Cincinnati Goetta by Dann Woellert

Author:Dann Woellert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

GOETTAFEST AND GOETTA CULTURE

There’s one thing you won’t see at Glier’s Goettafest: a salad. But every second weekend in August, in the heat of the summer, you’ll see tens of thousands of goetta lovers descending on the Ohio River for four days to eat their beloved local grain sausage. Even in humid, ninety-plus-degree heat, people come to Goettafest to sample the newest concoctions using goetta. People come for the goetta but stay for the fun. It’s pure Goetta Gemutlichkeit.

Goettafest is one of the big reasons that goetta in greater Cincinnati is still alive over 150 years after its arrival here. Now in its eighteenth year, there is not one, but two Goettafests every summer. Both festivals are the culmination of all things goetta and the generations of families that love and celebrate it.

The mastermind of the event is Mark Balasa, a Cincinnatian of Hungarian descent. Mark tried goetta for the first time on a dare at age sixteen. He became a goetta evangelist and was working for Glier’s when he concocted the event in 2001. Mark’s purpose was to attract new goetta fans. He claimed that there was a 96 percent conversion rate. Of those who tasted goetta, most came back for more. Now the goetta evangelist works for Queen City Sausage. His idea lives on and has turned into the world’s largest goetta event.

The event was born as a small neighborhood festival at Goebel Park in Covington’s German Mainstrasse Village. Sponsored by Glier’s, original attendee estimates that first year were 2,000. Even with a short rain shower, the final tally showed 6,000 tri-state goetta lovers attended. True to many German festivals, the original Goettafest crowned a Goetta King and Queen, but the size of the festival has prevented that from continuing. The event outgrew its original location in 2004; now, more than 100,000 people attend the four-day event at Newport’s Riverboat Row, with over forty goetta dishes provided by a dozen local restaurants.

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