I guess you could say my family has roots in the the Gilroy Garlic Festival. My mom is Patti Hale and hasn't only worked at the largest garlic processing plant in the world for 21 years, but she and my step-dad have been involved with the garlic festival ever since it started in 1979. My step-dad, Leonard, was president of the garlic festival in 1985. In 1982-83 he was parking chairman and was on the board of directors a couple of times and on the strategic planning committee. Both have been on the Board of Directors of the Garlic Festival and both have headed up committees. My mom actually went to Japan to represent the Gilroy Garlic Festival at their Beef and Garlic Festival in Takko Machi. My mom knows the history of The Garlic Festival better than anyone I know. And this is the story she tells of the birth of the Garlic Festival.
In 1979 the
Garlic Festival got started at the Rotary luncheon. The members were trying
to find way to bolster up the community. People felt kind of down about
the city's image. They would drive by and say there was that terrible odor
from the garlic. So they decided to hold a luncheon
and invite a lot of prominent magazine food editors.
They prepared gourmet dishes, all
of them jammed packed with garlic, showing that fine food always had to
include garlic. Gilroy was the home of two of the world's largest processors:
Gilroy Foods and Gentry. And because of this these Rotarians felt that
we produced the most garlic of anyone else in the world, therefore the
people of Gilroy proclaimed to be the garlic capital of the world.
Rudy Malone had recently read about
a little town in France, Arleux, which called itself the garlic capital
of the world and had a garlic festival that hosted more than 5,000 people.
Rudy thought, "How could this little
town in Arleux dare to claim that they were the garlic capital of the world
when Gilroy has two of the largest processors of the world in their town?"
If Arleux could host a garlic festival
and host 5,000 people, surely Gilroy could do as well.
Held the luncheon, the editors loved
the food and started writing about garlic and the city of Gilroy.
And the Rotarians got together and
started to plan the first garlic festival. Because they needed money up
front to host the first festival, Malone and others borrowed $7,000 from
prominent Gilroy garlic businesses. They got enough money to rent booths
and to buy ingredients for the food that would be in gourmet alley that
year.
Val Filice was in charge of gourmet
alley the first year and still is. He created the recipes and cooked the
food that was showcased in the first gourmet alley.
The all-time favorite dish is the
scampi because they flame-up. The flame-up is a very showy way of cooking
the scampi.
One of the reasons the media go wild
is because preparing the scampi is such a spectacular show. The cooking
of the scampi is so exciting because the chefs perform the flame-up for
the crowd.
The people who prepare that dish
are called pyro chefs. And that's the most sought-after position in gourmet
alley. Some people have waited 20 years and still have not qualified to
be a pyro chef.
To create interest in the festival,
there are satellite events. There are 5K and 10K runs, a barn dance before
the festival, the Miss Gilroy Garlic Queen pageant, a bike tour and a golf
tournament.
The first Garlic Festival, in 1979,
was held at Bloomfield Ranch in Gilroy.
The man-hours are earned and paid
by The Garlic Festival. The volunteers can decide where the money will
go by saying which charity they would like to donate to. The money that
the Garlic Festival pays its volunteers comes from admissions and at gourmet
alley.
Some of the charities that benefit
are the Crippled Children's Society, the Elks Club, numerous high school
organizations, church organizations, Hope Rehabilitation, the American
Cancer Society and more. In total there are 52 charities that earn between
$270,000 to $300,000 that is given to the charitable organizations every
year.
Garlic festival volunteers contributed
more than $5 million to charity in the first 20 years of the garlic festival
. Every year since 1987, the Garlic Festival gives between $200,000 and
$300,000.
That doesn't count the profit that
the organization takes in from any booths they it may have at the festival.
There are 80-100 booths at the festival
and more than half are non-profit. The Chamber of Commerce has beer concessions
and it earns more than $300,000. Many organizations earn their budget for
the whole year through volunteer work at the festival or in working in
one of the non-profit booths.
There are three paid staff members
that work all year round and 4,ooo volunteers. The venders are evaluated
each year. You have to be the best of the best to be at the garlic festival
or you are not going to be there next year. The Garlic Festival is nothing
but the best.
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