rice, and the list goes on and on.

The most well known harvest festival in the United States, of course, is Thanksgiving. Every American schoolchild knows the story of the grateful Pilgrims and American Indians who helped them bring a first harvest to a successful close. But we have innumerable other ways to revel in the bounty of the harvest as well, as the multitude of apple, beer, cranberry and other festivals around the country make clear.

On the general principle that you really cannot have too much of a good thing, especially when it comes to gratitude and fun, a new festival is joining the lineup this fall.

Sponsored by Slow Food Bloomington, the local chapter of the international movement that highlights the delicious benefits of eating regionally, seasonally and congenially, and by Bloomingfoods Market and Encore Café, Sunday, October 17 marks the first annual "Bloomington SlowFest: A Culinary Celebration of Our Local Harvest," from 2 to 7 p.m., rain or shine (we have tents).

This outdoor block party on Madison Street between Sixth and Seventh streets celebrates not just a single fruit, or a single art form, but pays homage to an entire way of living — convivial, relaxed, sustainable and scrumptious!

SlowFest is a celebration of taking your time and having fun, of the wonderful food produced by local farmers and artisan producers, of the terrific cooking by some of our most skilled local chefs, all against the background of great local music.

It is a celebration of everything that makes southern Indiana a special and wonderful place to call our culinary home. In fact, it's a lot like our Community Farmers Market, but with everything expertly cooked and ready to eat on the spot.

Menu highlights include brats and sausages, venison burgers, pulled pork and slaw; mac 'n cheese, veggie burgers and sweet potato fries with shagbark hickory syrup; apple fritters, gingerbread cookies and pumpkin turnovers; local beers and wines, mulled cider, hot chocolate and coffee drinks.

All of this bounty comes from our own local food producers, including (just to name a few) Traders Point Creamery, Oliver Winery, Butler Winery, BBC, Upland Brewing Co., Musgrave Orchards, Swiss Connection Farms, Jeffries Farms, Poe Farms, Old Lane Orchard, Double T Ranch and Capriole Farms.

It is prepared by some of our finest local chefs, including Dan Borders (Encore Café), Tad DeLay (Limestone Grille), David Fletcher (BLU Culinary Arts), Gregg "Rags" Rago (Nicks), Dave and Kristen Tallent (Restaurant Tallent), with coffee drinks created by Annette and Ben Oppenlander (Cream and Crimson Coffee and Espresso)

Unlike the Slow Food Chefs Dinner in the spring, with a primary goal that of fund raising (to subsidize events like this), for this event Slow Food is aiming only to cover costs. You should be able to dine deliciously and well for 10 bucks or so. Any funds Slow Food Bloomington retains at the end of the year will go to support a winter farmers market, the Local Growers Guild and Slow Food USA.

Come out and join the party on Sunday the 17th. There will be good eating and drinking and riotous merriment. Isn't that what a festival is all about?

Slow Apple Fritters

2 tablespoons butter

2 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup water

2 1/2 cups locally grown apples, cut into matchstick thin

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 eggs, separated

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 1/4 cup of flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Sifted powdered sugar, option: add cinnamon

Cook butter and brown sugar together in a saucepan until the brown sugar melts. Add lemon juice, water, apples, and cinnamon. Cook briefly, just until wilted, and cool completely.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, melted butter and egg yolks. Reserve the whites to fold in later. Add completely cooled apple mixture to the milk mixture.

Sift the flour, salt and sugar into the above mixture; stir until incorporated. Cool in the refrigerator for 1 1/2 hours.

Beat egg whites until stiff.

Fold in egg whites into cooled apple mixture.

Preheat a fryer, or in a deep sauce pan heat about 12 ounces of vegetable oil to 350 degrees. Drop tablespoons of batter into the hot oil.

After they are fried and golden brown, drain fritters on paper towels, sprinkle with the powdered sugar, and serve hot.

Yields about 24 fritters.

Recipe courtesy of Kristen Tallent, Restaurant Tallent.

Gingerbread Snails

Recipe courtesy of David Fletcher, BLU Culinary Arts. David makes these snail cookies especially "slow" by using Swiss Connection Farms butter, Hunter's Honey and local eggs.

5 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 cup butter melted

1/2 cup shortening melted

1/2 cup dark molasses

1/2 cup buckwheat honey

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup water

1 whole egg

1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix together the melted butter and shortening, molasses, honey, brown sugar, egg, water and vanilla. This should be a smooth, well incorporated mixture.

Combine the flour, baking powder, ginger. cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Sift or whisk to equally distribute the spices.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture and mix just until well absorbed. Do not over mix.

Divide the dough into two disks, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Lightly flour work surface and roll the dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake until done, approximately 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

When cool, frost with Royal Icing or the icing of your choice.

Makes about 50 cookies, depending on size.

Royal Icing

2 pounds powder sugar

6 tablespoons meringue powder

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

warm water (approximately 1/4 cup) to make the desired consistency

Sift powder sugar and meringue powder into mixing bowl of stand or handheld mixer.

Begin mixing. Add vanilla and slowly add water a little at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Continue mixing for 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Add food color as desired.

If you go

WHAT: Bloomington SlowFest: A Culinary Celebration of Our Local Harvest.

WHEN: 2-7 p.m. Oct. 17

WHERE: Madison Street between Sixth and Seventh streets.

HOW MUCH: No admission fee, but food items priced nominally.