Not only is our town’s Oktoberfest not in October, this is the food we are offered:
We have a historically large German population around here. Everybody has a German last name. But you can’t get German food even at our sad mockery of Oktoberfest.
September Oktoberfest
Clarissa's Blog 
While the food on the menu sounds tasty, I’m surprised it’s not actual German food. German food isn’t that weird if one is familiar with British or Midwest American cuisine, they could just grill different sausages and serve on a bun alongside potato salad. Or perhaps some some spatzle or dumplings, maybe some big pretzels for the kids.
Our town was founded by Germans and there’s an Oktoberfest at the local park each year, they mostly serve various grilled sausages on buns with mustard along with plates of spatzle and dumplings and big pretzels. It’s not spicy or weird-looking food and kids tend to like it, most Americans are familiar with sausage on a bun and potato salad and dumplings
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I was expecting at least a wurst or two. Something but the ubiquitous Mexican corn and shrimp skewers.
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The corn and shrimp skewers are odd things to put on an Oktoberfest menu, they’re fine for a regular American festival but out of place for something that is supposed to be German. Our local St. Patrick’s Day festival serves traditional Irish food that is popular with festival guests, and Irish food isn’t that familiar except for potatoes. That’s just a weird menu for something that’s supposed to be German
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“our town’s Oktoberfest not in October”
Your town is the devil…. no other explanation.
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September is a normal time for Oktoberfest, it’s happening at the same time in Germany. It actually used to happen earlier in September.
I’ll be going to the largest Oktoberfest in America tomorrow, will be fun to compare.
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I hope you encounter some sausage! There was none at ours but it’s Illinois. Everything is strange.
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There will be lots, including our own local German-American sausage, goetta (we also have an entire summertime festival devoted to this sausage.)
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That is really sad that they couldn’t at least muster up some bratwurst.
Lots of places in the US with historically large German populations have almost no trace of German culture left. Anti-German sentiment was extremely nasty in the US during World War I and most German-Americans reacted by going in for hardcore assimilation. World War II didn’t help the situation (though Americans seem to have done a better job of realizing that not all Germans were Nazi supporters) and time has done the rest. German restaurants in the US are generally extreme disappointments if you have had German food in Germany.
And late September is the time for Oktoberfest. The real Oktoberfest in Munich lasts for 16 days and ends on the first Sunday of Oktober, so there are always more days of Oktoberfest in September than there are in October.
I’ll also throw in that Oktoberfest is not a Germany-wide celebration, it’s just in Munich. I have talked to more than a handful of Americans planning trips to other parts of Germany in the fall thinking they could experience Oktoberfest wherever they happened to be or being really surprised that they were in Frankfurt or Berlin or where ever at the right time and no one was celebrating Oktoberfest.
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The food in Germany is so good that you don’t even need a special occasion. I’ll be in Frankfurt and Hamburg in spring, eager to showcase my new German skills. Very curious about the food in that part of Germany. I’ve only been to Berlin and Regensburg so far.
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Well, I rather suspect that the menu on your Octoberfest is affected by the current financial concerns. The mother of our “adopted” children was raised in Bavaria. She always baked my wife a Black Forest cake for her birthday. About 10 years ago, I asked her why she did not sell them, she just laughed and said nobody would buy it because the real materials cost almost $50 ;-D
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Hamburg is one of my favorite cities, lots of water and green when the weather is nice. Definitely do a boat tour in the harbor if the weather is suitable. As far as food goes, there is lots of herring and other fish dishes up north. Hamburg is also known for Franzbrötchen which is a sort of cinnamon and butter pastry. If you have time, I would also recommend a day trip to Lübeck, it’s a gorgeous medieval city and well known in Germany for marzipan.
Frankfurt is also nice, though a lot of people are put off by the area around the train station which has lots of visible drunks and drug users. They also went in for an unfortunate amount of ugly modernism when they rebuilt after the war, but there are some pleasant areas around the Römerberg and along the river. The thing to have in Frankfurt is grüne Soße, green sauce, it’s a sauce made with seven herbs that is served with several different dishes. The “classic” is a simple dish of green sauce with boiled potatoes and eggs. You can also get a Frankfurter Schnitzel which is a pork schnitzel with green sauce on it. I was in Frankfurt earlier this year and had a fantastic Frankfurter Schnitzel at a place called Ebbelwoi Unser in the Sachsenhausen neighborhood, all of the other dishes there also looked great and I would go back there in a heartbeat. The Ebbelwoi in the name is a type of apple wine that is produced in the Frankfurt region and the place is technically an apple wine tavern. I am not a huge fan of the apple wine itself, it’s not bad, it just doesn’t taste like much of anything. But the apple wine taverns are the place to go for traditional German food in Frankfurt.
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