The New Orleans Greek Festival is held annually around the end of May. It is a vibrant, family-friendly event filled with great food, music, dancing, and toga wearing. It has been alive for 43 years, but this year was my first experience. I have a special place in my heart for Greece. I visited Greece twice in 2014: once for a family summer vacation and then a few months later to study food and culture with LSU. As I walked into the festival, my senses were delighted with the sweet smell of Greek food and the sound of Greek music. It brought back my happy memories in Greece and made me once again shout “opa!”
Kali Orexi! This is a Greek phrase that translates, literally, into good appetite. As expected, the New Orleans Greek Festival had a variety of traditional Greek dishes. Some of my personal favorites include Greek salad, pastitsio, dolma (stuffed grape leaves), goat burgers, and souvlaki. I went for the goat burger and it was oh-so-good! Of course, I had a bite of my friend’s dolma because those are just too good to pass up.
Of course, the festival had hummus as an option because American Greek restaurants teach us that hummus is of Greek origin. All of them have hummus and pita bread on the menu usually as an appetizer or side item. When I found out that I was going to Greece, I remember longing for authentic hummus because my whole life I thought hummus came from Greece. Naturally, the first thing I asked for was hummus and pita bread at the first restaurant we went into. The waiter looked at me like I was crazy and said, “That’s a Turkish dish, so you wont find that in Greece.” And sure enough, every restaurant that I went to in Greece didn’t have hummus on the menu. Mind blown.
The drinks were noteworthy. Beer, wine, ouzo shots, ouzo Jell-O shots, and daiquiris were all available for purchase. The “nectar of the gods” (aka daiquiris) was my drink of choice on this day. I recommend the mango and the pomegranate!
The baklava sundae is the most popular dessert item. I was literally drooling when I saw people walking around with them. I didn’t get a chance to try it, but it is on the top of my list for next year!
Now I got three words for you: homemade grape earrings. That’s what my friends and I were proudly wearing to accessorize our homemade togas. We entered into the toga contest thinking we had a pretty good shot. Plus, we heard there was a prize for the winning togas (which we were really hoping was a bottle of ouzo or a bottle of wine). Sadly, we didn’t win because who can say no to babies in togas? I’d vote babies in togas over grape earrings any day.
(Pro tip: If you wear a toga the Sunday of the festival, you get in for free!)
I’m not the best dancer in the world, but my friend Hannah and I jumped out on that dance floor anyway. The Hellenic Dancers led the crowd in the national Greek dance called syrtaki. So there I was: dancing traditional Greek dances in a toga with complete strangers on a Sunday afternoon. There’s something magical about joining hands with a community of people and dancing a historic dance. At first, I felt like I was just running around in a circle, but I eventually caught on to the steps. I watched our circle of people grow so big we couldn’t even fit on the dance floor anymore. The music would speed up and slow down and our feet followed.
Hannah and me dancing in our togas
This moment brought me back to a night while I was studying abroad. Not only was that night the only night I will ever sing karaoke in public, but it was also the night that Greek women literally pulled my classmates and I out of our seats to dance. Again, there I was: dancing with complete strangers to traditional Greek music.
My classmates, local Greeks, and me dancing
The New Orleans Greek Festival is definitely a wonderful outing. It has a lot to do for both parents and kids. It’s located right on the bayou where you can even paddle board or kayak. When all of the excitement started to wind down, my friends and I enjoyed sitting in the grass while watching the sun go down, enjoying each other’s company, listening to the music and sipping on a little “nectar from the gods.”
