Fragrant fair
Forty years ago, no one had ever heard of garlic-flavored ice cream.
Today, garlic-flavored everything is a given — as are walking bulbs of garlic, a pyrotechnic alley of giant flaming saute pans and a three-day garlic throwdown — thanks to the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which will celebrate a landmark anniversary July 27-29 this year.
Launched in 1979, the event is nowhere close to being one of the state’s oldest food festivals (Southern California’s National Orange Show started in 1911, author Rita Gennis wrote in “The California Food Festivals Cookbook”), but you’d be hard-pressed to find one that has garnered such worldwide fame.
Or infamy, depending on how you feel about the stinking rose.
Oranges may have seemed exotic a century ago, when San Bernardino’s civic leaders decided to promote their crop, but citrus quickly went mainstream. Garlic’s reputation, on the other hand, persisted — like its odoriferous qualities after a meal. For decades, the bulb was considered an esoteric ingredient, one that defined the region’s Italian immigrants and Gilroy’s agricultural industry.
That view became a national one after humorist Will Rogers wrote famously that Gilroy was “the only town in America where you can marinate a steak by hanging it on the clothesline.” He knew; he’d dined and stayed at the local Milias Hotel in 1934. Today, the Milias restaurant still proudly operates the bar where Rogers sat, and there are plenty of garlicky touches on the menu.
But it wasn’t until the late 1970s, when the late Rudy Melone, a college administrator, read about a small French town proclaiming itself the garlic capital of the world that community leaders decided to set everyone straight about Gilroy’s aromatic contributions. Melone enlisted grower Don Christopher of Christopher Ranch to supply the garlic and the late Val Filice, a farmer and chef, to create the Gourmet Alley recipes.
They planned for a modest first festival, printing only 5,000 tickets, according to the event history. But more than 15,000 people showed up. Just a few years later, attendance surpassed more than 100,000, a figure that holds today. (In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records has cemented Gilroy’s status as the world’s biggest garlic festival draw. Take that, little French town!)
By 1986, festivalgoers from afar were filling local motel rooms, and the festival had even attracted the notice of National Geographic. But the magazine’s article misplaced the event, saying it was in the San Joaquin Valley. The staff writer called to apologize: “I guess we can expect a lot of irate mail from Gilroy.”
Then-city administrator Jay Baksa responded, “We’ve been in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and a lot of travel publications. So I’d say, ‘Keep writing about us, and sooner or later, your nose will lead you to the South Santa Clara Valley.’”
Festival attendees, once through the gates of Christmas Hill Park, typically find their noses leading them directly to Gourmet Alley, where the chefs torch their saute pans in spectacular fashion for admiring and hungry crowds. The show’s as much of a must-see as any musical act on the schedule. Worried you won’t get your money’s worth in cloves? Here, the unofficial motto has always been, “There’s no such thing as too much garlic.”
From the beginning, scampi, calamari, pasta con pesto and pepper-steak sandwiches dominated the menu, with Filice even sending drivers that first year to Monterey to buy more calamari and prawns. They’re all still big sellers, along with newcomers like garlic french fries.
Outside Gourmet Alley, vendors hawk everything from garlic kettle korn to garlic oysters to braids of garlic for home cooking. And on a 100-degree day, few people pass up a sample cone of garlic ice cream.
Food Network-style culinary competitions and celebrity chef appearances (last year it was Giada De Laurentiis) have joined the festival’s long-held contests for garlicky recipes and Miss Gilroy Garlic. A highlight since year one, the Great Garlic Cook-Off has evolved, as recipes from amateur cooks have grown more sophisticated. Garlic soup and bruschetta were winners in the early 1980s; by this decade, home cooks were taking home cash prizes and bragging rights for Smoky Salsa Roja Shrimp with Roasted Garlic Cotija Grits (2017) and Garlic Goat Cheese Bacon Souffle with Creamy Garlic Mustard Sauce (2016).
And Gilroy’s success has spawned other food festivals. About 30 years ago, Yuba City looked south for inspiration after receiving a last-place ranking in a Rand McNally analysis. The result was an annual crop party called the California Prune Festival, later renamed the California Dried Plum Festival.
Alas, that festival ended in 2002.
Just didn’t have the staying power of garlic.
Details: The 2018 Gilroy Garlic Festival runs from July 27-29. It’s a volunteer-staffed event, with ticket proceeds benefiting local schools and nonprofits. (More than $11.5 million has been raised since 1979.) Find the festival schedule and ticket info at www. gilroygarlicfestival.com.