Cross #1 off my Summer 2015 Arkansas Bucket List–this weekend, I attended the World Famous Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival (and I have the t-shirt to prove it).
The Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival is the one of the oldest continuously-running festivals in Arkansas (and we have a lot of them, y’all). Held in downtown Warren (about an hour and 40 minutes from Little Rock), the festival celebrates that most incredible of edibles: the Arkansas tomato.
You see, if you’ve bitten into an Arkansas tomato, you know that they’re unlike any other tomato you’ve ever tasted. There’s something about the sweltering Arkansas humidity that brings out the tangy & tart sweetness of tomatoes. Cherry varieties down here are almost like gumballs; pick a sun-ripened one right off of the vine and pop into straight into your mouth. Nature’s candy.
Apparently, tomato-growing has been a Bradley County tradition since the early 1920s. Transporting produce in the first quarter of the 20th century was, as you might expect, a bit of a bug-a-boo, and so some clever Bradley County farmers decided to set sights on a tomato cultivar that held up well if picked when the tops of the fruit began to turn pink.
A TOMATO LEGEND WAS BORN. During its farming hey-day, about 900 farms grew these tomatoes in Bradley County.
In 1956, folks in Warren decided that it was high time these tomatoes got some recognition, and since then, the Bradley County Tomato Festival has grown from a one-day event to a week-long celebration.
The Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival includes Pink Tomato pageants, heirloom tomato taste-testing, a quilt show, arts and crafts, a tomato-eating contest, a steak cook-off, turtle races, a golf tournament, an all-tomato luncheon, and the requisite small-town festival parade.
Mama Tixqueen was kind enough to accompany down to Warren. A few highlights of the 59th Annual Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival:
Deepwoods Farm hosted the heirloom tomato testing right after the parade, and man, did it get me excited for my tomatoes that are ripening on the vine at home.
They had Arkansas Traveler and Cherokee Purple among the tasting tomatoes, and I’m growing both of those! (If you want to know what other tomatoes I’m growing in #dirtclods2015, check it out here).
Told you I was excited. Each tomato had its own distinct taste and flavor. Some were bright, some were tangy, some were almost dark like chocolate.
Any festival worth its salt has vendors. Personally, my favorite booths are the little small-batch makers of jams, jellies, and pickles.
I could buy all of your small-batch salsa and pickles. I’m proud of my self control–I only walked away with three jars of salsa (2 different kinds of tomatillo salsa, 1 regular ol’ plain red salsa, and one jar of “EXTREMELY HOT!!!!! Ghost Chili Salsa”).
The quilt show was pretty cool, too. There’s no theme or anything for you to submit a quilt.. and it doesn’t even have to be made that year. I picked one of the quilts from the 1950s (hand-stitched!) as my winner.
A question you can only be asked at a small-town Arkansas festival: “Did you want jalapeño cheese deer sausage or just the regular?”. Petit Jean Meats was on-hand with carnivorous delights and of course we took advantage.
And… much to the chagrin of Tixqueen, I took a picture at the Bradley County Tea Party booth. Because I’m a jerk.
SUCCESSFUL FESTIVAL. Good job, Georgeanne! One down, four to go on my Arkansas Bucket List. Bring it.