Food, fests & fun

Minnesota is no flyover state in the summer food-festival department. The sheer bounty of festivals out there this summer is surprising -- from chokecherry to rhubarb to sauerkraut and everything in between. These foods usually have some kind of economic, cultural or historical significance to their host town. But sometimes it's just a symbol -- less about the food and more about the small-town celebration. Minnesotans also fest in honor of their cultural roots -- not just Scandinavian and German heritage, but also Greek, Middle Eastern and Irish, to name a few. These festivals may not be explicitly about food, but they often offer some of the best and most authentic of nom-noms. That's probably because the folks who put them together are often volunteers with many generations of cultural experience to draw upon. During the month of June, we festivaled our way through Minnesota to discover the spectrum of organized summer fun that can be had, from a metro Germanic fest, to a strawberry-themed celebration in the suburbs, to a wonderfully quirky small-town event in the name of sauerkraut. We've added a directory on page 25 highlighting our favorite upcoming fests for July and August. By the time summer is over, you may have found that the exotic isn't necessarily so far away -- and the familiar might be stranger than you think.

Deutsche Tage is a two-day annual festival in St. Paul organized by the nonprofit Germanic-American Institute. An eclectic mix of families, hipsters and distinguished polka dancers filled the GAI's lawn on Summit Avenue for activities including a 5K run in which participants are encouraged to wear lederhosen; German model trains and lawn games for kids, live music and authentic eats and drinks.

The 5K Lederhosen Lauf kicked off the fest promptly at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Although a proud minority of laufers sported lederhosen, most did not, or they improvised more breathable versions out of suspenders and running shorts. Finishers were rewarded with a "Bavarian breakfast" of a brat with kraut and a cold German beer, while unwinding to the remarkable Alpine-folk family band, the Flemming Fold. Why aren't there more family bands these days?

This year marked the 200th anniversary of an edict passed by King Max I of Bavaria that allowed breweries to sell their product onsite, thus giving birth to the biergarten -- Germany's ultimate symbol of "Gemütlichkeit" (aka good vibes). To commemorate the occasion at Deutsche Tage, a Paulaner beer truck offered traditional Munich beer in all of its delicious malty forms, from the bright and refreshing Hefe-Weissbier to the full-bodied and amber Oktoberfest, to the complex, deep chestnut Weissbier Dunkel.

The 6 percent alcohol content of the easy-drinking Oktoberfest definitely got our Gemütlichkeit flowing, and we bumped into "Hermann the German" -- the ancient Germanic chieftain who led his tribes to victory over the Romans. He was leading a conga-polka line but was experiencing a gladiator sandal malfunction, which happened to emphasize his unbelievably muscular and well-formed calves.

Time for food! Authenticity reigned supreme in the offerings. The German potato salad was sublime: warm potatoes, onion and diced bacon encased in a zingy finish of sweet-meets-vinegar tang ($3). A legion of volunteers spent approximately six hours peeling the 500 potatoes necessary to make it, led by Helga Parnell, who moved to the United States from Germany in 1963 and literally wrote the book on German cooking (2003's "Cooking the German Way").

Schnitzel was another star -- locally sourced from Deutschland Meats in Sanborn, Minn., and tender with a crispy light crust. It was so good that Papa Kluegel finished mine while I was off refreshing our pitcher. So I sampled some of his curry condiment, an optional accompaniment to the brat and kraut. The jolt of thick-sweet curry ketchup made me recall the perception that some people have of Germans as being humorously direct.

The Leberkäse (literal translation: "liver cheese") sandwich involved a thick crusted slab of pinkish-gray finely ground pork, bacon and onions resembling Spam, on top of a beautiful glazed brioche. It was weird and not bad, but its appearance brought me back to being a 16-year-old foreign exchange student terrified of offending her German host, Mutti, by not giving it a chance. And that reminded me of the Tina Turner song "The Best" which was on the mixtape that blond, curly-haired Kai Schmidt von Hern made for me before I left, causing me to cry for the entire duration of the transatlantic flight. Kai, wo bist du jetzt?

According to Mayor Myron Bailey, Cottage Grove was once graced with fields of strawberries, and families came from all over the Midwest to pick them. It is in this spirit that Strawberry Fest was born in 1984. Held at the suburb's Kingston Park, the Cottage Grove Strawberry Fest was a four-day jumble of family fun including a carnival, petting zoo, car show, parade, public safety events, fireworks, hot air balloon rides (!) and awesomely named cover bands such as Blatant Youth and Rockfist!

