Germany: Oktoberfest
"O'zapft!" -- "It's tapped!" That's what they were shouting in late September 2011 in the Theresienwiese -- "Queen Therese's Meadow" -- when the ceremonial first barrel of beer was tapped by the Mayor of the City of Munich, officially opening the 178th Oktoberfest.
Between opening day and the festival's closing on October 3rd, some six million visitors from all over the world came to the "Wies'n" to visit the fourteen massive "tents" (they're actually semi-permanent structures erected and dismantled each year) housing the Big Six breweries and other food and entertainment facilities. After riding the thrill rides and visiting the numerous gift and game stalls, visitors drank some seven million liters of beer, while tucking into tens of thousands of crispy roast pig's knuckles and roast chickens. They devoured hundreds of thousands of crunchy grilled herrings and juicy sausages of every description, and noshed on countless decorated gingerbreads, toasted nuts and other goodies... while generally having a terrific time.
You may not have been able to get to the tents yourself, but it's still easy for you to visit our extensive German recipe collections. Find out how to make a little Oktoberfest for yourself right at home! Just check out the right-hand column for links to our German recipe collections and our featured German recipes -- some of our favorites!
Visit Oktoberfest-tv.de's Festival Gastronomy Page, a guide to delicious traditional foods and food vendors at Munich's Oktoberfest. (in German)
You can also find out more about Oktoberfest here at the Oktoberfest.de FAQ page.
Visit the Oktoberfest.de Website
Interesting videos:
- Setting up a whole ox for roasting on a spit: how it's done by the prep team at the Spaten beer tent's famous Ochsenbraterei
- How they make the traditional heart-shaped Oktoberfest gingerbreads
- An entire Oktoberfest in time-lapse video created from webcam images
