Published: September 05, 2009 10:24 pm         

44th annual Little Italy Festival brings crowd to Wabash Valley

Clinton — Whether sold by a vendor or cooked in a contest, the 44th annual Little Italy Festival was flowing with food from one end of Water Street to the other Saturday afternoon.

Clinton’s four-day festival filled the streets with music and costumes as people from near and far lounged in the warm air as the Wabash River flowed by.

“We came up to Indianapolis on vacation to visit some relatives and saw an advertisement for it, and we thought, how fun would this be?” Becky Kelley of Louisville, Ky., said with a cardboard box full of Styrofoam containers.

Kelley, her husband Tony, and a host of friends and family sat by the town fountain as the festival’s second annual spaghetti sauce cookoff got under way.

Audience members could vote for their favorite sauces by sampling each in Styrofoam cups. “They’re all really good,” Kelley said, working her way through the box.

Cookoff organizer Stephanie Waters noted that the contest is the only of its kind they know of. “It’s unique,” she said, explaining that while chili cookoffs are common, no other spaghetti sauce contest has been found.

Run like a chili cookoff, contestants prepare their spaghetti sauce onsite and no store-bought sauces are allowed. Meats are ordered through the festival board and county health codes are enforced, she said.

And for only the second year of the contest, Waters said participation is good. “We’re happy with the turnout,” she said, counting three teams and two individuals competing.

Debbie Moran had her granddaughter, Kelsey, down from Indianapolis to taste the heritage. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’m born Italian.”

Grandma and granddaughter sampled the entries and said the choice was tough. “I think it’s really good,” Kelsey said. “I love Italian food.”

Marcy Borchers was a returning competitor, having won the Individual Championship last year. The South Vermillion High School alumnus now lives in Winona Lake but returns for the festival.

“I basically have left the recipe the same to see it how does from last year,” she said. Borchers explained that she re-seasons her Italian sausage and uses some parmesan cheese in her recipe.

Down the table, Doug and Dale Orman hosted “Leonardo’s School of Cooking and Art” as the retired school superintendent and wife wore costumes while working.

“This is my first try at this,” Orman said as he stirred his sauce. But under the board on which he displayed his recipe was a plaque from the World Championship Chili Cook-Off in Terlinguas, Texas, a border town near the Rio Grande River where the two finished in the top 50 out of 250 competitors. “We’ve been doing chili cookoffs all over,” he said.

Meanwhile, down the street on the festival’s main stage, four men placed their mustachio on display, next to high school girls wearing a variety of comical imitations.

George Hamke’s facial hair won the prize for length, and he said he’s been growing it since his first son’s birth in 1969.

“He wouldn’t know me without my mustache,” the 62-year-old Montezuma resident said.

Several rounds of sausage-eating contests began at the stage, where Scott Miller beat out four other contestants by downing 2 lbs. of a sausage, pepper and potato concoction from a steel tray holding 4 lbs. Contestants had three minutes to eat as much as they could before the remainder was weighed.

The spaghetti sauce winners were announced at 3 p.m., with Borchers winning People’s Choice, the Ormans winning Judges’ Choice, Aaron Kendall winning Showmanship and Dylan Martin and Brody Crum taking first prize as a team.

The festival reopens today at 11 a.m. with events planned through Monday at 9 p.m. with a fireworks finale.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.



Check it out

Today at the Little Italy Festival

11 a.m. – Concessions Open

11 a.m. – All School Dancers

11:30 a.m. – Nancy Sauer Dancers

Noon – Little Feet Dancers

12:30 p.m. – Pizza Eating Contest

1:30 p.m. – Energy Unlimited

2 p.m. – Costume Contest

3:30 p.m. – Grape Stomping

4 p.m. – Music by Coon Holler Kids

6 p.m. – Italian Singers

6:30 p.m. – Music by Pete Carrera

6:45 p.m. – Grape Stomping

7 p.m. – Italian Cooking School

7:30 p.m. – Isaiah Pittman, Sing and Dance

8 p.m. – Queen and Court

8:30 p.m. – Terry Lee, Rockabilly Band

11 p.m. – Concessions Close