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MULTIMEDIA | Applefest 2024: Meet the Vendors
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The Sun spoke with vendors at this year’s annual Apple Harvest Festival, affectionately known as “Applefest,” held from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29 in downtown Ithaca.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/cider/)
The Sun spoke with vendors at this year’s annual Apple Harvest Festival, affectionately known as “Applefest,” held from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29 in downtown Ithaca.
With fall’s arrival, there’s nothing more exciting than looking at new seasonal treats. It’s always been a joy for me to look at the innovative additions to restaurants’ and cafes’ temporary seasonal menu. So, I decided to visit local eateries and try out some of their seasonal items, focusing on pumpkin and apple. Collegetown Bagels — Pumpkin Bar
Starting off with this iconic treat, the pumpkin bar is a three layered dessert bar with a graham cracker base, cream cheese frosting in the middle and a layer of pumpkin spice cream cheese topped with whipped cream. The pumpkin bar looks nothing but delicious and offers a great variety of flavor.
AppleFest, an Ithaca tradition, looked slightly different this year. Usually, the event boasts about 200 vendors with carnival games and every sort of apple-flavored treat imaginable. This year the event drastically reduced its capacity to reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission and spread. Instead of the normal massive festival, Downtown Ithaca organized an “Apple and Cider Trail” as well as a small open air market. The trail directed attendees to different participating local businesses who were selling apple themed foods, drinks and gifts.
Tompkins County’s iteration of the time-honored Upstate New York fall tradition, the Ithaca Apple Harvest Festival, will open this Friday in Downtown Ithaca at noon and continue until Sunday, Sept. 29. The three-day festival celebrates one of upstate New York’s most iconic and valuable agricultural exports — trailing only Washington in production, the state produces 30 million bushels of apples annually, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. “The idea is to help share the story and the strong, rich agriculture economy that we have in the county and the greater Finger Lakes. With apples being the prime crop in New York State, we are in the prime apple region,” Allison Graffin, marketing director of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, told the Ithaca Times.
The exhibit, “Apples to Cider: An Old Industry Takes New Root,” speaks to the rich history of apples in cider-making, and the resurgence of an industry with close ties to Cornell research.
From carnival games to face painting, mittens to knitted crop tops and apples to mac and cheese, Apple Fest offered fun and food for everyone there.
By introducing local cider makers to the public, this event offered a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn about the production methods of cider-making and what makes New York ciders unique.
You’ve heard of the Apple Harvest Festival, but have you heard of Cider Week? Cider Week, Apple Fest’s lesser-known older sibling, kicked off this weekend, offering a variety of events around the Finger Lakes through October 9.