Knights in service of the House of Ketchup closed the stocks for Jesse Wiederhold, public relations coordinator for Visit Keweenaw — and more importantly Saturday, a member of the House of Gravy.

Nithe Moraine, a member of the Marquette role-playing group Marquest, read out the proclamation: “For the crime of being of the House of Gravy, the sentence — is execution!”

Fortunately, the only sentence that fell on most people in Calumet Saturday was a full stomach. Pasty Fest returned this year with games, medieval demonstrations, vendors, a car show and a slew of pasty options, most of which went unpunished by the blade.

For this year’s Pasty Fest, organizers adopted a medieval theme. When the idea came up at a committee meeting last year, everyone jumped on it immediately, said Main Street Executive Director Leah Polzien.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Members of the Society of Creative Anachronism march down Fifth Street at the opening of Pasty Fest Saturday.

“We just knew it would be a great match, and I think it really was,” she said. “And I think people had a lot of fun. And I’ve already heard today people think it should be Renaissance-themed always, and I could kind of agree with that.”

Events in the annual festival help raise funds for Pasty Fest, Main Street Calumet and the Keweenaw Heritage Center at St. Anne’s. This year marked the 20th anniversary celebration.

“It’s great for our community to come out and see everyone enjoy being in downtown together,” Polzien said.

Organizers dressed up in medieval outfits. Contests began with the blowing of horns. And historical groups also set camps on Fifth Street.

At the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s camp, fighters held battles, and artisans like blacksmiths demonstrated their trade with a fire powered by andesite coal, which required constant churning to maintain the flow of air. People could also sample “medieval pasties,” made with pork, currants and dates with white wine, saffron, ginger, beef broth and eggs.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette A foam machine sends chunks of bubbles flying down Fifth Street during Pasty Fest Saturday.

The group makes its own arms and armor, including 25-pound helmets. Vladimir Gall had just finished a fight with rattan swords,a heavier cousin of bamboo.

“It’s super-awesome to be out here interacting with the community because a lot of us are just kids from the area, coming to Pasty Fest as children, and then now being able to help with the fun and trying to answer people’s questions and facilitate it has been great,” he said.

The biggest questions had centered around making the equipment, which is done by cold-forming flat sheets of metal and riveting the pieces together. They are also padded with concussion foam.

“Some helmets need some welding, but that’s normally if other things don’t work,” Gall said.

The Marquest medieval fantasy group ran a series of games, including archery, swordfighting and the tossing of sheafs, or bales of hay. Some contestants had managed heaves of more than 40 feet.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Crowds walk down Fifth Street in Calumet during Pasty Fest Saturday.

Archery had been the most popular event, said Faust, the role-playinig character who would go on to deliver the final blow to Wiederhold at the end of the festival.

“I loved watching people fight their friends and see what they could do to each other,” he said. “I’ve never been to Pasty Fest before, and this is a good first experience.”

In a year looking back to the Middle Ages, Pasty Fest also reached back into its history. The Pasty Poetry Slam returned this year after having last been held in 2006.

Led by Lady Rachael Pressley and Dame Hannah Stone, a group of readers took turns Friday night either reciting their own poetry or that of one of the contestants.

Debby White won second place with her entry, a musical performance about pasties and keeping in touch with her children after they’ve moved away. She brought her children to Eva’s Hideaway for her performance. She wrote the song two days before, and had only started performing a month ago.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette People could test their luck and win a prize by playing the Human Pasty Machine during Saturday’s Pasty Fest.

Pasty Fest was a bucket list item, White said. Unlike a standard bucket list, she keeps adding things to her to create more memories with her children. (They finally caught on this weekend, she said.)

“It just made them come out and do something different,” she said. “They’ll have those memories where it’s like, ‘Do you remember when Mom dragged us out to this place called Eva’s and we had to do this crazy poetry slam?'”

Perennial favorite events also returned. Even before the festival started, a long line snaked its way to the booth where people could buy small four-ounce pasties from contestants in the Pasty Bake-Off. This year’s winner was East Fork Pasty Company of Calumet.

When people weren’t lining up for a pasty, they were trying out the medieval games or the other activities along Fifth Street.

Alicia Jakobcic of Ferndale, Michigan, comes every summer to Calumet, where her grandfather grew up. She was at the Keweenaw National Historical Park headquarters when she found out about the festival.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Katrina Linde-Moriarty shoots an arrow at a target at a games station run by the Marquette roleplaying group Marquest during Saturday’s Pasty Fest.

“My family does a trip every year, the Jakobcic side,” she said. “We bring pasties wherever we go.”

Her family stopped at Frozen Farms’ carnival booth, where her children took turns bowling rutabagas at ketchup-bottle pins. She tried out the Human Pasty Machine, a slot machine-like machine where volunteers cycled through pasty ingredients.

“It’s fun,” she said. “We’ve never been here when it’s this busy.”

Throughout the afternoon, other contestants battled for favor in the costume contest or in the Pasty Truck Pull, where they competed to be the fastest to pull a truck filled with people dressed as pasty ingredients.

The final contest was the Pasty-Eating Competition. Aided by ketchup, bottled water and determination, eaters vied to see who could put away the most pasties in five minutes.

Greg Esser of Philadelphia walked away as the champion, eating two-and-a-half pasties.

Before coming to Calumet two weeks ago, Esser had never eaten a pasty. He and his girlfriend came from Philadelphia to work remotely by Lake Superior. He signed up for the competition on a whim.

Over a long enough period of time, he could have eaten three or four, he said. But the five-minute time limit made it tricky; some of his swallows had to be a little preemptive. Buoyed by the crowd, he made it through.

When the second-place finisher conceded, Esser won the crown and avoided an eat-off.

“If it was another five minutes, not a chance,” he said. “I was done. But if it was finishing the other half of the pasty I had started? You never start a pasty without intent to finish.”

He’d held off on eating, but he’d gotten to wander around the rest of the festival. The tight-knit community reminded him of the German folk festival held in Kutztown, where he grew up.

Friday night, he and his girlfriend wound up sitting with Presley and Stone for dinner after the poetry slam. They’d been “super-kind and welcoming,” and encouraged him to compete Saturday.

“Part of it is showing up today, part of it is the crowd, part of it is the welcoming organizers,” he said. “Those combination of factors let you sit on stage and do something silly.”

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Vladimir Gall and William Manderfield spar with rattan swords as part of the Society of Creative Anachronism’s demonstration as part of Pasty Fest Saturday. This year’s 20th anniversary celebration bore a medieval theme.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Jim Mager of Ishpeming, dressed as a medieval merchant, celebrates his win for best costume at Saturday’s Pasty Fest.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Brendon Stutzman of Laurium, who finished second in Saturday’s pasty-eating competition at Pasty Fest, throws up his hands after time is called at the end.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Greg Esser of Philadelphia is crowned the winner of the pasty eating competition during Saturday’s Pasty Fest. Esser, who had not eaten a pasty before coming to Calumet two weeks ago, made it through two-and-a-half Saturday.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Fern Jakobcic of Ferndale, Michigan bowls a rutabaga at ketchup bottle pins during Saturday’s Pasty Fest.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Christopher Morgan competes in Saturday’s Pasty Truck Pull competition, in which competitors raced to be the fastest to pull a truck down the street with a bedful of pasty ingredients — adults dressed up in carrot and rutabaga costumes.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Faust of the role-playing group Marquest carries out the mock execution of Jesse Wiederhold of the House of Gravy as Nithe Moraine, left, celebrates. The sentence was one of many carried out during Saturday’s 20th anniversary Pasty Fest, which for the first time had a medieval theme.