Lunchtime is busy at the Raviolimobile at the Foothills Food Festival in Norway on Saturday. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

NORWAY — Chuck Patten, owner of Shady Grove Mushrooms in Harrison, is a fun-guy. Get it? Fungi?

Patten demonstrated his process for raising mushrooms at the Foothills Food Festival in Norway on Saturday.

It goes like this: First, Patten drills a hole in a piece of birch. Then, he stuffs furniture dowels inoculated with mycelium, reproductive threads of a shiitake mushroom, into the wood. In six months to a year, the wood will be fully colonized. After a 24-hour soak in water, 30-60 mushrooms pop out of the log, ready to be sold.

Patten was one of 18 local farmers who peddled fresh fruits, veggies, cream, dairy, soap and honey at the fourth annual food festival.

According to festival organizer Sarah Carter, the festival, organized by Community Food Matters, a council based in Norway, started as a way to celebrate the abundance of local farms and food in the Western Foothills.

“When we started meeting as a local food council, we said, ‘OK, we don’t know what we’re doing yet, but we’re doing a lot of incredible things, so we want to celebrate what we’re doing, and celebrate local food,'” she said. The festival, sponsored by 17 local businesses, doesn’t charge farmers or vendors for their spots. 

“We want it to be a profitable day,” Carter said. All of the vendors are locally based. Cultured Tea Leaf, hailing from Derry, New Hampshire, came the farthest to sell its product. And Barreled Souls Brewing Co. of Saco was the farthest-flung brewery. 

“It feels like we’re trying to create our own little Western Maine version of the Common Ground Fair,” Carter said. “A huge piece is our education and workshops.” 

Madison Sheppard and Scott Vlaun, left, greet some Foothills Food Festival participants at the “raising chickens” demonstration at the Alan Day Community Garden on Saturday afternoon. Jennifer, Adin, 6, and Matt Sunday, of Norway read a chicken info sheet on the right to learn more about the process. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The most local food came from the Alan Day Community Garden, a two-minute walk from the festival grounds. The garden hosted workshops throughout the day, including tours and a seminar on raising chickens hosted by Scott Vlaun, director of the Center for an Ecology Based Economy, a local nonprofit.

All summer at the community garden, students have been learning the ins and outs of soil.

Jacob Gagne, a ninth-grader at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, volunteered at the garden through a youth leadership program. With the help of two friends, Gagne lifted a heaping wheelbarrow full of compost over the side of a fenced-in chicken run. 

“Today we’re going between the garden and the food festival. We do a lot of stuff at the food festival,” he said.

His friend Connor Danworthe, also an incoming freshman, said he enjoyed volunteering his time at the garden.

“It’s my home away from home,” Danworthe said. “I come here with a smile on my face. I get a little time away from my family, and it’s something fun to do in the summer.”

Isabelle Pereno  also spent her summer volunteering. As the trio got ready to do more tilling of the soil, Pereno explained the impending work. 

“Right now we’re weeding some of the plants we have over there, like lettuce, ground cherry and celery,” she said.

Steven Ragatz provides theatrical entertainment between music sets to promote the Celebration Barn Theater at the Foothills Food Festival in Norway on Saturday. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Rocky Crockett, executive director of Alan Day Community Garden, said about 150 volunteers help the garden take shape each year. The festival serves as a sort of showcase for their efforts, with vegetables grown at the garden transferred to a table to be sold.

The point of the festival? Crockett said it stemmed from a need to teach the community about the importance of locally based food.

“From my perspective, it has a lot to do with the environmental impact of industrial food,” Crockett said. “Some people use the phrase ‘know where your food comes from.’ What that really means to me is ‘be aware of how food is produced.’ The food we’re consuming could be causing a significant amount of damage to the Earth that we don’t even know about.” 

Camden Colby Leah Licata and Hunter Bosse as LaTCH perform on the Main Stage of the Foothills Food Festival in Norway on Saturday afternoon. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Andree Kehn/Sun Journal