Simple enough, what do the locals worship where you come from? Next weekend is the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which is the biggest food festival in the area. The next closest to me is the Mushroom Mardis Gras which is held during Memorial Day weekend. That falls over Fanime weekend though, so who cares.

At the Garlic Fest I've actually encountered people coming from the East Coast after having seen it on the Travel Channel or Food Network! There's stuff like Gourmet Alley where people watch chefs cooking with fiery pans, cooking demos and free garlic ice cream. People talk shit about the ice cream, but that's because they're too scared to try it. I think it's delicious! There's a huge, fast line every year!

They have a rib fest in both Cleveland and Columbus, but I think EVERYONE loves meat cooked over fire, lol. Down in Athens county (Ohio), they have a pawpaw festival. Fairborn has a sweet corn festival. I think Cleveland also has a wine festival for Ohio wines. But really, ALL of our festivals are about food. They just don't announce it. They say "Greek" or "Italian" or "Polish" lol.

Stranger Things reminded me that Castroville out here has an artichoke festival! I don't eat artichokes, but I think my mom dragged me out there once when I was a little kid... also now that I think about it, how does a kid with no front teeth eat artichokes anyway, aside from the hearts by themselves.

we have a lot of barbecue festivals and sour beer ones for some reason.

Pittsburgh is Slav af so we have tons of Catholic church festivals where you can buy homemade Polish food from ancient old ladies and it's amazing.

We have a LOT of Portuguese-Catholic feast festivals (to the point where it's more 'ugh traffic why' than 'fuck yeah malasadas!') and Newport does Irish food festivals a few times a year that I've never attended but found myself downwind from once or twice. Everything smells like stale beer and boiled cabbage for a day or two.

Every September is the Fluff Festival in Somerville. There's also a cider festival in Western Mass. every year, but I haven't had the chance to go yet.

There are a ton of seafood festivals here, too. The Wellfleet Oyster Fest was canceled this year due to listeria found in local oysters.