How Gilroy got it right

Gilroy has put garlic on the nation’s tables, and the lowly bulb has put Gilroy on the map.

Here, as it is in many California communities, the festival extravaganza that began as a way to commemorate the end of a long season of hard work has evolved into a thriving enterprise that brings in both dollars and renown.

By Lori Aratani

Mercury News

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/9232336.htm?1c

Without its annual celebration of the humble herb, Gilroy, a farm community on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, might just be another rest stop on the way to something scenic. But the garlic festival — now in its 26th year — has given Gilroy international cachet. Visitors come from around the world to sample garlic ice cream, garlic sausage and deep-fried garlic pickles.

Up and down the Golden State, communities like Gilroy celebrate their agricultural past — and in some cases present — with food festivals paying tribute to produce from asparagus to dried beans. Even the dried plum, once a staple here in Silicon Valley, gets its due every year in Yuba City.

But only a handful have gained the fame of Gilroy’s annual fest. It has been the subject of a one-hour documentary on the Food Network. This year, crews from Korea and Taiwan are expected to film the festivities so they can be shared globally.

“Years before, the festival people probably looked down at our farming community and garlic,” said Jennifer Speno, a garlic festival queen in 1987. “Our founder, Rudy Melone, thought at that time it should be something we should be very proud of. But the founders never expected it to go this far or to be so well known or so popular.”

Today’s Gilroy is far different from the city that hosted the first festival in 1979. Homes have replaced much of the farmland. But unlike some agricultural areas that no longer grow the crop they celebrate, visitors can still catch a whiff of the pungent herb as they drive along Highway 152.

Organizers expect more than 100,000 people to attend this year’s three-day event, which runs through Sunday. The event requires more than 4,000 volunteers and last year generated an estimated $263,000 for local charities.

Gilroy isn’t the only town that’s received a boost from a hometown crop.

Stockton is well-known for its annual asparagus festival, which features the fried asparagus eating contest. And Castroville’s artichoke festival will always have a special place in the hearts of Marilyn Monroe fans; she was the festival’s first artichoke queen in the late 1940s.

Half Moon Bay has its beautiful flowers and scenic coast, but folks there know it was pumpkins — really, really large pumpkins — that put the community on the map.

“It’s one of the first things people think about when they think Half Moon Bay,” said Ted Beeman, spokesman for the festival, which will celebrate its 31st year in October.

Other festivals may not have the numbers that Gilroy or Half Moon Bay can boast, but many organizers say it’s not just attendance that makes a festival special.

This August, Tracy will celebrate its 18th annual Dried Bean Festival, which began when the growing and shipping of dried beans was still a major industry in the community. The festival will raise money for local non-profits and also give Tracy a chance to show off its downtown, said Mike Schmidt, chief executive officer of the Tracy Chamber of Commerce. But more than anything, it will bring the community together in a way that doesn’t happen often in a town where 72 percent of the residents commute to their Bay Area jobs.

“It helps bring people together,” Schmidt said, “and build civic pride.”

These festivals also say something about America and the American way of life.

“It’s really an opportunity for small-town America to celebrate itself,” said Kathleen Finch, senior vice president of programming for the Food Network. “It’s old-fashioned America, like we think it still is.”

The network received such overwhelming response from viewers after it aired a special about food festivals a few years ago that it developed the “All American Festivals” television series, which profiles festivals around the United States.

“We love them,” said Finch, who admits the garlic festival is one of the network’s favorite stops. “They’re really a nice way to tell a story about America.”

Who could have predicted more than two decades after the festival began, a humble garlic bulb would draw so many people — and so much attention — to Gilroy?

“The city has an appeal just because of the garlic festival,” said Speno, the former Garlic Queen. “When you go somewhere and you say you’re from Gilroy, they recognize you as the garlic capital of the world.”

And for folks like Speno, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Contact Lori Aratani at [email protected] or (408) 920-5531.