This photo from last year’s Maine Fiddlehead Festival hints at the festival’s growing popularity, which prompted a move this year to a new venue on the UMF campus. (Submitted image)

FARMINGTON — The Maine Fiddlehead Festival, now in its eighth year, is back by popular demand, say organizers in Farmington. With a new location and a theme of Fermentation, the celebration of local food and agriculture will take place Saturday, May 4, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the University of Maine Farmington campus.

In a new location between the UMF Student Center and Roberts Learning Center, along High Street, the free festival will again sport live music, demonstration talks, live farm animals, the season’s first outdoor farmers market, food trucks, gourmet fiddlehead cooking demos, and more. More convenient parking is expected to attract a bigger crowd than in past years, say planners.

Maine State Sen. Russell Black is expected to deliver opening remarks this year at 10 a.m. to start the festivities. Black is a farmer who is known for his support of local food and environmental issues.

In addition to the annual performance of the popular Franklin County Fiddlers, other local musicians, including Invite the Wild, Crooked Bill, The Merry Plinksters and others, will furnish live music in the hillside amphitheater. A permaculture sheet-composting demonstration will be conducted around heirloom apple trees. Antique tractors are expected to be on display.

“It will be a lively and colorful scene with something for everyone, just as it’s always been, only better,” noted one organizer.

Tent Talks this year will highlight the traditional uses of fermentation in preserving and enhancing foods and liquids, with demonstrations of sauerkraut, yogurt, sourdough, kombucha, aged goat cheese, and koji, the staple of all Japanese ferments such as soy sauce and miso. A presentation by Mainiacal Yeast Labs will explore the history and science of fermented foods and drinks in cultures world-wide.

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In keeping with tradition, the UMaine Cooperative Extension will give a talk about fiddlehead identification, safe handling, and sustainable harvesting, followed by a walk to see if the fiddleheads are up yet.

The Maine Fiddlehead Festival is organized annually by a coalition of volunteers from the surrounding communities and the UMF Sustainable Campus Coalition. It grew out of decades of local food promotion efforts by area farmers, food activists, and college faculty, and was conceived as an opportunity to celebrate the bounty of food, both farmed and foraged, in the Franklin County area.

The late arrival of spring does not intimidate the organizers of this year’s event.

“Spring is always a guessing game,” reflected one planner.

“So far, we have always had some fiddleheads on hand, although at least one year they were not exactly local in origin.”

Evidently, with or without the emergence of fiddleheads on local stream banks in early May, the show will go on.

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2019 Fiddlehead Festival Tent Talks

10:30 – Sourdough Bread and Kombucha Tea – Kate Wallace & Casey Brackett 

Experience the effects of fermentation in the transformation of regular bread dough and regular tea into delicious new creations, sourdough and kombucha. The demonstrations of making these two popular items will involve samples, as well as a free skoby for a few lucky participants. Kate Wallace is the Programming Director for Portland’s Resilience Hub, a permaculture promotion non-profit organization, and Casey Brackett is a Permaculture Design Consultant of Industry, Maine.

11:15 – The History and Science Behind Good Fermentation – Justin Amaral 

Learn about the role fermentation has played in the food of human cultures throughout the history of humanity, and the science behind why it has been universally embraced for purposes of food preservation and nutritional enhancement. Hear about how yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchee, hard cheese, salami, beer, vinegar, wine, soy sauce and countless other products rely on fermentation.  Justin Amaral runs and co-owns Mainiacal Yeast Labs, where he focuses on all things wild – and where his passion for science and microbiology has led him deep down the rabbit hole of fermentation.

12:15 – Fun With Making Aged Goat Cheese – Faith and Jonesy Jones 

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Explore the role of fermentation in transforming goat milk to aged “hard” cheese through this demonstration talk. Upon starting their goat farm in 2015, the Joneses soon discovered that making fresh goat cheese was just too easy. They sold their small goat herd and bought Alpines and Saanens, increasing their milk supply and enabling them to start producing aged goat cheese, which they have been selling since 2018, along with eggs, raw goat milk, chèvre, and yogurt, from Dreamin’ Fahm in East Wilton.

1:00 –  Fiddlehead Fern Talk and Walk – Dave Fuller –

Join the annual workshop that will teach you what you need to know to locate, identify, sustainably harvest, and safely prepare fiddleheads. Dave Fuller, non-timber forest products specialist for UMaine Cooperative Extension, will give an illustrated talk and then lead a walk to a secret nearby fiddlehead location. Sensible shoes are advised.

1:30 –  Koji – The Culinary Fungus of Japan – Nicholas Repenning 

Learn about the central role of koji, a filamentous fungus used in making all the classic Japanese fermented preparations, from soy sauce to sake, miso, rice vinegar, and many more. Could this be the secret of Japanese longevity? Having met on a 2011 volunteer organic farming trip in rural Japan, Nicholas and Mika Repenning settled in Whitefield, Maine in 2015 and founded go-enfermented foods company. There they work to unlock the mysteries of the invisible world of microorganisms, employing them to spread health and happiness through delicious foods.

2:15 –  Fearless Fermentation: Sauerkraut & Yogurt Made Simple – Chris Knapp

This is a hands on class for those who learn by doing. Come gain confidence in the simplicity of fermenting. We will leave the hard work to the microbes. Chris and Ashirah Knapp have been operating Koviashuvik Local Living School in Temple, Maine since 2008, sharing traditional crafts and sustainable living skills with school groups, families, and adults

For  information, visit Mainefiddleheadfestival.com or the Maine Fiddlehead Festival Facebook page.


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