How could there be an entire festival about garlic? Welcome to the Hudson Valley!
Across the river and about a half-hour from Hudson in Saugerties is the annual Hudson Valley Garlic Festival.
The festival started in 1989 when Pat Reppert of Shale Hill Farm and Herb Gardens organized the first garlic festival in the Hudson Valley. In 1990, over 425 “garlic lovers” attended. Today, tens of thousands attend a weekend-long festival filled with vendors, music, arts and crafts, all with a savory garlic-forward flavor and appeal.
Garlic is a unifying force. People wore T-shirts from both major political parties and ate garlic alongside one another, only a month before a national election. Republicans and Democrats appeared to dine in peace in a pavilion with a large blow-up garlic bulb on top.
I went both days, Saturday and Sunday – and luckily I did! On my bucket list was to try garlic-flavored ice cream.
Alas, on the first day, THEY RAN OUT OF GARLIC-FLAVORED ICE CREAM! The vendor said he sold out of thirty-two tubs of garlic ice cream. I went back on Sunday and it was the first thing I tried.
How did it taste? Well, it’s garlic ice cream, so it tasted like garlic. It was a garlic/vanilla flavor with chunks of garlic swirled inside. If you held it in your mouth and were not sure it was really garlic ice cream, you would soon taste a chunk, and then you thought, ‘Oh yeah, this is garlic ice cream.’
The garlic ice cream was not bad. Am I going to order it at the Stewarts ice cream counter? No. Was it as good as Samascott’s corn-flavored ice cream? Definitely not. Could I see it being sold on Warren Street to tourists? OMG, yes. They’ll sell out. I should set up a stand.
St. Mary of the Snow and St. Joseph Fried Dough (it’s a Catholic rhyme)
Garlic Parm Fried Dough – like a garlic/parm doughnut
There were dozens of garlic vendor booths. There were Boy Scouts hawking corn-on-the-cob in garlic butter alongside Girl Scouts with garlic chowder soup. One vendor allowed you to sample pasta with various garlic sauces – some people stayed in that booth for a half hour. If you did not know what to do with the dozens of garlic bulbs you purchased, there was a tent with a chef explaining more garlic recipes.
Tickets were $10/person, in advance. For me, it’s always fun to people watch at places like this. My favorite expression is the one on guys who seem to have been dragged to these events by their wives/girlfriends (it’s a pained look, one that says, ‘I wish I was anywhere else‘).
I went with two different gal pals each day. My advice to the straight woman, if your boyfriend/husband wants to stay at home and work on home projects, let him. Find yourself a gay guy friend and take him instead. Plus, after spending a day eating garlic, you’ll be garlic burping on the car ride home – not sexy.
