Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408080020
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Grandpa Jones used to stand cleaning a prop window on television's "Hee Haw" show and tell viewers what was for supper. Take those mouth-watering country menus and multiply by 20 and you've got the Virginia Food Festival.
The festival, held each year by the Virginia Agribusiness Council at the State Fairgrounds, is probably the best secret Richmond has kept from the rest of the Old Dominion. It is the commonwealth of Virginia's premier "pig-out."
For Wednesday's festival, the agribusiness council sold out, in advance, all 5,000 tickets, most of them to residents around the state's capital.
For the $20 admission, festival attendees could spend four hours eating and drinking their way through mountains of food and wine, all grown on Virginia farms or processed in Virginia plants.
Huge beer trucks were parked on the festival grounds dispensing gallons of Virginia-brewed beer. Sizzling on wagon-sized gas and charcoal grills around the fairgrounds were 1,800 pounds of pork, 1,500 pounds of beef and 4,800 pounds of chicken. In pots and pans nearby were 4,200 crabs, 1,200 pounds of catfish and 2,500 frying eggs. You could put on five pounds just looking at it all.
Chuck Saunders, executive vice president of Colonial Farm Credit in Mechanicsville and chairman of the festival for its entire 13-year history, said the event is the main way the council raises money to lobby the General Assembly. It's also a way to showcase Virginia-produced agricultural products, he said.
The council represents more than a dozen commodity producer associations in Richmond.
Reggie Reynolds, executive secretary of the Virginia Cattlemen's Association in Daleville, was moving beef roasts on and off a barbecue pit under a hot August sun.
A crew from the Reckoning County Feeder Cattle Association started cooking the 20-pound slabs of beef at 11 a.m., he explained. The meat was coated with salt and pepper to keep it moist and cooked over a low heat for three hours until it was pink.
Slicing of the meat started at 2:30 p.m. to get ready for the 4 p.m. opening. Helping out under the beef industry tent were county extension agents and members of Virginia Tech's Block and Bridle Club.
Across the way, under the shade of some trees, Virginia's egg producers were preparing flaming cherry omelets. Mary Rapoport of Roanoke, who represents the Virginia Egg Council, has been with the festival from the start.
Carlton Courter, Virginia's new agriculture commissioner, was waiting to compete in the milking contest against the new Miss Virginia, Cullen Johnson.
Courter said this is the first year of the festival that he has not been on the fairgrounds for three days ahead of time putting up tents. Courter was the agribusiness council's president before being named this spring by Gov. George Allen to head the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
by CNB