Oktoberfest Food Ideas for the US Suggested by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Oktoberfest Food Ideas for the US Suggested by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Planning Notes for Oktoberfest

When I lived in Stuttgart, Germany for 5 years, I did not attend Oktoberfest held in Munich, but did love the great selection of beers from around Germany that would take over the Edeka Supermarket where my husband Laurent and I shopped on the weekends.

Oktoberfest is held at the end of September and the beginning of October.  Libraries have reference books on the history of the event.  You can obtain information in the library or from a “Ask a Librarian” feature on your library’s website usually.  I am more interested in food and drink for the event here.

Some of my favorite beers in their wheat variety from Munich for Oktoberfest included:

-Fraziskaner

-Späten

-Optimator

Beer manufacturing began in ancient Egypt.  Its production in Germany is equally long-lived.  In the Renaissance, the Reinheitsgebot – Beer Purity Production Law – was promulgated that established the 3 ingredients for beer.  Like wine production, what you do with those 3 elements can vary greatly:

-water

-hops – gives beer its bitter edge

-barley

Sometimes wheat is substituted for barley.  When this happens, the word “hefe” for “wheat” clearly appears on the bottle.

I did not buy a drndil frock for Oktoberfest, but my husband Laurent and I celebrated 2 days out of the two-week period.

On one day, we went to Munich and visited the Science and Technology Museum and visited the computer and math galleries.  After visiting the museum, we ate large, freshly baked, soft pretzels and weisswurst with wheat beer in a nice restaurant by the Iser River. 

After lunch, we walked along the Iser on a blustery day when wind was blowing down from the Alps.  Brrr!  The drive home felt like the Nutcracker with the hoar frost hanging from tree branches.

At home on the last weekend of Oktoberfest, I had an indoor, counter grill from Italy that I used to grill bratwurst – the traditional food of Oktoberfest.  We ate large, soft pretzels with sea salt with the brats and drank Fransikaner beer.

I read in the November 2018 issue of Midwest Living that there are 4 types of bratwurst, which I have briefly described below. 

(That magazine – Midwest Living - also had an easy recipe for cheese fondue with several savory dipping suggestions that include pumpernickel bread cubes, steamed Brussels Sprouts, steamed broccoli, and apple slices among others and Martina McBride’s Holiday Recipe’s 2018 had a recipe for beer – cheese soup that looked great, too.)

Bratwurst Types

The bratwurst with cheese in it is a specialty of Wisconsin.

The basic 4 types of bratwurst from Munich are categorized as follows according to Midwest Living:

Bratwurst

Grilled pork and beef sausage served with sweet, German mustard such as Handlmaier

Bockwurst

Frankfurters that resemble curved American hot dogs.  Bockwurst is made with pork mostly and is served with sweet German mustard.  They taste fine with any kind of beer.

Weisswurst

Weisswurst is made with veal and pork.  I boil these rather than grill them.  I think these taste fine with Riesling or a wheat beer.

Liverwurst

Liverwurst is spreadable meat made with pork and pork products.

My father made me crackers with liverwurst as a child as an after-school snack. 

I vividly remember going on a camping trip to Glacier National Park with him as a child, because all we had to eat were liverwurst sandwiches and apple cider or prune juice on the way out there. 

(I counted prairie dogs on the way there with tick marks as entertainment through the Dakotas and all the way to the Western side of Montana.)

Oktoberfest Buffet Ideas for the Home

You could make a small Oktoberfest buffet for children with the different kinds of brats, rotkohl (braised red cabbage), sauerkraut, and Parker roll type-buns.

Set out the Handlmaier sweet mustard, and serve pear cider and apple cider for children as well as apfelstrudel (apple strudel with golden raisins – Sultanas and dark raisins) for dessert. 

Munich is close to Austria, so restaurants serve food that is similar to that of Austria.

Happy Holidays!!!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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