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I wanted to see if many of you in CA made it out to the pomegranate festival in Madera this last Saturday? Lots of pomegranate bbq sauces, jelly, beer (it was delicious). My favorite is the aril removal contest. I don't mean to brag or anything (oh yes I do) but your truly took home the trophy this year (a plastic mug). Anybody who things they can take me down has 1 year to train before I defend the title.

You say all this, yet how fast did you take to remove the arils?

They give you 1 minute and whoever has the most arils in their bowl wins.

Awesome! Did you get to eat all the arils you extracted?

Yeah, in fact, most the competitors gave the arils to kids who watched the contest. Any young person who is willing to spend their Saturday at a pomegranate festival and watch an aril removing contest, deserves some free food.

Major congratulations to you on your win! Too bad Cali is so far away. This would have been really fun to attend.

I would have loved to have gone had I heard about it!! Madera is only a couple hours' drive from me
Anytime there's something like that going on, please post it! There are those of us completely unaware of what is going on around us
Congrats on your win!

Congrats!! I would attend but my kid had a birthday so I enjoyed the day in a different way
What varieties were represented? Was there a taste test? Any ratings available?

What varieties were represented? Was there a taste test? Any ratings available?

As far as fresh-eating, the festival is lacking. All the pomegranates I have purchased at the festival have been Wonderful (or at least some semi-tart medium seed hardness variety). My goal is to setup a booth and let people try the different varieties. I currently have 9 varieties growing at home (Wonderful, Early Wonderful, Ambrosia, Parfianka, Eversweet, Desertnyi, Angel Red, Sharp Velvet, Sirenvyi) and I should have enough fruit to setup a stand in a couple years. Right now, the focus at the festival seems to be different products you can make with pomegranates rather than different cultivars for fresh eating.

Next year someone should film the aril removal championship.