WARDSBORO — Every October after autumn's first few hard frosts, this town honors, sells, and cooks up the bounty of one particular turnip in a very special way.
On Saturday, Oct. 28, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., hundreds will gather to celebrate Vermont's state vegetable at the Gilfeather Turnip Festival.
The turnip cart will be filled with multiple bushels of turnips, and craft and farmers'-market vendors will arrive early on festival day to set up shop inside and outside of Town Hall and under big and small tents on Main Street.
The festival, now in its 15th year, raises funds for the Friends of the Wardsboro Library to support the Gloria Danforth Memorial Building, the home of the Wardsboro Public Library. It is the Friends' largest community fundraising event.
This free event takes place rain, snow, or shine. A $2 donation is suggested for parking.
A featured part of the festival is the annual turnip contest, free for all to enter. Contestants may register Gilfeather turnips in one or more categories from 10 to noon upstairs in the Town Hall.
Contest categories are: largest grown in Wardsboro; largest grown outside Wardsboro; best turnip name; and best strange and funny turnip.
The largest turnip, measured by total weight with greens, will be awarded grand champion of the festival. Winners are announced and ribbons awarded immediately after the judging.
All children age 12 and younger who enter a turnip will receive an honorable-mention award ribbon.
The Turnip Café in the Town Hall serves homemade cider donuts and coffee beginning at 10 a.m., followed by lunch beginning at 11 a.m. Local cooks peel, slice, and shred the tubers to make creamy Gilfeather turnip soup, served until the food runs out. Doughnuts, coffee, and hot soup to go are also sold at an outdoor kiosk.
Recipes for all food served at the festival are published in the third edition of the Gilfeather Turnip Cookbook, on sale in the Turnip Boutique in Town Hall. The cookbook exclusively features all categories of turnip recipes, many old favorites but most brand new to this third edition.
More than 40 craft and farmers' market vendors are set up inside Town Hall and outdoors under the several big and small tents on Main Street. Vendors sell goods such as pottery, cheese boards, folk art and, of course, food. All food vendors at this year's festival are from Vermont. A complete vendor list is available at www.friendsofwardsborolibrary.org.
Live music is always a big draw at the Turnip Fest. Wardsboro's own strolling troubadour, Jimmy Knapp, loves to serenade visitors throughout the festival with his original Gilfeather turnip ballads and many more of his original guitar compositions. Scheduled to perform on the Town Hall stage is the group Brothers for Life, and Marvin Bentley will perform outside the entrance to the Town Office on Main Street.
The Wardsboro School Club is sponsoring face painting and games throughout the day to entertain the younger set.
On Saturday, Oct. 28, at 2 p.m., the drawing for the Friends of the Wardsboro Library's annual “Best Raffle Ever” takes place at Town Hall. This year's prize is a one-of-a-kind, Christmas tree skirt, hand-hooked and donated by fiber artist Linda Gifkins of Wardsboro. Details are available at the library's website or at the festival until the drawing. The winner need not be present.
Throughout the day four large gift baskets will be raffled off beginning at 10:30 a.m.. Winners must be present at the drawings. The baskets contain items donated by festival vendors - food, decor items, ceramics, and jewelry.
Heirloom, humble root
The Gilfeather turnip, designated the Vermont state vegetable in 2016, has the added distinction of being the only turnip included in Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste, a catalog comprised of only the best-tasting endangered foods.
Wardsboro farmer John Gilfeather could never have imagined that one day his town and the state of Vermont would celebrate and honor his humble tuber that he first propagated in the early 1900s.
Gilfeather Farm still exists, right in the heart of Wardsboro, and the current owners carry on the tradition of Farmer John by planting a large crop of the heirloom turnip that originated on their farm at the turn of the century.
Increasing numbers of people are discovering the culinary possibilities of the now-famous heirloom vegetable, and the menu at the Turnip Café illustrates how turnips are adaptable to savory as well as sweet offerings.
The humble root vegetable - knobby, rough-skinned and not especially attractive - has attracted so much attention to the small town.
More than 150 pounds of turnips are cooked for the event's signature Gilfeather turnip soup. Another 150 pounds go to volunteer cooks to prepare the tastings for entrees and desserts.
The large turnip cart outside Town Hall is always loaded with hundreds of pounds of Gilfeathers, all shapes and sizes, many grown on neighboring farms such as Dutton's in Newfane or in local gardens.
Turnips are sold by the pound, along with Gilfeather seed packets.
Growers agree that the Gilfeather turnips are hardy and easy to cultivate from seed, but that they shouldn't be harvested before a bite of hard frost, which gives them a special sweetness.