German American Festival in Lincoln Square

I am going to this event tomorrow (sep 10) to see the von Steuben parade and enjoy some german refreshments. Has anyone been t this event in the past? I hear that there is normally a lot of great homemade german food and beer there. If anyone has been, is there anything in particular I should seek out?

hantav wrote:Has anyone been t this event in the past? I hear that there is normally a lot of great homemade german food and beer there.

Hantav,

"Homemade"? Okay, this is good, we're having a discussion elsewhere about this, and I’d love to hear your unbiased, untainted opinion of what this word means to you. This is not a challenge. Really. What does “homemade” mean to you?

Incidentally, this festival sounds great -- might swing by!

David “The Lexicographer” Hammond

The festival is fun, but the food, though tasty, all comes from one restaurant (I forget the name and locale, some northern suburb) which is capable of producing in quantity. It's no substitute for visiting the few surviving German restaurants like Resi's and Laschet's, but on its own terms I enjoy the fest and will probably be there Saturday.

happy to elaborate on my view of homemade.... but first I want to be clear ( I wasn't earlier) that i had heard that the festval was to have beer and homemade food, not as I ambiguously stated as "homemade food and beer" in my last post.

I had heard that various german clubs got together and made a lot of traditional german foods. When I am in any environment besides a restaurant (I extend my definition of restaurant to mean any event professionaly catered such as weddings as well as events where a restaurant/caterer sets up a temporary booth ) I guess to me homemade means that it was not created in a commercial kitchen by trained professionals. If a bunch of members of a cultural club got together in a church kitchen or something like that and made a bunch of wursts and spaetzle, and served it at the german fest I would consider this homemade. I don't think something actually has to be made in a literal home to earn the title of homemade-- i think the word embraces more than the literal joining of its two component words.

If my mother told me something was homemade, I would assume that she herself had made it from scratch. I would expect the same if I was eating over a friend's house and they proffered a dish as homemade.

If i see the term homemade on a restaurant menu I take it to mean that each component of the dish (with the exclusion of common spice mixtures/condiments/larder ingredients such as mustard, soy sauce, ketchup, cheese, 5 spice powder, etc...) is made from scratch on site and that the final dish is composed there as well. I' not sure I agree 100% with this usage, but this is what I understand and expect it to be when I see restaurant dishes advertised as homemade.
If a pizzeria made their own sauce and dough but bought cheese, i would not argue with them selling it as homemade. Homemade mac and cheese can have store bought noodles and cheese, but the mornay or bechemal has to be made from scratch. I would not consider homemade chicken soup to be homemade if it used canned broth. For a pie to be homemade, it must have the crust and filling made on site.

If a restaurant makes their own sausage with their own spice mixture and mixture of ground meats and stuffs it at the restaurant, I would consider this sausage to be homemade.

Like many terms, I think that "homemade" has different meanings based on the context in which it is used.

I visited the event last year and I expect to stop by tomorrow (maybe even tonight).

What I saw was what I see at most neighborhood fairs that feature food stalls - only that the food was German-themed. The products seemed, almost all, to be commercial food quality cooked/sold in large quantities. Tasty, however.

The number of people attending/buying/eating is large and I can't imagine someone making different things from scratch, fresh, in such a large quantity.

I should qualify my statement by saying that I did not walk the length of Lincoln Ave. that participated in the event. Rather, I wandered between Lawrence Ave. and about 1/2 block SE of Leland and the Western Ave. stop on the Brown Line "El".

My recollection is that I bought something at three different places and that each was operated by a restaurant or bakery. I saw nothing remotely close to "home made" (i.e., made in someone's home kitchen as they would make the food/baked goods for their family). I enjoy wandering with others, eating my way down the street . . . and stopping for a beer or two.

Maybe I've been going to the wrong neighborhood events, but with the exception of some of the Mexican events, I don't see "home made" food anymore. Anyway, I'm not looking for a large meal when I'm at such an event, a tasty brat, some strong mustard and a cold beer will satisfy me.

Notice in this week's Reader that The Berghoff's loop Oktoberfest menu features 1 "German" item: Johnsonville brats.

We go to at least the parade every year but often skip the food. Two German societies run the food stands with the same menu and sources. Bratwurst and thuringer are from the Black Forest Market in IIRC Morton Grove (might be off on town line). Baked goods are from Schmeissing's Bakery, which has a suburban location and one on Foster between Kedzie and Kimball. Sausages are grilled. You can get just a sandwich or with sauerkraut and potato salad. I very much doubt that anything qualifies as home-made in even the loosest sense of the term.

Beers have been Rolling Rock, Becks and Becks Oktoberfest. You may have to ask carefully for the much better Oktoberfest beer. They also have root beer IIRC, but I have never tasted it.

Sunday afternoon has a lot of multigeneration families, but the evenings seem to attract more and more over-age frat-boy types. Maybe I am just too old, but I avoid evenings.

ekreider wrote:Baked goods are from Schmeissing's Bakery, which has a suburban location and one on Foster between Kedzie and Kimball.

I remember Schmeissing's Bakery on Lincoln and Shubert, which closed a few years ago after a steady downhill slide once the original owner sold out or died, but I was not aware that thy had opened a branch on Foster. I can't picture it, or any bakery for that matter, on that particular stretch of Foster. Do you have an address? I'd love to check it out.

Confused Schmeissings with Schlegl's in my rush to post before brats from Joe's were ready downstairs. Having eaten lunch including homemade cucumber salad made from home grown cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden, you can see where my stomach is voting. Ventilation in the big tents at the German Festival has been poor in similar weather in some past years. We need to leave in about 15 minutes to walk over to the parade and snag spaces in the shade.

Schlegl's is at 3334 West Foster and at their older location in Lincolnwood, 3915 Touhy. The Foster location is only a year or so old.

ekreider wrote:Bratwurst and thuringer are from the Black Forest Market in IIRC Morton Grove (might be off on town line).

Black Forest Chalet
847/965-1642 restaurant
847/965-3113 deli
www.blackforestmarket.com
8840 Waukegan Road
Morton Grove

They have a restaurant and a deli/meat market. I haven't been there in some time, but it used to be decent.

We went today (we'll go to anything with a parade).

The food-- what's not to like? It's hot off the grill, and the potato salad, though cold, has bits of schinken or whatever in it. And I heard a rumor, don't blame me if I'm wrong, that there's beer available there. It's all tasty and good, the only thing against it is that the choices are so limited, doesn't begin to compare with the Christkindlmarkt or the German restaurants around there. But taken on its own terms, feeding the mobs with German efficiency, it's fine.