Featured Photo by Marshal Clemmer
Story by Marshal Clemmer
Beer on draft poured inside the party tents. Polka music drifted in the open air. Vendors sold their wares to the day’s customers. People came in droves to Bicentennial Park in the Germantown neighborhood. The smell of cooking bratwurst and schnitzels whet the appetite of the masses. From Oct. 3 to Oct. 6 German-Americans celebrated their German heritage with the 44th Oktoberfest with anyone else who wished to party.
Hailing from Munich, Bavaria, in Germany, citizens of Munich first celebrated Oktoberfest in 1811 to repeat the wedding celebration of then Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on Oct. 12, 1810. Despite a few postponed years, they have been enjoying Oktoberfest as an annual event since 1819.
Festival-goers participated in a couple of festival games.
The historic neighborhood of Germantown in Nashville, where a large group of Germans immigrated during the mid-19th century, made it the ideal choice to hold Nashville’s annual Oktoberfest in Bicentennial Park, where people from all over the country come to celebrate their German heritage and others come to party.
In the Brat Eating Contest, participants race to see who can be the first to drink a small lager, eat two sauerkraut-loaded bratwurst, and then guzzle down a stein of beer. The Beer Stein Holding contest is where participants see who can hold a stein full of beer the longest. Then, for the dog lovers, there is the Pup Parade. Dog owners take their dogs on parade in costumes and judges hand out prizes to the best-dressed pup and the crowd favorite.
For Oktoberfest, it’s not uncommon for men to dress in a combination of leather shorts and suspenders known as lederhosen.
Many women dress in a traditional style of dress and apron called a dirndl. The apron’s bow placement on the dirndl communicates relationship status among other things. For example, it will go on the right side of married women and the left of single women. For widows and waitresses, the bow will go on the back. For children, the bow sits in the front.
When it was time to sit down and eat, festival-goers could chow down on traditional German foods ranging from a potato pancake called a kartoffelpuffer to a Berlin street food mixture of curry and bratwurst that’s conveniently called currywurst. An honorable mention to many’s favorite traditional schnitzel of a deep-fried, breaded boneless pork chop that’s been flattened.
Nashville’s Oktoberfest is celebrated the first weekend of October, which gives attendees an entire year to plan and show up their lederhosen and dirndl for next year’s celebration.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
