It actually started about 1937 at the “old church” and except for a couple of years during World War II the St. Elizabeth Parish Fair has been an anticipated annual event for Clarksdale.
It was no different this year.
Cars were lined up on Florence Road as the community queued up for spaghetti, casseroles, pumpkins and a visit to the “sweet shoppe.”
“I remember my grandmother and mother cooking for this event,” said Elizabeth Brewer, who headed up the spaghetti cooking. “It’s always been about raising money for the school. Every penny goes to the school.”
The planning and preparation are incredible: 3,000 meatballs, 50 pounds of chopped onions, a half bushel of parsley, hundreds of loafs of bread, gallons of tea and buckets of slaw.
“It’s a lot of work and there are a lot of people who work very hard to make this happen every year,” said Brewer. “A lot of people cook, but a lot of people also bring cakes, pies, casseroles and do things for the kids.”
Brewer said the sauce is the secret to the success of the spaghetti.
“We hand out our traditional recipe, but some of these ladies have a heritage of making the best spaghetti sauce in the world,” said Brewer. “Who am I to tell them how to cook.”
And it must be good. The parish fair saw people pay $10 for a plate and wait in line up to 20-minutes to get it this year.
The fair traditionally has booth, events and picnic tables set up for the community to sit down and break bread. And while COVID stopped those events it didn’t stop the spaghetti, the desserts and a community from coming together to enjoy the 2020 St. Elizabeth Parish Fair.
