NEW ORLEANS – Pride weekend ended with a bang! A special festival graced the French Market with a pretty cool fruit. The event brought culture and creativity! People traveled from all over the country to be a part of the two-day celebration.
912 North Peters Street was crowded for the 33rd Annual Creole Tomato Festival– an event that celebrates and promotes the fruit. Vendors like Brad Collins say, creole tomatoes have a different umph to them! “It’s a tomato grown in either St. Bernard or Plaquemines perish. Really fertile soil combined with the humidity and the heat makes for a delicious, sweet, acidic tomato. When you taste the creole tomato, you really understand why they categorize it as a fruit rather than a vegetable.”
Tourist, Colleen Kane, traveled from Chicago to buy her red balls of flavor, but she tells WGNO, it’s not her first time at the festival. “I come every year for the Tomato Festival! I love tomatoes and this is the first crop of the season.”
Colleen also comes to get a jump start on tomato season. “You’ve got ’em in early June. In Chicago, we won’t have tomatoes ’til August.”
Ben Becnel started growing creole tomatoes over 50 years ago. He says, one prominent mixture separates the unique fruit. “The soil from all over the country that the roots go into and the minerals in that soil makes them change the taste.”
WGNO asked a few fest-goers how they felt about the taste. . .
“They’re really great!”
“They’re more juicy and sweet!”
“Big and plumpy and very tasty!”
“We love the tomatoes! We come to the Tomato Festival every year! They are great.”
Sunday was the last day of the yummy event but the 34th Annual Creole Tomato Festival is expected to happen next June.
