All about the food — but someone has to serve it

FREEMAN — Visitors may file past the exhibits or enjoy the annual musical production, but at Schmeckfest, it’s really all about the food.

“I love Schmeckfest,” said Jenny Bergan, a pharmacy student who brought family and friends to the food extravaganza for the second consecutive year. “I love the ethnicity, the culture. It’s just fun.”

Bergan and her company let the kuchen and other desserts settle before heading upstairs to see “Into the Woods,” the award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical.

The 51st season of Schmeckfest — the main fundraising event for Freeman Academy — concluded its annual run during a blizzard Saturday. Freeman Academy Principal Pam Tieszen said ticket sales throughout the four nights slumped a bit in the poor economy but last-minute walk-in traffic was taking up the slack. Saturday’s attendance was smaller due to the weather.

“It’s done very well considering that sales of the tickets were later than usual,” she said.

Some visitors came, ate and left early to avoid the snows that cut Saturday’s attendance by a third, but many stayed for the show. Some got stranded, but were put up in area homes, Tieszen said.

What visitors don’t see at Schmeckfest is the well-oiled machine that feeds hungry hordes of visitors and volunteers during each of the four days that make up this “Festival of Tasting.”

“We have 270 people who work on the campus,” said auxiliary president LaVonne Brockmueller. “So not only do we serve the 800 to 1,000 guests every night, but we also serve those volunteers after the meal has been served.”

The huge dining hall in the basement of Pioneer Hall contains 12 rows of tables, each row capable of seating 32 hungry diners. And the diners come, ready to leave as stuffed as the smoked German sausage they all have grown to love. There are no reserved tables and all food is served, appropriately, family style.

After years of practice, volunteers handle the hungry masses with efficiency and grace. There are ushers, table-clearers, table-setters, tableservers and ranks of specialized kitchen help.

Friday night, servers like Donna Brosz of Tripp, resplendent in a red- and whitechecked apron, wheeled a double-decker serving cart loaded with mounds of potatoes, cheese pockets, sauerkraut and other German ethnic fare to the dining tables.

Volunteers work enthusiastically, their only payment being part of a tradition and a chance to partake in something special. Smiles predominate. The work can be mundane, but they don’t care.

Carrol Langland busied himself straining sauerkraut with a sieve.

“I couldn’t pass up the job,” he joked, “it was the chance of a lifetime.”

Beside him was Aryss Langrock of Marion, perched on a stool, who replenished the jam and jelly servers that go with the homemade breads on each table.

“Schmeckfest is just great,” said Langrock, a graduate of the Freeman Academy Class of 1954. “We have all these people — and it’s my alma mater.”

Joe Danny Hofer of Freeman, assigned to the water crew, dipped water from a large plastic barrel and filled water pitchers.

Less romantic were the dishwashing chores tackled by volunteers like LeRoy Pullman and Jeremy Ortman, who strained against an endless tide of soiled crockery. Headway was slow as tableclearers like Denise Arbach rushed in and added more dishes to the pile.

In turn, Pullman moved the endless parade of bowls and plates to Ortman who, occasionally obscured by clouds of steam, manned the commercial dishwasher. Dish-dryers took over as dishes emerged.

The generals of this precision operation were Carolyn Preheim and Deb Schmeigel, chairwomen of the Schmeckfest Food Committee.

All volunteers are veterans who quickly slip into assigned roles, said Preheim. Rehearsal isn’t needed.

“Not any more. But we have lists, lots and lots of lists,” she said.

Last year’s Schmeckfest earned about $115,000.

Tags: news, schmeckfest