As I’ve been mentioning again and again, this weekend was my first trip down to Hawrelak Park for the Heritage Festival.
A trip worth taking.
Since I didn’t want to crack the ETS code of when the shuttles left and how frequently they were leaving I decided to bike down to Hawrelak.
It was great to see so many people walking and biking down the hills from the university to the park. It was even better to find a giant bicycle parking lot right at the front entrance.
That's a lot of bikes.
And since you couldn’t park at Heritage Fest, your other option was to ride the bus. It’s heartening to see a festival take such a “green” approach and still be so successful.
Now, I did see a bunch of cars on Groat Road zipping to the curb to drop people off, so I guess there was still some sort of driving option.
Being my first visit to this 35-year Edmonton tradition I wanted to take in some of the cultural offerings, as well as food. Since I arrived midday it was hot, so I ducked into the amphitheater to catch the 1pm show.
But I was soon hungry, so I ventured out into the park to eat some food I couldn’t easily acquire at Edmonton restaurants. That was my plan with food, anyway.
You may see a red glow in other pictures. It's from the tents.
First stop, Eritrea. I grabbed a sambussa to start things off. It’s a flaky pastry filled with beef and onion.
It also speaks to my theory that you can basically walk into any type of restaurant, any tent at a celebration like Heritage Festival, and ask for meat inside of dough. It’s universal. (Think gyro, hot dog, taco, pupusa, samosa, etc…)
Some will argue dumplings are also universal, but I’m not the biggest fan so I don’t want to talk about dumplings.
These are a beef filled dumpling, with yogurt and red sauce, called "manti." They tasted better than they looked.
Because it was so hot I decided soup was a great idea. Borneo (later to be crowned best food of the festival) offered a sweet, spicy soup they called Laksa. It was filled with a savoury broth and lots of noodles. They said shrimp too, but I only found one on top of my noodles.
Don’t get me wrong, this was a tasty soup. And the woman taking my order said it was a popular dish since they hadn’t had it at the Borneo tent for a few years.
While enjoying my soup I tried to snap a photo of a dragonfly. I wanted to give them props for eating mosquitoes. All the people bustling about chased it off. Thanks though, dragonflies!
I did, however, bump into an old colleague. It was fortuitous because she’s the kind of person who knows all the best, exotic, interesting places to eat in Edmonton. And she knew where to point me at Heritage Fest.
You already saw the dumplings I tried at one of the new pavilions, Kyrgyzstan. Her other recommendation I was to act upon was that of camel. Yes, I was going to eat some camel.
I opted for that over marinated beef hearts (from Peru).
Edmonton’s Somali community was serving up the camel meat, and from the line I could tell I wasn’t the only one interested.
It was tough, kind of fatty, but overall not a strange meat. At this point I had a partner-in-crime and he likened it to wild game, like venison, we’d be more familiar with in Alberta.
It was amazing, as a first-timer, to see how the Heritage Festival takes over Hawrelak Park. There’s also something to be said for walking through a lovely park, as opposed to over concrete, for some festivals.
The food was fantastic, as was being able to donate the unused tickets to the Edmonton Food Bank. The dancing and shows were colourful and fun. The shopping was plentiful.
But the best part was seeing Edmonton, in all its multicultural glory.
The 80+ countries and cultures all have a home in our city. Heritage Festival was the perfect way to be reminded that Edmonton, like a lot of Canada’s cities, is home to people from most of the world.
It can be easy to forget just how big the world is and how many people have come to Canada. But now I know a reminder, a bit of education really, is down in the park every August long weekend.
I love Heritage Days – I have been going every year since I was a kid. But every year, there are less pavilions that show actual cultural information about the country or group they are representing and more pavilions that are just tables of /stuff/ you could buy at San Francisco or in Chinatown. When the “handmade” sweaters and hats in the Mexico booth have tags that say ‘Made in Peru’, I start getting a little cynical. And I get a little sad when the Somalian booth that has information on its walls and some cultural artifacts on display (but nothing to sell you) is empty, one over from the next to the Korean booth which is jam packed with tables of bobbles and such (including, incidentally, figurines shaped like small Dutch people).
I will never give up on Heritage Days – for its blending on people and culture, for the food, for the drummers and dancers and musicians; but I do wish that the folks setting up the booths would remember that learning about their culture, their history, their heritage, as it were, was part of the weekend too.
Pixie,
I loved seeing maps at a number of the booths (I’m a geography nerd), but maybe because it was my first time I didn’t pay as much attention to the informational side. I would also hope that people setting up a tent remember to teach people a little about their culture and history, as well as fill their bellies.
Nice pics. I agree on your comment about the maps. Thats one of my favorite parts too.
You can check out my blog post on Heritage Days, less food shots but at least one inappropriate one. http://bit.ly/bU8p8t
Wow! Looks incredible! Thanks for all the pics! I’d love to see all the cultures represented…and the food looks amazing. I’ll definitely have to try to make it next year.