Ocracoke Fig Festival
We’ll celebrate our sweetest tradition in August with the Annual Ocracoke Fig Festival in the Community Square. Local vendors provide fresh figs, fig preserves, local cookbooks, fig-smoked BBQ and other fig-tastic items.
The Ocracoke Fig Festival is a celebration of all things fig and is designed to honor the island’s long history and passion for figs and to share it with new generations and newcomers. The two-day event features booths of locally made fig creations, fig history, fig tastings, a fig cake bake-off, a square dance, and old-fashioned crafts, and games. Figs were introduced to the island more than 200 years ago. Now, there are at least nine types of figs grown on the island.
The festival opens Friday evening at the Ocracoke Preservation Museum, where local fig historian Chester Lynn will give an informative talk about Ocracoke’s fig history and culture. Buy a ticket and make your vote for the “Best Fig Preserves.” Bring your dancing shoes for the evening event–an old-fashioned Ocracoke Square Dance, called by Philip Howard with music by folk band Molasses Creek.
The highlight of the event is on Saturday, at the Fig Cake Bake-Off, which is open to visitors and islanders alike. Bakers can enter either a"traditional" or "innovative" cake and a winner chosen in both categories. Judges will choose their favorites based on measures of taste, texture, and figgy-ness. “Traditional” means adhering to the old Ocracoke recipe of fig preserves, eggs, flour, sweetener, spices. “Innovative” means just that –as long as there are figs in the recipe, anything goes. No entry fee is required. Bring the kids for old-fashioned crafts, games and family fun. Local vendors will display and sell their Fig Preserves, Fig Trees, and all things Fig-tastic for all to enjoy. Afterward, kick your shoes off at the dance party in Community Square with the Ocracoke Rockers. During the week of the Fig Festival, Ocracoke restaurants participate by having savory and sweet fig-infused recipes for their patrons.
