Shelling out lots of fun
Festival features music, food, exciting competitions
If you were to describe the way a festival attracts its crowds in the same fashion that a shellfish fisherman talks about bringing in his catch, it was certainly a “massive haul” of a crowd brought in last Saturday afternoon for the P. E. I. International Shellfish Festival.
Nestled in its new home at the Charlottetown Event Grounds, corner of Water and Grafton streets, the 18th annual festival rocked its party in the big tent from last Thursday to Sunday, welcoming to the capital city everything and everyone from international shellfish superstars and celebrity chefs to renowned musical acts, cornucopias of scrumptious treasures from the sea and hungry seafood lovers galore.
The 2013 Fall Flavours Signature Event seemed to have a heightened buzz about it this year, which may have had something to do with the strong presence of Food Network host/ nutritional activist/ food media producer chef Michael Smith at events on each day of the festival this year. But from what I could tell by the way people were devouring the delights all around, I think it could also be said that we had an especially wild pack of ravenous shellfish fans in town last weekend.
Whatever the case, it was certainly wonderful to be on hand for the Saturday afternoon portion of the weekend this year, as, in previous years, I’ve mostly had the pleasure of attending the festival’s evening concerts.
And, while there was some great musical entertainment provided by Eddy Quinn early on and then Boys in the Kitchen later that afternoon ( the ensemble featuring Greg Bungy, Brian Langille, Jon Matthews, Kevin MacLaren and J. J. Chaisson kicked out songs like Galway Girl, Peter’s Dream and a rollicking set of fiddle tunes for the foot- stomping and chowderchomping crowd), the particular focus of the afternoon was, of course, the shellfish competitions.
Now imagine, if you will, a long table in front of a room of people numbering in the thousands, and on this table is a lineup of the most carefully- prepared and most delicious- looking seafood chowders you’ve ever seen. Video cameras do close- ups for big- screen displays of the ladling out of these chowders from their large pots, and chefs do tantalizing descriptions of what they consist of for all to hear. Yep. You could almost hear the chorus of stomachs rumbling getting louder and louder as the competition went on. Finally, we were all invited to come up and sample the steaming treasures made by Island chefs for the P. E. I. Potato Seafood Chowder Championship. And I’m telling you, the plowing- over onslaught of people that darted to that table was something else. It was as if the announcer had just told us there were suddenly $ 100,000 gold bars being given away.
See, when I said the word “ravenous” earlier, I wasn’t really exaggerating.
Alas, I was one of these people as I really couldn’t contain myself either. And I got away with two samples of chowder — one from Papa Joe’s and one from Terre Rouge — and both were truly spectacular.
As the chowders were judged by flavour, consistency, appearance and overall appeal by a panel of judges, in the end, the pro chowder tasters ( man, how does one get that job?) chose Dwayne MacLeod of The Gahan House as the winner, with Darius Martin from Sutherland’s Restaurant awarded second place and Dave Mottershall of Terre Rouge given third place.
And big congrats to Islander Kyle Panton of Sim’s Corner Steakhouse & Oyster Bar, who was crowned winner of the International Seafood Chowder Championship on Sunday ( MacLeod also won third place in this competition).
I also thoroughly enjoyed watching the Tie One On ( mussel sock tying) competition as Neil Ellworth, Lester Clow and Mark Habbi finished in first-, secondand third- place respectively.
And the Shiny Sea Oyster Shucking Championship was indeed, as they say, “a shucking good time.” My jaw- dropped at how quick these shuckers truly are. Marc Dolan, Daniel Oatway and Gordon Bailey came in first, second and third respectively, as the crowd went wild for their remarkably fast times. We don’t want to flatter them too much here, though because we all know what they’ll say: “Aw, shucks.”
For more on the winners of the 18th annual P. E. I. International Shellfish Festival competitions, visit http://peishellfish.com
Next week: Meaghan Blanchard’s CD Launch at The Mack tonight...