NAPPANEE — For those who like their treats a little salty and a little sweet, Richard Day has been serving up bags of kettle corn at the Nappanee Apple Festival for 30 years.
Day was set up at his regular spot in front of the pavilion, making batch after batch of kettle corn in a cast-iron cauldron, as the 49th Apple Festival got underway Thursday. The Denver, Indiana, man has been selling popcorn at the festival since 1996 as a stop on his circuit through the state every summer.
“This is the 30th season,” he said. “When we started, it was just in the food court – everything, the whole festival, was in that area.”
They just came from the Blueberry Festival in Plymouth and were headed to Gas City next weekend, followed by the annual Scarecrow Festival in Wanatah, said Cheryl Vinson, who was working the cashbox. At the busiest festivals, on the most crowded days, they can have as many as 15 people working at two cauldrons in the tent.
“Saturday, I have a pallet out here and I stockpile a few big ones, for when we get a rush or when we want to take a break. It’ll be six of us. Saturday is a big day for us,” Day said. “When it’s hopping, like we just did in Plymouth at the Blueberry, every two minutes we can dump a batch. … We have done 200 pounds an hour, on Sunday up there. Fireworks day.”
Day cooks each batch at 450 degrees for a few minutes before tipping it into another pot where it can cool enough to be bagged. Vinson said it can be a challenge to keep up with him.
Day sources all his corn kernels from the same place, to get a consistent flavor and the right texture for the sugar and salt to stick.
“I get these in Shipshewana. We used to get them from Sam’s Club but it was discontinued, so I had to shop around and find something that was comparable as far as taste,” he said. “Not all popcorn tastes the same.”
The 7-foot-wide apple pie, the most iconic part of the festival, was still in the oven at that point of its 17-hour bake time. Four hundred pounds of apples and 100 pounds of dough go into the ponderous pie, which can be cut into 11,000 slices.
The festival, expected to draw 100,000 visitors, continues until Sunday evening.