It’s that time of year again. It’s officially summer, the weather is getting warmer, people are firing up their grills, and every Greek (well, Hellenic if you want to be authentic) Church is throwing their annual festival. Never been? Now is your chance!

Come my friend! Let me be guide for you! No, usually you won’t have to put up with people with heavy accents, and I’m guessing that it won’t be My Big Fat Greek Festival either. I usually help out with my old church’s festival every year as I’m volunteered by my father every time I show up whether I like it or not.

So what should you expect at a Greek festival? Most of the time it breaks down into two categories, food and entertainment. Honestly, what more do you need? I might be biased, but all the food is delicious. Try everything is my advice. Your prepared foods are always home made at these festivals and you’ll find them in the gym/largest area possible. It’s there that you’ll find your pastitso, mousaka, leg of lamb, and tons of other foods. These will be served with a side salad which becomes Greek due to the fact that it’s got feta cheese and some olives on it.

Inside you’ll also find your deserts which most of the time are drenched in syrup. Standard fare includes baklava, variations of baklava and loukoumathes. Me? I always go for the loukoumathes. They’re made fresh, they’re soft, covered in syrup, cinnamon and powdered sugar. Yes, sugar on sugar. You can’t go wrong.

Those are the foods you’ll usually find inside and in all honesty the only thing I go inside for is the deserts. Outside is where it’s at. You’ve got your souvalki (kabobs) and the ever popular Gyro which should look like a meat tornado. If it doesn’t, walk away cause it’ll probably taste bad. And everyone, it’s pronounced geero like hero but with a ‘g’. Word butchering aside this is usually where you want to be.

Outside is where your entertainment also usually is. Depending on the size of said festival you might have some carnival games, but there’s always Greek dancing and music……..always. If you’re up for some immersion, stick around. The dancing is usually the kids that go to Greek classes or maybe even a private dancing class. Oh and the costumes the kids might be wearing? They’re ceremonial costumes that are usually region specific and handed down through the generations in the family. If you’re feeling particularly into it (or you’re just really drunk on ouzo) feel free to hop in, more often than not a random line of people sprouts up and people just tack on like a Greek conga line.

So there ya go, your very own primer on Greek festivals. Consider yourself prepared for all that awaits you! Well……..hopefully. If you’re still unsure, go make a Greek friend and use them as your ethnic sherpa. The festivals are definitely a good time and very worth checking out. Entry fees are minimal if anything at all and the food is very reasonably priced. Check out your local Greek Festival, you won’t be disappointed!

This entry was posted by Alex on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 4:26 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.