Castroville Artichoke Festival May 19, 2007

Castroville Artichoke Festival is a food festival held annually in Castroville, a town in Monterey County of the US State of California. The city itself is called the "Artichoke Center of the World". Castroville Artichoke Festival has been an annual even for 47 years (48th annual festival will take place in May 2007).

Since 1920s, Castroville has produced artichokes. California artichoke industry was started here by Swiss Italians, who also grew the first wine vineyards in Salinas Valley. It is now a $50 million crop for Pajaro Valley - where Castroville and Moss Landing host nearly all the artichoke fields.

Castroville Artichoke Festival is held every year in May and features large and colorful parades, two days of live music, agro art competition where three-dimensional fruit and vegetable artwork is presented by participants, farmers markets, and field tours. Other activities include arts and crafts, artichoke souvenirs sales, wine tasting and cooking demos. At Castroville Artichoke Festival Children are offered games, face painting, clowns, stilt walkers, puppets, and more.

With the main theme of this food festival being artichoke, foods offered during the festival are nevertheless various. Apart from artichokes, fried, sauteed, grilled, marinated, pickled, fresh, and creamed at soup, visitors are offered foods from many ethnic groups that give Monterey county its character.

Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jean at the time, was crowned Castrovilles first Artichoke Queen back in 1948.

Official Website: http://www.artichoke-festival.org/