Creole Tomato Festival
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- Date: TBD
- Location: French Market
Held in the nation's oldest city marketplace, the Creole Tomato Festival features live music, cooking demonstrations, and the Creole Tomato Parade. Some of the city’s premier chefs lead the cooking demonstrations, showcasing dishes featuring the Creole tomato as the primary ingredient. The festival runs from 10am to 7pm on both days with 4 music stages, a Creole tomato eating contest, excitig giveaways and a "Tomato Talk".
The Creole tomato was originally imported from the West Indies, and thrives in southern Louisiana's rich soil and subtropical climate (source: New Orleans Nostalgia: "You Like Tomato and I Love Creole," Ned Hemard, 2006). The Creole tomato becomes available on the market and on local restaurant menus in early June, just in time for the festival.
The Creole Tomato festival includes fun traditions like life-sized tomatoes handing out tomato-shaped fans to festivalgoers, and an auction of the first tomatoes of the season to local chefs.
