Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
We humans love our food festivals, so much so that the National Geographic Society even put together a list a few years ago of what it considered to be the best food festival by state.
The Peanut Valley Festival inexplicably failed to make that list — the Viva New Mexico Chile Festival of Los Lunas slipped in to steal the title — but eastern New Mexicans know a good thing when we see it, and we’ve gathered for 43 years to celebrate our favorite underground legume.
The 44th version of the annual salute to Valencia peanuts is set for Saturday and Sunday at the Roosevelt County Fairgrounds, 705 E. Lime St. Hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, and admission is free.
A “larger than anticipated” crowd attended the first festival back in 1974, a multi-venue event dubbed “the Peanut Valley Festival, Eastern New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair, and Country Music Festival,” according to a Clovis News Journal story.
It was held on the Eastern New Mexico University campus, with more than 100 booths and exhibits divided between the old armory (located at that time smack dab in the center of campus) and the Campus Union Building ballroom.
Within a few years, I was a regular, elbowing my way each October through the packed crowds as the event took over much of the CUB.
I credit the Peanut Valley Festival for my enduring love of green chile jam, a sweet-spicy delicacy I first encountered there in free samples served atop cream-cheese covered crackers. It was an annual challenge to see how many of those giveaway snacks could be scored without being recognized by the vendor.
Two of my favorite outdoor chairs were purchased at a Peanut Valley Festival. Folding wooden rockers — I can tell you from experience — aren’t the easiest things to carry through a jostling crowd of eager shoppers.
Does anyone else remember Andy and Annie Sae and the Peanut Festival egg rolls? Andy taught chemistry at ENMU and Annie was in charge of food services, and the pair spearheaded the preparation of hundreds of egg rolls each year for a Kiwanis-run booth. It was a must-have festival food.
Another festival looms, with fresh memories waiting to be made.
But if you decide to buy furniture, you’re on your own. I’ll be too busy scoping out free food samples to help.
Betty Williamson thinks the world can’t have too many food festivals. You may reach her at: [email protected]
