Posen Potato Festival

A sign at the 2006 Posen Potato Festival

The Posen Potato Festival is a food festival held annually in Posen, a village in Presque Isle County of the U.S. state of Michigan. The Posen Potato Festival has been an annual event for over 50 years. Posen has a strong Polish background, so the Posen Potato Festival not only features potato as its central theme, like most other food festivals, but also concentrates of authentic Polish traditions, including traditional dresses, polka dancing, crafts, and so on.

The Posen Potato Festival is held every year during the first weekend after the Labor Day, Friday through Sunday. The weekend is filled with parades and carnivals, family fun, live entertainment, and food. The Posen Potato Festival also features a potato cooking contest. Posen's most famous potato cook is Beatrice Richard, who entered the contest 46 times.

Michigan has a long tradition of potato production due to its cool and moist climate and deep and sandy soils, and with Poland accounting for about 2% of the world's crop (the eighth place in the world), Posen has become a natural location for celebrating potatoes. Michigan is the leading producer of summer potatoes and potatoes for chip processing in the USA.

Michigan is the nation's leading producer of summer or "new" potatoes (with red skins) and potatoes for chip processing. Harvest begins in July and ends in October. Montcalm and Bay counties are major Michigan producers of potatoes.

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