Food You Can Eat: Cousin Matthew’s Oktoberfest

It is Oktoberfest, meine Damen und Herren! Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!

Sadly, Oktoberfest in Munich is canceled this year. Can’t imagine why, thousands packed into beer tents at huge communal tables, shoulder-to-shoulder, lots of drinking and some food sharing, spontaneous dancing, including on the communal tables. Desperate times require desperate measures, so celebrants across the globe will have to do their own.

I’m going full Sandra Lee here. You don’t actually make any of this stuff, except for the German potato salad, which I can’t remember even being served at Munich’s Oktoberfest. But this is what I do.

What you’ll need:

German potato salad (see recipe below)

Big bratwursts or plump, somewhat spicy sausages, I’d recommend 1 lb. per person, because it is Oktoberfest.

Some kind of bread rolls for the brats but this is very optional and not recommended.

Huge, fluffy pretzels. These should be at least six inches across and have big chunks of salt on them. If you’ve ever been to New York or Chicago, this is what the sidewalk pretzel cart vendors might sell. You don’t want the tiny crispy pretzels you find in a bag or a “Fun Pak.”

A big jar of spicy mustard. If you live in a very German area you might see something called Senf. Use that, that is German mustard.

Lots of good Bavarian beer. I’ve seen Spaten around. That’s actually sort of like Miller in Bavaria, maybe slightly better. If you want to go full Bavarian, get wheat beer (auf Deutsch, Weißbier, Witbier, Weizenbier, or Hefeweizen.) You can also make Radlers, see note at the end.

Your most elegant beer steins, or if you have any, Maß glasses. These are used at Oktoberfest and hold one liter, or just over a quart/32 ounces. If you have neither a Stein nor a Maß (that ß is ss and pronounced like that) just drink out of a pitcher, no one will judge.

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Make the German potato salad first. Here, FINALLY, is a recipe. And mind you I’m estimating for two, because normally I’m making this for a crowd, and I haven’t done this yet for just the two of us and the dog. No doubt a normal couple would have leftovers and all of this is extremely leftover-able.

2 lbs. red russet potatoes

Bacon. Germans have something called Speck, which is a thick, fatty bacon. Don’t get lean bacon, is what I’m saying. And don’t get me started on turkey bacon or plant-based “bacon.” I researched this because I only know the amount by sight. You’ll need about 1/3 lb.

White wine vinegar, maybe 4 tablespoons. White wine vinegar is a little sweet so use something more acidic if you want.

2 medium onions, diced, really small.

If you’re not using white wine vinegar a little sugar, maybe a tablespoon or two.

Some of your spicy mustard that you bought for the pretzels and to smoosh the sausages in when you slice them up and eat them. 1 tbs., let’s say.

A garnish, like parsley or chives. Not too much. Dice that really small.

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You can do the potatoes different ways. I don’t bother peeling mine (the nutrients are in the skin) and I cube them beforehand, add to a pot, cover with water, add salt, and let them boil away. This should take about 10–15 minutes. They’re done when you can put a fork in a cube and pull one out. You don’t want them to get too mushy but not al dente either. Turn the heat off and drain the potato pot as best you can. I sometimes pour out the water and then, out of frustration because the cubes are not cooperating, carefully dump the whole mess into a colander in my kitchen sink, like I do with spaghetti.

In a frying pan, fry your bacon. When nice and crispy, take it out and move it to paper towels to drain and cool. Since you are using fatty bacon there’s going to be quite a bit of grease. Save a little bit but drain most of it into something like an old empty can. Do NOT pour it down a sink or a toilet, because it will clog, AS I HAVE TOLD MY HUSBAND MORE THAN ONCE.

Put your diced onion back in that greasy pan on medium heat and stir it around for like five minutes. Then add the vinegar and the mustard (and the sugar, if using) and stir that around until it thickens. A whisk is good for this. After about 4 or 5 minutes, add your potatoes into the thickened mix and tumble them around. Turn off the heat (you do not want mushy potatoes), crumble your now-room temp bacon, add that, and then tumble again but briefly.

I put the German potato salad into a serving dish and top with the tiny parsley or chives. Go easy on this. You don’t want it to look like green confetti at a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, fun though that is. I temporarily store that in my seldom-used microwave to keep warm, because German potato salad, unlike its American derivative, is supposed to be served warm or room temperature.

I am incredibly lazy so I don’t even clean the frying pan. I throw the brats in there and let them sizzle for a few minutes on medium high, turn them over, and let them sizzle some more. This should be like ten minutes total. If you don’t use your greasy, potato-besmirched frying pan you might need to add a little water so the Würstchen don’t scorch but you don’t need oil, the sausages should throw off enough grease on their own, even through the casing.

I prefer warm pretzels so during the brat stage I preheat the oven to whatever, I aim for 350 but it doesn’t really matter, and when I turn the brats I put the pretzels on a baking sheet and shove them in. That’s why the potato salad goes in the microwave to hang out. You don’t want to cook the pretzels or God forbid burn them, just get them a little toasty.

Now you’re done, and as Ina Garten would say, “How easy was that?”

A NOTE ON RADLERS: A “Radler” is a bicyclist. Legend has it that people in the nearby Alps would bicycle down to Oktoberfest, tank up, and then try to return home, with mixed results. A Radler was designed for/preferred by them. It is a 50/50 mix of a light beer (not a “lite” beer, a lager) or a wheat beer, and lemonade, but not the sickly sweet stuff that Americans drink. It’s really refreshing, I make them myself sometimes in the summer when I want to start wetting my whistle a little early. And believe me: Summer 2020? I’d fill the Croton Reservoir with it if I could and have it on tap 24/7.