Gering’s World Famous International Food Fair

Every year during Oregon Trail Days, the illustrious City of Gering hosts the renowned International Food Fair.  This is a one night only event that many locals look forward to from the moment the festivities end one year to the moment they begin again the following year.  I mean, come on!  Having some cultural diversity in downtown Gering is a great thing, right?

The entire downtown area is closed off and vendors representing food from all over the “world” set-up shop to bask the attendees in the glow of multicultural cuisine!  Now, to be honest, I haven’t been to this event very often, because long lines amongst throngs of people waiting to overpay for food isn’t my idea of a good time.  Last time me and my oldest boy tried going down there (several years ago), I ended up getting pissed at the long lines and we walked down to McDonald’s and got ourselves some international Big Macs… they’re Scandinavian, right?  This year, however, the wife’s and my nieces were visiting from Denver for a week, and we’d run out of things to entertain them with here in the panhandle (surprise!)… so we decided we’d all treat ourselves to some international fare.

We arrived and scoped the place out.  I’m thinking maybe some Middle Eastern curry may be in order, or perhaps some Jamaican jerk.  If worse comes to worst, I always like a good gyro.  And then I notice what kinds of “international” treats are available at the food fair…
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Alright!  The Chinese place in downtown Gering set up a booth selling — Chinese!  Our journey through a smorgasbord of foods from around the world has begun…

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Okay, we have us some Mexican.  What else we got…

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… alrighty, we have us another Mexican burrito place.  Next…

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… uh… I’m starting to see a trend develop here.  So far, we got us some Chinese and lots of Mexican.  What else do we have?  Out of the corner of my I, I spied something “Italian”, so I go to check it out…

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… so, looks like an Italian sub is the country of Italy’s submission to the International Food Fair.  I’m kind of suspecting the people who ran this booth hadn’t actually ever been to Italy, but at least it’s not another burrito place.

The panhandle of Nebraska is filled with Germans.  I started looking for some of that traditional German fare, and I wasn’t disappointed…

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… or was I?  Germans in this area are big lovers of garlic sausage, which is kind of like brautwurst, but garlic-ier.  I found no garlic sausage, I found no sauerbrauten, and there wasn’t a spätzle or knödel in sight.  But there were brats. I don’t know how well this booth represented Germany, but it reminded me that I kinda miss those tailgate parties from my college days.  Maybe there was a different German booth…

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… or not.  Looks like brats are as German as this International Food Fair was going to get.  This booth also introduced the famous “pulled pork sandwich”, which I believe comes from Ethiopia.  No, wait a second, I’m thinking of kitfo.  Pulled pork is… uh… pretty much an American barbecue thing.  Well, American is part of the International community, so American fare at one booth isn’t bad, right?

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… oh, for the love of…

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… I give up.  The International Fare at this food fair seems to be a Chinese place and a bunch of places selling Mexican and American food (with the occasional brat thrown in for good measure, and an Italian sub).  At least this place from the Sandhills of Nebraska make their sign interesting by trying to disguise their weaseliness.  Notice how they have a “meal” price of $8.00.  The meal includes a sandwich and a water or Powerade.  Notice how a sandwich alone is $7.00… and a water alone is $1.00.  That isn’t even a combo meal… that’s just them adding the prices conveniently together for you and making it look like you’re getting a deal.  I will give them credit for knocking a buck off if you go with the Powerade option, but I deduct credit for a “Philly”-style sandwich having American cheese.  Either throw some provolone on it, drench it in Cheez Whiz, or take “Philly” out of the name.  I do love how they state they raise their own beef, and how there is “No mystery meat here, folks!”  I thought this was hilarious… I don’t think the people at the Chinese place felt the same…

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Now this place has it going on.  They have the “Mexican” nachos, the Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cake, and the fries from the country of Ribbononia.  And they have Indian tacos, which are, of course, associated with the Navajo Nation… which I count as American, but you can count it however you want.

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This one is kind of hard to read, but it's Indian Tacos for $6.50 and drinks for $1.00... and the unadvertised meal-deal of a taco and a drink for $7.50.

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Got nothing for this one, but I took the picture, so here it is. Julie's Antiques has some cool stuff, so I recommend checking it out...

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There were other booths at this food fair, but they all served pretty much the same or similar things. There were some awesome boy scouts selling Pizza Hut pizza, but anyone who claims that Pizza Hut is anything other than Americanized pizza is dented and shouldn’t be listened to anyway.  So, my oldest boy and I got Indian Tacos and the rest of the crew got Chinese.  I think the whole experience set us back only a couple hundred bucks, and I was once again reminded why I don’t usually go to the International Food Fair in Gering, NE.  The concept is great, but the delivery (or offering) is severely lacking.  Gering’s International Food Fair hosts pretty much the same food you get at a normal fair, but offers the disappointment of being mislead about the whole “International” thing…