Los Banos Tomato Festival draws thousands

The fifth annual Los Banos Tomato Festival entertained a crowd of a few thousand people with fun, food and education about one of the region’s most important crops.

“I’m really excited about the turnout,” said Michael Amabile, the festival’s chairman. “When we opened the gates at 10, I bet you there was a couple thousand people in here. It’s fabulous.”

Organizers estimated 10,000 people would attend. Admission was free, so official numbers aren’t available. However, the festival saw a steady crowd Saturday.

There were chef demonstrations, food contests, games, a farmers market, dance demonstrations, musical acts and information displays from local processing plants.

Chef Alan McDonald, the executive chef at Kagome Inc., held cooking classes where he guided selected audience members in preparing salmon and steak shish kebabs and an arugula salad and dressing, all revolving around tomatoes.

“This is really neat to see him doing it and us being a part of it,” said John Martinez, who took part in the cooking class. “I’m going to be doing this tomorrow. I am going to make posole. It’s a Mexican soup, and I’ll be doing this.”

Martinez had no chance of forgetting McDonald’s ingredients, because each cooking-class participant was given a list of recipes featuring what they cooked.

Merced College physics students spent the day competing in teams in a tomato-catapult competition. For a class assignment, the students spent two weeks building and testing the catapults and then, aided by metal weights and elbow grease, flung the tomatoes through the open fields of the Los Banos Fairgrounds.

“It takes time because you’re trying to judge what works well and what doesn’t. This is probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Diego Benegas said after his team catapulted a tomato past the measured area of the competition.

The Tomato Chowdown was another popular event. Fifteen contestants competed to see who could eat the most tomatoes by weight in five minutes. Zachary Monk, 24, was the winner with 3.92 pounds eaten. He won $100 and a Los Banos Tomato Festival T-shirt.

“It’s something fun, and plus my little girls think it’s funny,” Monk said when asked why he entered the contest. “There’s no prepping for it; you just got to be hungry enough.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2015 at 5:48 PM with the headline "Los Banos Tomato Festival draws thousands."