Eat Your Way Across America: 50 states, 50 Festivals-- Part 9: The Northeast

42. TASTE OF THE CARIBBEAN AND JERK FESTIVAL-- HARTFORD, CT., AUG. 6TH-- Island foods like curried goat, flying fish and jerk chicken. Listen to musicians from Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica. Free salsa, calypso and soca lessons. tasteofthecaribbeanct. org.


43. PITTSTON TOMATO FESTIVAL-- PITTSTON, PA., AUG. 18-21-- Besides eating all sorts of tomato-based stuff, for $5, you can get into the monster Tomato Fight. For your bucks, you get all the stuff you want to throw, and, very importantly, goggles. pittstontomatofestival.com.


44. HARD CRAB DERBY-- CRISFIELD, MD., SEPT. 2-4-- Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. For $5, buy one, name it and race it. Winners go free. Losers get eaten. crisfieldchamber.com/events.


45. NATIONAL BUFFALO WING FESTIVAL-- BUFFALO, NY., SEPT. 3-4-- Where the vaunted buffalo wings came from (and you thought it was part of a buffalo, not chicken. Last year, 71,000 people ate 500,000 wings with some 100 different sauces from salt and vinegar to coconut Caribbean. That's 33 tons of chicken. "Now, that's something to cluck about."

Of course, buffalo wings first were served at Buffalo's Anchor Inn.

One Last group of Festivals to Go. --RoadDog