Celebrating Cape Cod & the Islands: Traditions, Festivals, and Food

Hydrangeas, oysters, turnips, sailing, art, science or film — there is a festival to celebrate each of these as part of our region’s rich heritage, diverse traditions, cultures, and foods. The number and range of Cape Cod festivals will surprise visitors and even long-time residents — forty of them, spanning early spring to the end of the year. For some of the most prized seafood in the world, the Wellfleet OysterFest is renowned. For grand cuisine and wine, you can choose from two festivals. There are seasonal celebrations of daffodils, windmills, road racing, Greek, Portuguese, and indigenous cultures. On July 4th, the Wampanoag offer food, dance, drumming, and importantly, the opportunity to keep tribal traditions alive and for visitors to share in them.

A recent book, Celebrating Cape Cod & the Islands: Traditions, Festivals, and Foods, by Kathryn Kleekamp, offers a good look at all the large festivals and many of the smaller ones. Kathryn, a resident of Sandwich for the past 25 years, initially considered writing about her town’s SandwichFest, but her publisher found the subject too narrow. Were there any other Cape festivals?

“Oh my, yes!” Kathryn answered. “In every town there are festivals celebrating the land and water, history, and long traditions.” She remembers that, “the brightest light went off in my head.” She compiled a list, surprised herself to find that many of the festivals had not been written about in detail and had not been considered together from a cultural perspective. The publisher approved the idea, and Kathryn began gathering information across the Cape and islands. She contacted all the towns, recreation departments, and festival organizers, researched library records, online resources, magazines, and newspapers. She drew also on her own experiences of family visits to festivals over the years.

Next, she acquired a digital camera with a telephoto lens, took a tutorial on how to use it, and started off. The result is a tour in words and photographs of the events — which range from the purely fun to the fun-but-serious with fundraising activities to benefit their communities. Historical background about the festivals’ origins is provided, plus engaging glimpses of the people behind them, and, not least, the food. Kathryn gathered signature recipes reflecting the region’s bounty, including oysters, lobster, and cranberries. She tested them herself (excepting those submitted by professional chefs), and in the spirit of her subject, she includes ideas for what you might enjoy at festivals that aren’t centered around food, local agriculture, or fishing. The logistics alone would seem daunting, yet she researched and wrote the book in a year. Kathryn knew precisely what she wanted to accomplish and focused on that. “It was so clear in my mind. I wanted to get word out about the festivals so other people would know about them — and visit.”

There is more to it than that, of course. I sensed that it took a good, fresh eye to see what others had missed. I found that she fell flat-out in love at the age of ten when she first saw the Cape with her mother on a short vacation. The place entirely captured her imagination. “I lived in an apartment in New York City and found this so very different from anything I knew,” she said. Staying in a room near the beach in Orleans, she woke up one morning and walked alone down to the water. “It was absolutely overwhelming to see the ocean for the first time,” she recalled. “I almost didn’t know how to process it, the vastness of pure nature as far as I could see.