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Biagio Dente named Grand Marshal

Original Festival Committee member ‘honored’ by selection

Sam Chiarelli Dispatch Correspondent

This year, the Tomato Festival Parade will be led by a man who knows all about good taste.

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Pictured at left, Biagio Dente compares one of his many awards with his son Alan who is also a renowned chef. Biagio Dente has been named this year’s Pittston Tomato Festival Grand Marshal.

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Biagio Dente has been named this year’s Grand Marshal and he is anxiously awaiting the annual summer event that has come to mean so much to him and his family.

“I was on the original committee that set up the Tomato Festival,” says Dente smiling. “It seems like yesterday but it’s already twenty-six years later!”

Biagio will be celebrating 50 years in business this September; first opening a grocery store and a deli which later evolved into Dente’s Catering. The man has literally won every conceivable award the American Culinary Association can give to a chef, including an induction two years ago into the Academy of Chefs Hall of Fame. Only 50 chefs nationally and internationally have been given such an honor and Biagio is proud to be one of them.

But honor has come to Dente much closer to home this year. “It is indeed a great honor to be chosen for Grand Marshal of the Tomato Festival,” Dente said. He speaks about the Festival with both a deep pride and exuberance.

“People come in droves. They come from [as far as] California. It’s like a homecoming football game. It’s something you can’t miss. It has become part of our heritage.”

Dente is pleased with the local flair of the event, too. “Everything is hometown, hometown, hometown,” he says proudly. “It makes the festival. Even though there are a lot of other festivals around, this one stands out.”

Biagio believes that knowing all of the vendors are local guarantees that “the food will be good,” and he also admires the work ethic of the Tomato Festival Committee in keeping the interest of the people year after year.

“They keep coming out with new things: the 5K Run, the Tomato Fights, and the parade of course, but now the sauce tasting and the cooking contest. It’s a credit to the people of Pittston and to the Tomato Festival Committee,” lauds the new Grand Marshal.

But it’s not only the Committee, the people of Pittston, and the parade that excites Biagio Dente. His family’s experience at the Tomato Festival is the biggest joy he takes away from each summer.

“When the Tomato Festival started, I had no grandchildren,” Dente remembers, “but now every year I look forward to going with them and it makes me feel so good to see their faces. My children were small when it started and they can’t remember not having a Tomato Festival. It’s a tradition we started and it’s a wonderful community event.”

This year, Dente’s children and grandchildren will not only see Biagio riding as Grand Marshal of the parade, but they will also be throwing candy from Dente’s first-ever float in the parade. “It’s a celebration with Dente’s Catering and tomatoes!” chuckled Dente. It is an appropriate concept for what Dente sees as the biggest event in Pittston each year, and just by looking at his smile you can tell he is exhilarated to be such a big part of it this summer.