By the end of the first day, a funnel cake in one hand and a stick of frozen strawberries and pineapple dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts in the other, I was already a sweaty, mustard-and-powdered-sugar-stained wretch.
Everyone says that the Garlic Festival is about the food. I wanted to make my first festival about all the food. And at that moment, packed full of combo plate, pizza, kabobs and assorted Cajun delicacies, I began to believe the voices of doubt, the naysayers, the people who said that no man, no matter how motivated, no matter how ravenous, no matter how much a pig, could sample everything at the festival.
Not even my mom believed in me. But I was unbowed. And I did it.
Sort of. Over three days, I stuffed myself with nearly every comestible the festival’s 40-odd food vendors had to offer. But eating obscene quantities of food is a sport without hard and fast standards. As judge and contestant, I benefited from fluid and generous rules of competition: eating every last item was out; samples counted; I didn’t have to eat at Maui Tacos; I won’t be penalized for not realizing that Willow Street Woodfire Pizza wasn’t serving pizza; I didn’t have to visit any vendor that sold something I’d already eaten; and I didn’t have to try any foods that tried to disguise their grossness with a foreign name. In other words, no snails, no soda and no admitting defeat.
When it was over, I had eaten 48 different items from 27 vendors. Garlic does go with almost everything, though thankfully most of the vendors at the festival didn’t consider it a dessert spice. Aside from the infamous ice cream, sweet was allowed to be sweet. Savory was almost always garlicky, but outside of Gourmet Alley, most chefs used a light touch. Shrimp tasted like shrimp, pork like pork, and no one dared to ruin barbecue with an ill-considered garlic paste.
The most intense garlic flavors at the festival were in the pasta con pesto and the roasted red pepper fries from Gordon Biersch, which I now regret sharing. Most of the good stuff I kept to myself, but I was happy, grateful even, to pass around my skewers of buffalo, boar, kangaroo and gator. Those are animals that should be eaten out of necessity only, though my sports colleague, Ana Patejdl, found them almost delicious and didn’t seem to mind that crawdads taste like the bottom of a swamp.
“It did have an aftertaste of ocean,” she told me. “Just avoid the brown stuff.”
Unless the brown stuff happens to be beer, which, unlike garlic, does go with dessert, and makes it a little easier to eat grubby crustaceans and their beady little eyes. Did I eat everything? No, but I ate almost everything, and I definitely ate more than you.
Some people were even a little impressed. Disturbed, but impressed.
“He’s out of control,” Gourmet Alley co-chairman Greg Bozo said when he heard what I had done. “I don’t think I could have done that. I love all the food here, but I can’t eat like that. He must be a bachelor.”
Friday
• Gourmet Alley combo plate – calamari, pasta con pesto, marinated mushrooms, peppersteak sandwich, garlic bread – $12
• Hawaii BBQ – pork and chicken kabobs – $10
• Happy Dog Pizza Co. – Waaay too Much Garlic and Shrimp – $5
• Children’s Area – corn dog – $3
• Lyman’s Sundaes, Smoothies & Shakes – tropical smoothie – $4.25
• New Orlean’s Catering – crawfish etouffee, jambalaya – $13
• Funnel Cake Express, Inc. – funnel cake – $5
• Frozen Fantasies – pineapple and strawberries dipped in chocolate – $5
Total cost: $57.25* Total calories: 5,000**
Saturday
• Smokehouse Specialties – bbq pork sandwich – $6
• Lugano’s Swiss Bistro – garlic chicken Caesar wrap – $6
• Lombard Family – It’s It Bar – $2
• Frozen strawberry lemonade – $3
• Thai Cuisine – garlic egg roll, fried rice, pan fried noodles – $8
Total cost: $25 Total calories: 1,800
Sunday
• Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. – roasted red pepper garlic fries – $4
• ConAgra Food Ingredients– garlic ice cream – free
• El Roble Middle School PTA – corn on the cob – $2
• Gourmet Alley – sausage sandwich, chicken stir fry – $10
• Lyman’s Sundaes, Smoothies & Shakes – berry smoothie – $4.25
• Hawaii’z Island Grill – garlic chicken and rice – $6
• Bethany Church – pork ribs, chicken, hot link, potato salad – $12
• Tante’s – shrimp quesadilla – $6
• Main Street Food Concessions – half shell oysters – $7
• Louisiana Cajun Lady – Cajun crawdads, gatortail, rattlesnake, buffalo, kangaroo, boar – $33
• Gourmet Faire – key lime calamari – $6
• Holy Guaca–Moly – guacamole on chips – $5
• Gilroy High Band & Color Guard Boosters – bruschetta – $4
• Sweet Delights – garlic salmon, garlic hot wings – $12
• Thai Stick – sticky rice with mango – $5
• Twin Berry Farms – brownie with strawberries and cream – $5
Total cost $121.25 Total calories: too many to think about
*This is what I would have spent. Many vendors donated food for this story.
** Calorie totals are estimates, wild guesses actually.
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Matt’s favorites:
Gourmet Alley – pasta con pesto
I wasn’t around for the creamy pesto incident of 2004, but whatever they changed, it worked.
New Orlean’s Catering – crawfish etouffee
I ate it at the end of the day and still loved it.
Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. – roasted red pepper garlic fries
They’ve taken garlic fries to a strange and exciting place.
Bethany Church – pork ribs, chicken, hot link, potato salad
Everything tastes better with barbecue sauce.
Tante’s – shrimp quesadilla – $6
Packed with shrimp and gooey cheesy goodness.
Twin Berry Farms – brownie with strawberries and cream – $5
Um, it was a brownie with strawberries and cream.
Funnel Cake Express, Inc. – funnel cake – $5
The powdered sugar variety was good. I heard the kind with strawberries and cream, and chocolate and Bavarian cream was orgasmic.
Frozen Fantasies – pineapple dipped in chocolate – $5
These two should spend more time together.
Matt’s Disappointments:
Lugano’s Swiss Bistro – garlic chicken Caesar wrap
Not bad, but a victim of my high expectations.
Gourmet Alley – chicken stir fry
Small portion and very little flavor.
Thai Stick – sticky rice with mango
Rice was excellent, the mango was bitter.
Prices
Five bucks for a small basket of tortilla chips or a slice of pizza? The combo plate was $12 this year, so buy your ticket, a combo plate and a bottle of water and you’re out $26 five minutes after you get through the gate. Remember, it all goes to charity.
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Food on a stick vs. Food on a cob
frozen fruit corn
chicken and pork kabobs
alligator
snake
boar
kangaroo
buffalo
corn dog
