Journal Times Online, WI
Aug 5, 2006

At Armenian Fest, food is the attraction

By Scott Anderson

RACINE – Armenian Fest will once again grace the Festival Park
grounds Sunday with an array of games, music, dance, art and a church
service.

"We pack a lot of things into one day," festival chair Perry
Paragamian said.

But above all, Paragamian postulates, there’s one thing that really
brings people to Armenian Fest – the food.

"The weather is going to be nice and the aroma from the grill will
bring you in from the street," he said.

Armenian Fest will be held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday at Festival
Park, beginning at 10 a.m. with English Divine Liturgy services in
the Green Room of Festival Hall.

The festival, known as one of the largest Armenian Festivals in the
Midwest, is sponsored by St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church.

The festival will feature Armenian foods such as shish kebab, pilaf
and cheese boeregs, plus numerous Armenian pastries and breads, all
of which are Armenian family recipes that the general public just
can’t find anywhere else.

Members of St. Mesrob’s Womens’ Guild organizes and performs all the
food preparation and cooking, and have been busy over the last week
preparing for the festival.

On Friday, they were preparing scores of sarma – a grape leaf roll
stuffed with rice, parsley, tomatoes, onions, lemon juice and oil.
It’s so good, Womens’ Guild chair Alice Garoukian said, that people
ask to buy sarma and the enamel container in which they were cooked.

"There are people who like it so much, they are addicted to it," she
said. "I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the way it is."

The sarma is homemade through-and-through, right down to the grape
leaves that are picked by hand from a special breed of grape plant
that characteristically does not bear fruit.

"Everything we do is labor intensive," Garoukian said of the Womens’
Guild efforts in preparing the festival’s food.

Humble beginnings Paragamian said the festival got its start between
75-80 years ago as a picnic for parishioners that at one time was
held at

Johnson Park.

Over the years, he said, the picnic grew as the Armenian parishioners
intermarried, introducing more and more people to Armenian cultures
and traditions.

When Festival Park opened in the late 1980s, Armenian Fest moved in
and has played host to the yearly celebration ever since.

"This is the one time a year joining communities come to Racine to
see friends they haven’t seen for some time," Paragamian said.
"Normally, when an Armenian goes out of town, they look for another
`ian’ in the phone book. That’s how close we are."

There is no admission fee to the festival, however, a freewill
offering will be accepted. Proceeds will go to orphanages in Armenia
and to the Racine Northside Food Pantry.