New festival celebrates food and community

Tyndall Park

Garden City

Winnipeg

Food trends have a boom and bust in popularity all the time in the digital age, but a new Winnipeg festival aimed to show the ube trend is rooted in culture and community across the city.

UbeVerse is the week-long event in which restaurants create and serve an ube-themed beverage or food for the public to vote on and choose a winner. The festival took place in the city for the first time from May 30 to June 7.

“It’s a celebration of food, community, and culture,” said Lou Alarkon, co-founder and co-organizer of UbeVerse along with her cousin Lyn.

Ube — also known as purple yam — is a sweet vegetable native to the Philippines. It’s bright purple, and on the rise as a popular ingredient in drinks, and sweet and savoury food.

Despite its current mainstream popularity, Alarkon said the root has always been big and even nostalgic in the Filipino community.

“This is the first time we’ve done something so niche. It was a year in the making,” Alarkon said, on the phone from Ottawa while she works with MP Kevin Lamoureux to talk about UbeVerse at the House of Commons during Filipino Heritage Month. “The demand has been insane. We’re so overwhelmed with the response.”

The week-long event had 17 local restaurants and 27 food/drink entries, and a festival with music and more vendors on the weekend at Tyndall Park Community Centre.

“Everyone said they loved it. This drink is delicious, but I didn’t think it would have this much attention,” laughed Chantilly Guerrero-Agustin, general manager of Jeepney — a local Filipino restaurant and winner of best ube beverage, as chosen by voters.

The winning drink — the ube cheese smoothie — is a “rich and creamy smoothie” with ube jam, a sweetened milk, and Jeepney’s signature cheese foam. It’s like a less-sweet vanilla milkshake, Guerrero-Agustin said.

She said she this festival made her feel proud of her Filipino heritage and she’s happy the cuisine has an international stage now. “It’s time to showcase what ube is all about.”

She laughed while thinking back to before the festival, she was so surprised at how many people tried their entry despite not really advertising it. Her goal next year is to spread the word more about their entry.

“(We want) to bring back UbeVerse week and the festival,” Alarkon said.

She added her goal is to engage more rural areas, like Brandon and Neepawa.

While the festival has passed and so have the opportunities to try the entries, Jeepney will still have its ube cheese smoothie available for the month of June.