Sweet for Idaho, the pits for Boise: Here is ‘The Best Food Festival in Every State’

It’s a perfect time to feel optimistic about Boise food culture.

Spring patio dining is here. Local produce is popping through farm soil. And Food & Wine just named Boise one of “America’s Next Great Food Cities.”

Stop licking your lips. It’s time for an ego check.

“The Best Food Festival in Every State” has been crowned by Eat This, Not That!, a nutrition-oriented website that features food articles and reviews. And although there’s no way the author visited all (if any) of these festivals, the result leaves a funny taste in your mouth — if you’re a chest-pounding Boisean.

The top food festival in Idaho? It’s not within the city limits of restaurant-laden Boise at all.

It’s 45 minutes north.

Congratulations to the Emmett Cherry Festival.

That’s a sweet pick. It’s been happening since the 1930s. It has small-town charm but draws thousands of festivalgoers — including plenty from Boise. There’s live music. A carnival. A fantastic parade. Pie-eating contests. Fresh cherries by the bushels. What’s not to love? This year’s event is June 15-18.

Yet, somehow, getting upstaged by Emmett is the pits, too. The trouble is, can any food lover in Idaho’s capital city make a decisive argument against that choice? Even if the Emmett Cherry Festival isn’t even really a food festival in the traditional sense?

Would you select the Boise Soul Food Festival at Julia Davis Park instead? Or one of the city’s long-running, church-organized events? The Greek Food Festival? The Russian Food Festival? Deli Days — Idaho’s Jewish Festival?

Unique, noteworthy food festivals are a challenging proposition. If you make the cuisine too specific, a large segment of your audience vanishes. Make the cuisine too broad, and nobody’s interested at all.

Boise doesn’t exactly have the culinary firepower to put on its own version of Taste of Chicago, the biggest free-admission outdoor food festival on the planet.

But could we unleash something new, creative yet accessible? Say, a regionally attractive Idaho Finger Steak Fling?

Maybe combine it with an Idaho French Fry Festival?

Or maybe a worthy Boise Taco Extravaganza? An interesting Gem State Food Truck Blowout?

Until a Boise festival organizer concocts something truly extraordinary, we’ll just have to bury our heads in the sand.

Or better yet? Bury our faces in those Emmett cherry pies.