This past weekend I braved the wilds of suburbia, venturing almost as far as public transportation would take me into McLean, Virginia. The goal: to enter my Dr. Carolyn heirloom yellow cherry tomatoes into the NatureSweet Homegrown Tomato contest. The event was, frankly, a little absurd. It was in a parking lot, and there were apparently only 19 entrants. Most didn’t stick around for the actual judging, but simply dropped off their tomatoes with some contact information.
Sadly, I did not make it to the final round, let alone win the $2,500 (!) top prize. They administered a chemical test to find the sweetest tomatoes from among the entries, and only the three entries with the highest sugar content made to the final tasting round. A petty part of me thinks this was not a very good way to do the judging, since sweetness is not the only thing people look for in a tomato. My Dr. Carolyns are delicious, but not particularly sugary. But, alas, those were the rules.
Still, the event got me thinking. It’s too bad DC doesn’t have its own county state district fair. I loved the county and state fairs back where I grew up, and now as an adult I have a hankering to gawk at giant pumpkins or enter a pie contest with some top-secret recipe. And since county fairs are notorious for having a million categories for everything where everyone gets a ribbon anyway, my tomatoes could be “winners” at last!
But really, I think it would be fun. Yes, this is an urban area. I don’t imagine there would be a livestock section at this theoretical fair, and maybe butter sculptures would be inadvisable. But there are lots of gardeners who could show off their produce, and lots of foodies to enter those pie contests. And think of how fun a giant Ferris wheel on the mall would be.
I completely agree. Let’s make it happen!
It would also be interesting to have events highlighting the efforts of people who don’t have a great place to garden in this urban space. As in, what’s the best thing you grew in a community garden? In a container garden? On a balcony? Hanging from a clothesline?, and all the other ways people find to grow produce in our city. It’s the perfect place for a “taste per square foot” entry category!
We also have so many great food bloggers in DC that I am sure would team up in such an effort, not to mention the great farmers markets and local farms.
Amelia, so glad to hear you are growing Dr. Carolyns. They are the best, but rarely make it into our kitchen since we are constantly snacking on them out in the garden. So which three tomato varieties were the sweetest? Curious minds want to know. Great idea about a D.C. state (cough!) fair.
Well that was the most frustrating part of all! The winner of the Large Tomato category was asked what the variety was, and she said “Heirloom.” That’s it! No info on what type of heirloom. And then the winner of the Small Tomato category was asked the same question, and he said “Cherry.” Again, not very informative.
Amelia, check this out. My Boston-based coworker sent that link to me. It seems like something that could be done here in DC, eh?
Oh fascinating. I wish they had started that when I was still at Harvard. Maybe I’ll ask if Kathy at Skippy’s Vegetable Garden would like to enter her stuff (and write a report of the event!)
[...] of three DC resident food and garden bloggers: Amelia Showalter of Gradually Greener, whose post last year started the ball rolling; Jenna Huntsberger of Modern Domestic; and Ken Moore of The Indoor [...]
[...] 7, 2010 by Amelia A little less than a year ago, I bemoaned the fact that DC doesn’t have a state/county fair where district residents can show off their talents [...]
[...] idea for the DC State Fair was planted by local blogger Amelia Showalter (Gradually Greener) back in 2009 when she was [...]
[...] (State), she was always fond of county and state fairs. The idea for a DC State Fair emerged from one of Amelia’s posts on her blog, Gradually Greener, where she writes about gardening, local food, and sustainability. [...]
[...] initial inspiration for DC State Fair was a post on Amelia’s blog, Gradually Greener, about entering her DC-grown tomatoes into a contest in Virginia. A few months [...]