A Boston Tradition: The Italian Fisherman's Feast

Before we moved to Boston, I found out that every weekend in August a different festival was held in the North End (Italian) neighborhood of the city.  I wanted to try and make it to one, and it happened to work out that we went to the biggest of them all - the Fisherman's Feast.  This festival has been held annually in Boston since 1910 and has its roots in 16th century Sicily (source and more info here).  (BTW, I love looking up and learning more info about our activities in the process of writing these blog posts.  Definitely an unanticipated benefit of this hobby!)  We weren't really sure what to expect, but this is the view that we got as we came out from a side street onto the main road of the festival on Saturday evening.

We braved the crowds for a little bit before deciding our best course of action was buying some food and then finding a side street where we could all sit down on the ground and eat.  While the kids and I tried out our first selection of fried ravioli, Brian braved the crowds again for additional items.  The fried ravioli turned out to be the family favorite, but we also tried a fried rice ball filled with hamburger (never heard of this "Italian" food, but plenty of the food stalls were selling them - we, however, were not impressed), lamb kabobs and steak kabobs (also a favorite, especially with Nathan) and an Italian sausage with peppers and onions. 

Some kind passerby-ers took pity on me trying to get a shot of us and our food and offered to take a family picture.

Our main goal of the evening was eating, so after finishing dinner we headed back into the crowd for some dessert.  The kids were mesmerized by a huge table full of all kinds of caramel apples.  Of course they wanted the one rolled in sprinkles!  I got a cannoli and Brian got zeppole (fried Italian "doughnuts") for us to share.  We're doing our best to try all sorts of authentic food while we're here in Boston!

Though they both seemed to enjoy their apple, Brian had a bite and said it just tasted waxy from all the sprinkles.  Needless to say we had quite a bit left over to take home.  I stuck it in the back of the fridge, but when no one asked about it for two days, it had a quiet appointment with the trashcan. 

Before the festival, as we were walking from the T to the North End, we found a few gems.  First was the Haymarket produce market, where produce is CHEAP CHEAP (mangos 2 for $1, $1 pineapples, $1 for 6oz ORGANIC blueberries, and more)!  We stopped and bought as much as I could stuff into my backpack and then shoved a few more things into the bottom of the stroller (which Sarah proceeded to kick the rest of the night).  We've been back twice since then!

The other great find was these fountains at the North End Park!  We came back here for the kids to play after we had enough of the North End crowds.  They had so much fun running through the fountains and all around the park that we've made it a tradition to come here and eat dinner after shopping at the produce market, which we've done twice since.

Sarah was running towards me with her hand outstretched and I realized she was giving me a thumbs up!  First time I'd seen her do it!

More running and thumbs-up-ing.  Behind the kids is the view back towards downtown Boston. 

Oh the joy of running!

The tongue seems to come out often when she runs.

I just loved this expression on Sarah's face!

The North End Park may be one of my favorite places so far in the city.  It's so much fun to come with the family in the evening to eat and enjoy the water and grass and the beautiful view of downtown!