by Guest Writer, Michael Norton
Spring brings out the best in most people, especially after a six-month winter in Empire, a tiny Lake Michigan coastal village. Every year residents celebrate emerging and delicate vegetables with the Empire Asparagus Festival. Garbed in glorious green asparagus-like costumes, Empireans start the two-day party by parading through the small three-block town center. This year’s festival is scheduled May 15 and 16 and promises cook offs with anything containing asparagus. Singing; dancing; athletic events; and the consumption of respectable quantities of beer and wine are also on the agenda.
After California and Washington, Michigan is the nation’s third-largest producer of commercial asparagus, netting some $29 million for the state.But that isn’t what makes Empire’s asparagus or the festival so notable. This berg’s census holds only 400 names and its asparagus production comes from one lone local farm, owned by Harry Norconk. His 240-acre operation is about two miles south of town.
Empire, so named for an ill-fated schooner that briefly served as the village school after running aground in 1865, is best known as an artsy summer resort in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes – with lots of asparagus.
Every May this opportunistic vegetable’s perky green spears start showing up in fields, ditches, meadows and hillsides all over the region. That’s all it took for the citizens of Empire to devise this annual celebration. (Empireans already have a festival honoring an anchor that was recovered in 1977 from the lake bottom.)
“It’s mainly just an excuse to get out and enjoy ourselves,” said festival organizer Paul Skinner, a British expat who owns an antique store in town. “We don’t really need a big reason to have music or eat.”
But the festivities do have their earnest save-the-world side, too. Like many other communities in the fruit-growing region around Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay, Empire is a hotbed of advocacy for small-scale local agriculture and regional cuisine. Other towns in the area celebrate cherries, wines and wild mushrooms; Empire opted for the humble asparagus.
This year’s event promises an asparagus poetry contest, a 5K “Kick Ass-paragus” Fun Run/Walk; a tour of local art galleries and studios; the making of asparagus-garnished parade hats; the annual Asparagus Parade; an afternoon concert and dance; and a massive asparagus-based food, wine and beer tasting that will include such treats as asparagus focaccia, asparagus pizza, asparagus croissants, asparagus scones, asparagus bratwurst, asparagus slaw, asparagus and morel risotto, and asparagus beer.
Yes, it’s true – asparagus beer from the too-creative-for-their-own-good brewers at Traverse City’s Right Brain Brewery.
For more information on the festival, area spring activities in the area, or for the best dining and lodging spots, contact: The Traverse City Convention and Visitor’s at: www.VisitTraverseCity.com or call them at 1-800-872-8377. (Michael Norton works for Traverse City Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.)
