Paso Robles’ Olive Festival Feeds the Community Spirit
Artisans, California, Featured, Paso Robles, Travel — By Jane Beckman on August 25, 2010 at 12:09 pm
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Paso Robles’ Olive Festival Feeds the Community Spirit
California has often been said to have a “Mediterranean” climate, so olives are a natural. Back to the days of the Missions, olives have been a feature of California agriculture. Olive trees flourish in much the same climate as grapes, so it’s a natural that the wine regions around Paso Robles are at the heart of the California olive oil movement.
We picked up some tamales and, spotting a sign for “Chumash Fry Bread,” headed over to pick up some Chumash Indian Tacos, a heavenly dish of beans, lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, and (of course) olives, on a slightly sweet and puffy foundation of chewy fry bread.
Chumash Fry Bread Makers
The booth was run by ,Native Herb & Honey Co. and a friend Crystal Miller explained how she makes the fry bread, while dumping flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and water into a large mixing bowl, measuring everything entirely by eyeballing the amounts. Originally, it was fried in canned lard, but now vegetable oil is used. Obviously Crystal knew what she was doing, as the fry bread turned out spectacularily.
A Chumash Taco on Fry Bread
As she did, she shared family history, of how her great-grandfather avoided being taken to a reservation when a Santa Barbara farmer claimed him as his son. They also deal in herbal products, often using ancestral recipes, for Native Herbs and Honey, available online. Native Herbs and Honey even has a swarm removal service, adding unwanted bees swarms to their apiary.