14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
February’s flurry of food festivals
Story by
THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA
MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM
FACEBOOK.COM/MOUTHOFTHECOLUMBIA
D
espite a few glints of
spring’s approach, February
can be a trying time ’round
these parts. We’re cold, wet,
cooped up and over it.
So I give mighty thanks to Feb-
ruary’s flurry of festivals — among
them Astoria’s Festival of Dark
Arts and FisherPoets Gathering,
and Seaside’s Fiery Foods Festival
— without which I might’ve lost
my mind.
These events are, in many ways,
a response to February: They gath-
er context, meaning and necessity
from its shivering, wet, oft-barren
darkness.
At Fort George Brewery,
February is Stout Month. Their
proclamation: “The shortest and
darkest month is the perfect time
to showcase the immense variety
hidden within this style of beer.”
The culmination of Stout Month
is the Festival of Dark Arts, a day-
long carnival with blackened suds
flowing from some 65-plus kegs.
It’s a bright, lively party when we
need it most.
Similarly, holding the Fiery
Foods Festival in February makes
perfect sense: It’s an all-comers
spicy cooking competition, voted
on by a tasting audience, just when
we’re in need of warmth. On this
particular Saturday — chilly and
crummy, of course — the spice
eventually had me retiring my coat,
hat and sweatshirt to the car. With
sweaty cheeks, the layers were no
longer necessary.
Then there’s FisherPoets Gath-
ering, which has to be held outside
of summer’s fishing seasons. The
three-day event was inspired by
founder Jon Broderick’s trip to the
National Cowboy Poetry Gath-
ering, but rather than cowboys,
the poems are written and read by
commercial fishermen. (Dunge-
ness crabbers, though, were still at
COLIN MURPHEY PHOTO
The Festival of Dark Arts in Astoria featured a wide variety of dark beers to sample.
THE MOUTH PHOTO
An impressive spread at this year’s Fiery Foods Festival at Relief Pitcher in Seaside
work.) And FisherPoets gains color
from taking place in rotten weath-
er, as many of the tales take place
in the face of unrelenting nature.
More than February’s weather,
though, these three festivals are
united by food. Eating and drink-
ing are at their hearts.
As for Dark Arts, stout may be
the food-iest of all beers. From
savory to sweet, salty to bitter and
beyond, stout is a gracious and
malleable vessel. It’s a brewer’s
beer. Which may be why so many
beermongers from around the
Northwest flocked to the Fort
George campus.
A brief collection of ingredients
included in the stouts: Peruvian
cocoa nibs, pinot noir, basil, lem-
ongrass, fennel, fig, chaga mush-
rooms, dulce de leche, lentils, star
anise and Vermont maple syrup.
And those were just some of the
ones I didn’t get to try.
Among the more exciting
ones I did: a peppy Green Impe-
rial Stout from Caldera Brewing
Company with a twang of roasted
green chiles, tomatillos and green
peppercorns; Gigantic’s Nevermind
Oyster Stout, with briny Netarts
Bay oysters and oyster liquor (aka
the liquid found inside the shell);
and Mill City’s Habanero Rum Trip
Barrel. In each case, I wouldn’t
have complained if these left-field
flavors were cranked up, brought
further into the fore. Let’s get wild!
(There was plenty of food at
Dark Arts, but I had other dining
obligations that evening. Still:
There’s opportunity to expand the
fest’s fare to feature much more
stout.)
Speaking of habaneros, a few
of those orange brats made it into
Fiery Foods. But none of the 25
dishes entered in the competition
had an unyielding heat. (Organizers
learned early on that mind-bending
spice was easy, palate-ruining and a
whole lot less enjoyable than devel-
oped flavor with a reasonable kick.)
This year’s Fiery Foods saw
twice as many entrants as 2017.
The Relief Pitcher was overstuffed
and then some. Imagine dining in
a crowded elevator and you’re ba-
sically there. But all those bodies
also meant that anticipation was
bubbling. Many cooks had been
working for days on their dishes:
marinating, refining, dialing the
heat up or down. Some were hell-
bent on winning, others just happy
to participate.
I was overcome by the sense of
discovery: 25 home-cooked bites
spanning from chilis to chowders
to cupcakes, tacos, meatballs, pas-
tas and so on.
My ballot, for what it’s worth:
1.) a complex and vivacious
Seafood Jambalaya complete with
clams in the shell; 2.) a refresh-
ing, wholesome, palate-pivoting
African Peanut Chicken Stew;
and 3.) Baby Back Ribs that were
impeccably cooked and balanced.
Alas, my votes had no overlap with
the winners: 1.) Ghost Chowder;
2.) Teriyaki Meatballs; 3.) Ghost
Chili.
But Fiery Foods adds up to
more than just a contest, tasting or
cheap meal. It’s a vibrant potluck
with a rustic local spirit. In a sea
of crockpots, platters and bowls
spread across a pool table, all from
different households and boasting
family recipes, a community is
forged. I met one attendee who’d
attended Fiery Foods each of its 21
years. He wasn’t an outlier.
As it were, FisherPoets, too, is
entering adulthood, celebrating its
21st year.
And while the literature per-
formed by the FisherPoets tends
to focus more on the physicality,
lifestyle and grit and grind of gru-
eling labor and awesome nature,
I kept coming back to dinner —
it’s ostensibly the driving force
that keeps these men and women
returning to places like Bristol Bay
every summer and deploying their
gillnets.
Rarely is the journey of any
food from the wild to the table so
vividly depicted. I was taken by
the removal of abstraction, the
remarkable lengths, the fortitude
required. Indeed, few if any foods
require the personal risk or sacri-
fice of commercial fishing.
In terms of commercial salmon
fishing, I find it rather remarkable
that fisherman — at least these
FisherPoets — retain such roman-
ticism for the process, the fish, the
natural cycle.
Unlikely or contrary as it may
appear, some FisherPoets double as
activists. One sang about protect-
ing immigrant workers. Another
was a documentary filmmaker
protesting a mine proposed at the
mouth of Bristol Bay, the epicenter
of Alaskan salmon fishing.
While film certainly is an
avenue to making a difference,
the director might want to include
a meal at his screening. Change
requires building a community,
and, as these festivals show, food
does just that. CW