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!!!
Note: Wienerschnitzel Drive-thru in Salinas has bratwurst - near Nob Hill Supermarket. Nob Hill carries German beer and Gerolsteiner water.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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