We don’t hear much about German heritage in New Orleans, until October that is, when it comes at us with all the umph of an oompah band.
Suddenly you’re showing your nephew how to do the chicken dance, you’re dissecting the differences between bratwurst and weisswurst and you’re proclaiming “prost!” as the foam drops another inch down your stein.
That’s sounds like good times to me, and it doesn’t hurt one little bit that this year October is accompanied by mild weather, making all of this feel a little bit more like well, October, instead of extended August.
This is when New Orleans tastes a lot more German too, as restaurants roll out special menus, local brewers release seasonal Bavarian beers and fairs and fundraisers adopt the Oktoberfest theme. That includes the biggest annual Oktoberfest around these parts, the Deutsches Haus edition. More on that in a moment.
All around Louisiana, there is still a more subtle seam of German influence that persists long after the dirndl and lederhosen has been folded away for another season, and it runs through our everyday food culture.
This is something that springs from the early days of colonial immigration to Louisiana. And it continued through the 19th century, when German was a common language here and German names filled the ranks of local bakers, breweries and butcher shops. That can be harder to discern today, in the way so much in Louisiana eventually sounds French… or that hybrid of French in the New World created here.
But there is no subtly to the celebration of Oktoberfest at Deutsches Haus, now right at home along the banks of Bayou St. John, just across from City Park, at a nexus of places where New Orleans comes together.
It continues this weekend, when you’ll find all the traditional food, the beer, the oompah. Now here, somebody quick, hold my stein, I know that chicken is headed back to the dance floor and it’s time to get these wings flapping again.
Get festival details at OktoberfestNola.Com
