This weekend is the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival.  Ponchatoula is about 45 minutes from New Orleans - a great little town that has been celebrating our magnificent, solid-through-the middle strawberries, for over 30 years.  After some rather intriguing politics and legal wrangling, Ponchatoula was declared “The Strawberry Capital of the World” in 1968.  Click on that link for very interesting reading about how the whole thing went down.  The Strawberry Festival is a dizzyingly delicious event with all sorts of local foods and most important, all things strawberry, including the “bake off” winners in categories for Strawberry Cake; Strawberry Jelly/Jams; Strawberry Pie; Strawberry Muffin, Loaves & Cookies; Strawberry Misc.; and other Strawberry Dessert.  Inspired by the bright red berries stunning bright, floral flavor, I’m heading to Ponchatoula to taste all the spectacular foods and pick up a flat of strawberries so I can whip up Emeril’s Strawberry Shortcake with Fresh Strawberry Bread.  Heavenly.

Filed Under: Culinary History, Food Talk