A First Peek at the 2010 Eat Real Festival

Meredith Brody

The crowds will be back, and hungrier than ever.

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The second annual Eat Real Festival, scheduled to take place at Jack London Square in Oakland August 27-29, is finalizing its lineup of street-food vendors and workshops and preparing for a bigger turnout than last year. In its first year, the three-day festival drew 70,000 people, surprising everyone ― including the organizers ― and resulting in some seriously long lines. This year, says organizer Susan Coss, they're expanding the size of the festival site, doubling the number of food vendors from 40 to 80, and adding competitions, an urban homesteading zone, and performances.

"In addition to a 99.9 percent recidivism rate from last year's event," Coss says, "we are excited that we will have a bunch of the new vendors that have hit the streets in the past year, such as Kung Fu Tacos, Curry Up Now, Primo's Parrilla, and Venga Paella.

Eat Real is bringing back the ice cream tasting, the popular butchery demonstrations, and the live music. The festival-sponsored farmers market is out, making more room for what Coss is calling an "urban homesteading zone." "We're going to have workshops around different aspects of the DIY movement," she says, "such as animal husbandry, food preservation, cheese making, and kombucha making. The focus through these events is the idea of food craft."

Early in July, the festival will put out a call for entries in a number of food contests: canning and preserving, home brewing, and kombucha, em, culturing. (The advisor for the home-brewed beer contest, incidentally, will once again be Magnolia's Dave McLean, who is also curating the beer shed.)

Other changes: More food options on Friday, a lineup of local wines in addition to local beers, and the addition of what Coss calls two "food performances." Entrance to the festival and all the events is free, and most of the food for sale will cost less than $5.

Details on the festival website are still slim, but SFoodie will keep you posted as it fills out and the contest calls for entry are issued.