Thursday, October 07, 1999
Sauerkraut to honey, we love festivals
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lori Kelly, Carol Hamilton and Yolane Schultz prepare cabbage rolls for Waynesville's Sauerkraut Festival.
(Dick Swaim photo)
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WAYNESVILLE — Sauerkraut is not indigenous to this English Quaker town of 2,500 people.
Yet the Ohio Sauerkraut Festival, started 30 years ago to revive interest in the old Warren County village, has helped redefine Waynesville and boost its public profile — bringing 250,000 visitors in a single weekend.
That some festivals share a tenuous connection to their homes doesn't seem to matter in the era of festmania.
Festivals are more popular than ever in the Tristate, where there seems to be a celebration to satisfy every taste — one dedicated to wine and another featuring microbrews; one for pretzels, one for popcorn and a couple for chili; one offering sweet honey and another apple butter; and this one, offering all things sauerkraut — including (gasp!) sauerkraut fudge.
“There are absolutely more festivals going on — 1,300 festivals and annual events,” in cluding car shows and various community celebrations across the state, said Chuck Jackson, director of the Ohio Festival and Events Association in Columbus. “They're growing as more communities try to showcase themselves and show their pride.”
Over the past few weekends, people within a 50-mile radius could choose from among the Microbrew Festival (Cincinnati), the Wine Festival (Morrow), Applefest (Lebanon), the Pretzel Festival (Germantown), the Damfest (Hamilton), the Kentucky Wool Festival (Falmouth), the Pumpkin Festival (Versailles, Ind.) and the Preble County Pork Festival (Eaton).
This weekend finds the AppleButter Festival held at Hueston Woods near Oxford, sponsored by the Oxford Museum Association; the Bob Evans Farm Festival in Rio Grande (50,000 people are expected to see Ed and Judy Moore's Square Dancing Tractors and a chainsaw carver named Dennis Beach); and the Thunder in the Ohio Valley Civil War festival, in Portsmouth.
The festival boom stems in part from people's renewed interest in their origins, according to Judith De Luce, professor of classics at Miami University. After all, she said, history is more than 400-page books about the past. Sometimes it's quilts and diaries and, maybe, festivals.
Also, in a fast-growing, increasingly rootless region, festivals help create a sense of community and place.
“As our communities become more complex and the lives of individuals go in so many different directions, transcending class and location, people develop a nostalgic longing for community and activities,” she said. “Except in very rural communities, people are more alienated from the cycles of nature that our ancestors used to cele brate in festivals. Add to that the communities' desire to make themselves distinctive, and you have some reasons why festivals are so popular.”
Kraut with everything
Waynesville showcases itself with a gorging of the grotesque: sauerkraut balls, cabbage rolls and dozens of related foods, including sauerkraut doughnuts, German sundaes with sauerkraut, big kraut hot dogs, sauerkraut tacos and sauerkraut pizza.
All this week, volunteers at Saint Augustine Catholic Church have been preparing cabbage rolls — more than 11,000 are ready for this weekend.
Dave Albers, festival director and Saint Augustine parishioner, said residents don't work for the money. They do it for the town — the event draws about 250,000 people every weekend.
“That's what the big tradition is all about — civic pride,” he said. “If I wasn't in charge of this event, I'd have three other groups' booths that I could work in. It's a Waynesville thing.”
Nobody expected the festival to grow so large when businessman Albert “Cap” Stubbs suggested the idea in 1969. All he wanted was to improve business in the declining downtown, so he organized the Sauerkraut Festival.
When Mr. Jackson talks about festivals, he can't contain his enthusiasm: “The biggest ones include the Geneva Grape Jamboree, which brought in 300,000 people in two days last weekend. Then there's the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival, which is always popular, and the Marion Popcorn Festival, and, oh, yes, the biggest one of all, the Circleville Pumpkin Show, which draws 400,000 in four days. They'll celebrate their 93rd anniversary this year. (Oct. 20-23.)”
A tourist draw
Scott Dring, spokesman for the Ohio Division of Travel and Tourism, said festivals are “a big part of what our state is all about,” as well as a big part of a $14.3 billion industry that employs 389,000 people and draws 64 million people — ranking Ohio sixth in the nation in tourism.
That doesn't surprise Beth Hannon, executive director of the Oxford Visitors Bureau. “You can go to a festival every weekend in this part of the state,” she said.
Oxford is the newest home of the Ohio Honey Festival. Held Sept. 10-12, it was comparatively small — about 10,000 people attended, including Miami University students, locals and outsiders.
The event moved to Oxford from Hamilton two years ago to return to its small-town feeling, much as it had when Gov. James Rhodes founded the event in Lebanon in 1968.
“Quantity isn't everything; quality is,” said Maryrose Beerman, the festival's coordinator.
“I don't like overcrowded festivals. I won't even go up to the Pork Festival anymore. Who wants to stand in line for an hour just to eat pork chops?”
The Ohio Sauerkraut Festival will be held 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.
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