Before moving to Concord, Miriam Evans was never in charge of making the tamales. Coming from a Mexican family and growing up in California, Evans said tamales were a meal she would cook with her whole family for big celebrations.
Here, it’s just her and her husband. But over the years, Evans has loved witnessing others try tamales for the first time.
“It’s a joy to see people that have never tried it, never heard of the word tamal, and it’s hard for them to even say the word tamal,” she said. “It’s kind of like seeing your toddler start to walk for the first time. It’s joyful, but it’s also funny.”
On Sunday, Evans’ tamales could be found across Keach Park, where performers, vendors, artists and community members came out for the 19th annual Concord Multicultural Festival. More than 70 cultures were represented across the festival.
The festival featured new and old faces among food vendors and performers. Despite cold and rainy weather, event co-organizer Ghana Sharma said he was happy with the turnout.
New this year among the food vendors were Richard and Katie Facey, who sold Jamaican jerk chicken.
Richard Facey came to the United States from Jamaica in 2022 and moved to Concord with his wife, Katie Facey, last year.
The pair came to last year’s festival as attendees.
“One thing she noticed on our way in, there wasn’t a Jamaican stand,” Richard Facey said.
He started working as a chef in Jamaica and has continued to cook in Concord. He said he was most excited to see people’s faces when they took the first bite of his food. Since it was their first year serving food at the festival, Facey said he wanted to only serve chicken without traditional sides, like rice, so that people could experience the taste of the meat without anything else overshadowing it.
“The best part of it for me is when someone tried something that I prepared,” he said. “Because I always put my all in it, you know? So when they try my food, they can feel that love.”
The couple felt a little concerned about the cold weather but remained hopeful that people would show up.
“What I experienced here in America is, it doesn’t matter if it’s raining or it’s sunny or it’s snowing, when something is going on, people show up,” Richard said. “As long as the event is here, people’s gonna show up. My culture is not like that.”
The rain was also a concern for Evans, who spent six hours on Friday and five on Saturday preparing food for the event.
Evans has sold tamales at the festival since 2018, but said this might be the last year before she and her husband change the menu. Because of higher prices and the weather, Evans was nervous going into Sunday that they would not be able to sell out.
In past years, Evans said it cost less than $500 to make their tamales for the festival. This year, because of higher prices, they spent over $800 for around 300 tamales.
“We can’t find a lot of our ingredients here in town anyways; we have to travel down to Nashua,” Evans said. “There’s a Mexican butcher shop there to get our ingredients. But again, that’s still the travel, gasoline prices right now.”
Next year, Evans wants to continue being a vendor but sell food that is still traditional but would not cost as much.
“As much as we love making the tamales and people love the tamales, it’s a tough decision that we have to make,” she said.
In addition to home-cooked food, vibrant performances across cultures filled every hour of the celebration.
Nikhil Karkare and Swechchha Tiwari joined the lineup of performers this year for their first time at the festival.
The couple is not new to Concord, having moved to the city in 2018. They have heard about the festival for years but always ended up being out of town. This year, Karkare sang, and Tiwari danced.
Being from India, Karkare said he wanted to represent the broader part of the subcontinent by choosing to perform two different genres. The first was Sufi music, an art form within Sufism that is used to show devotion to the divine, and the second was a Ganesha song, apt for the ongoing 10-day Ganesha Festival in India.
Tiwari also mixed Indian dance styles in her performance, creating a combination of an Indian classical dance style called Kathak and Bollywood dance. Tiwari started learning Kathak three years ago, taking online classes from India. She practiced her performance for more than a month before the festival, trying to improve the details in her expressions and movements.
“I know that people are not familiar with the dance style; they won’t notice it. But for me, it matters a lot,” Tiwari said. “If I’m performing on stage, I really wanted to be at least above average, so that people can feel it and enjoy it.”
Karkare also joined the planning committee this year with the encouragement of Tiwari, having led similar events in India. Karkare joined the committee a little late this year, so he helped out wherever he could, but said maybe next year he’d take on a specific role.
“This is one of the biggest festivals we have in the state, and I love to learn about different cultures, different religions,” Karkare said. “That’s one of my hobbies. I read about different cultures a lot, so why not join a welcoming community if I’m getting an opportunity to do so?”
Erika Rydberg-Hall and Sonia Booth watched the performances by the stage together. This year was Rydberg-Hall’s third year representing Sweden in the festival’s flag parade. She considers the event her favorite festival in Concord and said she wasn’t going to miss it, no matter the weather.
“We’re New Hampshirites; we’re hardy,” Rydberg-Hall said. “So I think the weather wasn’t going to deter me from being able to see the wonderful performances and experiences.”
Booth brought her two kids, ages 3 and 5, to see the festivities.
“I hope that they take away that we’re a stronger community when we celebrate each other,” Booth said.
Karkare and Tiwari also have a child. Karkare said festivals like the one on Sunday give their son an opportunity to explore something new.
“In India, our parents never said, ‘Don’t celebrate this, don’t celebrate that.’ We celebrated Christmas, we celebrated Eid, we celebrated all the festivals. So, we want to raise our son in that manner,” Karkare said.
His wife agreed: “I think this is one of the best ways for him to learn more about Indian culture, other cultures, in a multicultural festival,” she added. “So I think it’s going to be a good way for him to get that exposure.”
The pair sees the Multicultural Festival as a chance to meet others who share their love of getting to know many customs and foods.
“So why not share with some of the people who are really welcoming, who want to learn about more of the different cultures,” Karkare said. “This is an opportunity.”
