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Last Saturday’s St. Louis Garlic Fest was an explosion of pungent, garlickey pleasures. Carondelet Gardens Urban Farms sponsored a day of fun at Carondelet Park that included vendors, several dozen varieties of freshly harvested local garlic for sale, hilariously solemn garlic-themed art, a garlic cooking class, belly dancers and uh, the “Become a Garlic Superhero” craft activity for kids.
The food vendors offered amazing – and some pretty daring – treats, and provided some of them to judges for a culinary contest.
Passed around the Fest were dynamite tzatziki sauce (above left) from my Big Fat Greek Truck, garlic kettle corn, compelling brownies starring sweet “black garlic” (above right), addictive garlic-spiced corn-on-the-cob, and an astonishingly delicious drumstick of garlic-cinnamon ice cream in a cone, dipped in chocolate and coated in chipotle-bacon crumbles (below left), made by overall contest winner I Scream Cakes. (Less memorable were garlic cotton candy and a garlic sugar cookie, below right .)
A garlic-eating contest was won by the same 17-year-old girl who won last year’s contest at the Fest. She positively inhaled cloves of raw garlic, and beat a half-dozen dudes who finished with watering eyes and shamefaced expressions.
Videos of the contest are viewable here.
