BUENA PARK, Calif. — For this year's Boysenberry Festival at Knott's Berry Farm, Chef Andre Lane gives ethnic cuisine a boysenberry twist.
The executive chef at Knott's Berry Farm and the rest of the theme park’s food and beverage team spent nearly a year studying and testing different ethnic cuisines to boysenberry up.
The team developed 90 boysenberry-themed and infused food and drinks for Knott’s Berry Farm’s annual signature event, the Boysenberry Festival, which kicks off on March 8.
The event will run daily from March 8 to April 7 and then on weekends from April 12 to 28. Tasting cards start at $55.
“We went everywhere around the world,” said Lane to Spectrum News during a media preview. “This year, we harkened uniqueness and variety.”
The boysenberry, a hybrid of blackberry, loganberry and red raspberry, is the foundation of Knott’s Berry Farm’s success.
Walter and Cordelia Knott were farmers in the 1920s when they began cultivating and selling the hybrid boysenberry and other fruits on roadside stands in Buena Park. They opened a restaurant specializing in fried chicken and boysenberry pies, and the demand was so high that Walter Knott created the first themed land, Ghost Town, to keep them entertained.
Thus, Knott’s Berry Farm was born.
To this day, Knott’s officials have said that every boysenberry plant found worldwide can trace its roots to Knott’s Berry Farm. Boysenberry plants can still be seen throughout the park.
This year’s Boysenberry Festival was about creating a boysenberry twist with different ethnic foods, said Lane.
Lane, originally from Canada, said they added a Canadian staple, an elk burger with a boysenberry barbecue sauce and fried onions.
Indian-inspired flavors include a chicken tikka marsala with boysenberry curry sauce over steamed white rice.
Latin flavors include a boysenberry pulled pork over pastel de elote and beef barbacoa drenched in a boysenberry barbecue sauce on macaroni and cheese with green onions.
The Knott’s team infused a boysenberry dressing on top of an Italian staple, a peach and cheese burrata caprese salad.
Asian flavors include a blackened shrimp stir-fry with lemon rice and a boysenberry teriyaki sauce.
They also offer spam musubi, a Polynesian and Japanese concoction, with boysenberry soy sauce.
Additionally, visitors can indulge in boysenberry-infused desserts and drinks, such as the boysenberry watermelon seltzer, boysenberry blonde and boysenberry cinnamon roll.
“With the boysenberry, we always like to go out there and try different things,” said Lane.
While visitors munch on boysenberry meals, the Boysenberry Festival is more than just the food and drinks.
There are plenty of family activities and merchandise, including a spirit jersey, boysenberry pie slice slippers, and a plush of Betty Boysen, a new mascot celebrating the festival.
“We’re ready for you to have a great time here at Knott’s Berry Farm,” said Carl Busche, a merchandise manager at Knott’s.
