By Charly SHELTON

The trend of hosting food and drink festivals is growing. Once upon a time, they were found mainly in an area known for a certain food product – like the Gilroy Garlic Festival, wine festivals in Napa and oyster fests along the east coast. But now, it seems any organization can throw a festival as a quick fundraiser that is sure to please the crowd. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. My only question is: What took so long?

Even the theme parks are getting in on it. Disneyland hosted a Food and Wine Festival for many years in Disney California Adventure and, after a six-year hiatus, it is back to delight guests and growing each year. But when I think of a theme park associated with food, the first and foremost in my mind is Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park. More an amusement park with a western town than an actual theme park, this enterprise grew out of a berry farm as a way to keep people busy while waiting to dine in the Chicken Dinner restaurant. This whole place exists because of food. So when Knott’s said they’re throwing a food festival, you know it’s going to be the best.

Knott’s Boysenberry Festival is back for its fourth year to infuse the famous berry into everything imaginable – boysenberry panna cotta, boysenberry fry bread, fried alligator bites with boysenberry aioli, boysenberry barbecue sauce on everything, chocolate covered boysenberry cheesecake, boysenberry ICEE floats, boysenberry jerky, boysenberry latte, boysenberry popcorn, boysenberry fudge – I could go on for days. With so much available, one cannot try it all and survive. The Boysenberry Fun Bun alone is the size of a small cat. So how does one get the best of the fest? A tasting card.

For $25 for the tasting card, guests receive tastes of six boysenberry foods. And a taste is really all you need because one “taste portion” is three boysenberry barbecue meatballs on a stick or six boysenberry buffalo wings. It adds up after a day of walking around in the sun, going on rides and eating constantly. Plus, the card shows the best-ofs. The meatballs are always spectacular, as are the wings; both fan favorites from years past. But new on the card this year is the boysenberry pizza, an odd combination of sweet, salty, cheesy and fresh that works well though you can’t figure out why. And absolutely best in show is the boysenberry ravioli.

I was honestly a little afraid going into this one. A bright purple ravioli with a boysenberry wine cream sauce can go either way. It went the right way, though, with subtle fruity flavor in the ricotta filling and a sweet, creamy and garlicky wine sauce on top. The bigger the risk, the greater the reward. I wish this was a dish served all year long. Honorable mention goes to the handcrafted boysenberry cream soda, mixed while-you-wait into a mason jar cup, and the boysenberry jerky, which is just so interesting I can’t stop thinking about it.

With good food must come good drink. The Knott’s Boysenberry Beer, a staple of the park, is available in the wine and craft brew tasting area in the Wilderness Dance Hall. For an additional $25, guests can get a six-taster drinking card and sample wines from around the world and beer from Knott’s. The selection of wines rotates out weekly, so nobody can get bored drinking the same wines all month.

The festival is on now, daily, through April 23. If there is only one time you visit Knott’s Berry Farm during the year, make it now. You won’t regret it.

  Charly Shelton