Palms harvested ahead of festival

Since its start in April 1978, one Putnam County festival has for years provided residents and visitors with a unique cuisine in the form of swamp cabbage.

It’s not an easy job, according to County Commissioner Bill Pickens, a member of the Rotary Club of Crescent City, who has been overseeing the swamp cabbage harvesting for about 35 years. He has taken the reins again in preparation for this year’s Crescent City Catfish Festival on Saturday.

With a generator, saw sharpener, eight chainsaws, a donated dump truck and a back-end loader, Pickens and his crew of nearly 40 volunteers took on the task of harvesting between 500-600 hearts of palm on Wednesday. The size of the palms harvested averaged between 7 to 15 feet tall.

“We usually have eight volunteers sawing the palms and maybe 20 loading it and getting it on the dump truck,” he said. “That took a good eight-hour day.”

JROTC students from Crescent City Junior-Senior High School were among those who helped with the harvesting by loading the cabbage heads onto the dump truck.

However, Pickens said, the work doesn’t end there.

“On Friday, we will spend six hours in two different places booting out the cabbage,” he said.

On Saturday, starting at about 5 a.m., the cooking process will begin at the Crescent City Junior-Senior High School cafeteria, according to Pickens.

“We usually will average about 150 gallons of the swamp cabbage in four cookings for the festival,” he said. “I call this a cracker delicacy.”

The swamp cabbage delicacy, Pickens said, has been cooked using the same recipe throughout 42 iterations of the Crescent City Catfish Festival.

“We use about 100 pounds of bacon and sausage and then salt, pepper and a little bit of sugar and vinegar to taste,” he said.

The Catfish Festival returns this weekend after a four-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival will be at Eva Lyon Park, 100 S. Summit St., from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. It will begin with a welcome to festival-goers and vendor booths opening. A DJ will play music from 10 a.m. – noon.

“Because we are restarting the festival, we determined that a one-day event on Saturday would be the best course,” festival Chairman Rodney Phillips said. “After we see the crowds come back, we may go back to our normal Friday and Saturday event for future festivals.”

The Rotary Club of Crescent City is the sponsor for the festival, which will include arts and crafts vendors and a parade at 11 a.m. starting at the flashing light on Summit St. and heading north.

A kids zone, a car show sponsored by the Yacht Club of Crescent City and live music from noon – 5 p.m. at the gazebo will also occur at the festival. A variety of food will also be available, including gator tail, quail, frog legs, funnel cakes, hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken fingers, fresh strawberry shortcake, swamp cabbage and, of course, catfish dinners and sandwiches.

The music lineup will include the band Frazzled followed by live Latin music starting with the band Clave 386.

Phillips said although the catfish dinners are the staple of the festival and are made fresh and ready to eat, swamp cabbage and strawberry shortcake are big draws, too.

“The festival will be a safe, fun environment for the whole family,” he said. “We have something to offer for all ages.”

Besides that, Phillips said, proceeds from the festival will go to Rotary’s “Dollars for Scholars,” which has raised more than $1 million to benefit high school seniors. Pickens said there will be 15 scholarships of $1,500 each awarded to seniors.

Over the years, Phillips said, there have been an estimated 20,000 visitors who have attended the event.

“It’s amazing to see the community come together,” he said. “We have hundreds of volunteers who supply their talents. Without them, we couldn’t be successful.”

Phillips hopes area residents will come and support the Rotary Club of Crescent City’s Catfish Festival.

“We would enjoy seeing our friends and neighbors, and they can be a part of helping kick the Catfish Festival off again,” he said.