But there is perhaps no more quintessential ingredient of a community festival than a good old-fashioned parade. Parents parked themselves in camping chairs along the parade route and kids spasmodically clutched into the air for airborne Smarties and Tootsie rolls while a processional of fist-pumping beauty queens, marching bands, local politicos and the requisite clown-on-unicycle slowly wound their way through the snaky residential streets.

Then we were off to eat everything strawberry. We located the nearby Afton Apple Orchard's Berry Barn, which offered the vast majority of strawberries available at the fest. These Hastings-sourced berries were natural beauties -- crayon-red, plump and juicy ($5 for a pound, $8 for two). The strawberry-laced cake doughnut with granulated sugar ($1) or the fluffy shortcake with glazed strawberries and clouds of whipped cream ($4.25) made perfect breakfasts of champs. There was also a strawberry-top chef competition in which contestants were encouraged to use strawberries in imaginative ways. Wendy Delmore won the appetizer category with her strawberry bruschetta.

Inspired, we spent the rest of our food-cruising time thinking of ways one could incorporate strawberries into the festival's more standard fare of gyros, nachos, pizzas, cheese curds and kettle corn. The Heavenly Ribs barbecue stand smelled wonderful, and a woman working the smokers agreed that a strawberry barbecue sauce was indeed an excellent idea. But the stand's mild and hot sauces stood up on their own: deep burgundy, molasses-sweet and kicky. They made the perfect accompaniment to the hunks of meat in the pulled pork sandwich and the mini-cup of bright coleslaw with an unexpected but entertaining guest called "pineapple bits."

Sauerkraut Days began in Henderson, Minn., in the 1930s to bring business to the small town and pay tribute to its German heritage. At its peak, up to 30,000 people engulfed the town (population: less than 1,000), which created security problems in the 1970s, possibly involving bikers, and led to its cancellation. Luckily the festival was resurrected in 1992. All for the love of kraut!

Frank's Kraut is a major sponsor of the festival, represented by an impressive pyramid of green cans displayed in the free kraut-serving zone. Frank's, part of the Ohio-based Fremont Co. that also makes ketchup, has used the same production vats since 1905, which they claim lends the kraut its "superior" flavor. Admittedly, it was tasty -- a soft, flaxen, tangy yin to the beer-boiled and grilled brat yang. A can of Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy ($3) sealed the deal, along with the bouncy sounds of the red-shirted Chemnitzer Concertina Club. (A Chemnitzer concertina is an instrument that looks kind of like an accordion but is not one, which I learned the hard way.) The kraut-cooking contest happens at the Kraut Kick-Off in May, but there was a free recipe booklet available that included a krauted chocolate cake recipe. Hot or not?

Sammie Kraemer, a friendly ambassador in the Miss Henderson royal court, helped us find our way to the cabbage-toss competition. A fluffy white Pomeranian kept hilariously chasing the flying cabbages, eating off some of their leaves. With tractors revving in the background, we took the windy trail past the softball tourneys to the arm-wrestling competitions. "Pullers" (the emic term for arm wrestler) came from as far away as California to attend the event. Divisions included kids, women, novice and professional. Some of the boys competing had male brethren yelling directives like "Push!" or "Lean down!" as they grew increasingly red-faced and grimaced. Caleb Fishbaugher, third-place winner in the righthanded 10- to 12-year-old division, wore a chartreuse-neon shirt with the exclamation "Harold 'Rattlesnake' Ryden's nephew!" on the front. The referees were really nice and gave all participants a heartfelt slap on the back and a "Good job, man."

But the evening's infamous do-it-yourself Owl Parade seems to be the moment when the town turns all awesomely "Twin Peaks"-kind of bananas. The parade flier deemed it the "wackiest parade in southern Minnesota" (as though northern Minnesota has its own serious wacky parade competition to worry about?). The satirical, absurd, ridiculous and/or masked are strongly encouraged, so long as motorized vehicles or nudity are not involved -- at least according to the prominent disclaimers on the parade flier.

The sauerkraut-eating contest requires participants to eat 2 pounds of kraut as quickly as possible. Contestants competed in elaborate costumed personas that included Abe Lincoln, Prince and someone claiming to be "El Krauto" -- a kraut-loving lucha libre wrestler in full regalia. Cliff Gorman of Burnsville won by downing his kraut in 3 minutes, 39 seconds. He got $100 cash and the title of Kraut King. Gorman won last year, as well, and was overheard saying, upon winning: "Don't doubt the kraut!" This is why I love nonfiction.