TONTITOWN : Festival celebrates more than tradition
Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
TONTITOWN — Sections of flattened pasta dough draped over Elizabeth Pianalto’s left arm like wet clothes ready to be put out to dry.
The wheat-colored sections felt like pie crust before the 71-year-old guided them into a machine, shredding them into spindly spaghetti noodles.
Volunteers at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church have been making noodles since July 7 to be used in this year’s 110 th annual Tontitown Grape Festival, which is scheduled Aug. 5-9. Pasta dinners will be served Aug. 7-9.
They’ll make 800 pounds all together and are scheduled to finish Saturday, leaving volunteers time to rest before the festival begins.
It was hard to escape the flour Monday at the church’s parish hall, where about 20 volunteers made dough, pressed the pasta and shredded noodles before dangling them on rows of drying racks that sit where hungry guests will feast in a matter of weeks.
The church hires a professional cleaner to remove flour left by the two-week pasta production, said Jack Beckford, spaghetti chairman. On Monday, flour covered the volunteers and blanketed areas where volunteers worked.
“You can’t clean it,” he said with a laugh.
The spaghetti feeds began as a Thanksgiving meal for church members and eventually led to a community event, said Monsignor James Mancini.
Now, it serves at least 6, 000 meals each year, and the festival raises nearly one-third of the church’s annual budget, he said.
Festival proceeds from the next decade will help pay for the church’s religion education building it hopes to break ground on this fall, he said.
While that’s an important part of the festival, the camaraderie and tradition of family are the main components of the event.
“Jesus himself prayed for unity in his church,” Mancini said. “When you have an event like this, it creates a connection [between the church ] to yourself, the community and each other.”
Those connections are why people return to the festival and why families stay involved, he said.
One of Pianalto’s grandchildren, Megan Pearce, 18, worked nearby, helping Francis Fanco, 72, press and divide sections of pasta. Fanco’s grand-niece, Maggie Verucchi, dusted flour onto the dough as Pearce pulled it from the machine onto an 8-foot banquet table.
The girls laughed and joked with Fanco, whose mother volunteered in the early and mid-1900 s.
Fanco said she was about 25 when she began pressing pasta.
“Everybody grew up doing our thing,” she said. “I definitely want [younger generations ] to learn, because someone’s going to have to do it.”
To contact this reporter: aotoole@arkansasonline. com
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