I expected to find a farmer’s market with booths showing different Italian dishes, desserts, pastas, sauces, drinks, merchandise and the like at the Italian Festival in Lititz, PA on September 16th. While that was definitely part of the festival, there was so much more. I found it somewhat funny that they had pamphlets with a map of the entire layout of the festival, which my friends and I mostly used to guide us to the food trucks. Along the way there was a Fiat car show, a live cooking presentation, an entire section for adult beverages, and, of course, booths with all sorts of Italian cooking items and merchandise. This was a spontaneous trip with two of my friends because one of them is extremely Italian and the other wanted Italian food like me. I am not Italian myself in the slightest, but I absolutely love Italian food. Our first stop was the food trucks, as that is the main reason we attended; I got a lasagna, chicken alfredo, and mozzarella sticks. Don’t worry, I saved the chicken alfredo and brought it home for a second meal, but I couldn’t pass up so much delicious Italian food. We ate our meals while watching the cooking presentation, which was about cooking peppers a certain way to be served on bread, pasta, or by themselves. They gave us a sample afterward and it was amazing, probably one of the best things I ate all day. My Italian friend was craving a cannoli and there was a stand nearby that was making cannolis fresh; the people were piping the cream into the cannoli right in front of us. I am not a huge fan of cannolis myself, but they looked good. The last thing we did was walk around a bit and enjoy looking at all the old-timey Fiats in the car show. Every car looked so different, I didn’t realize they were all Fiats at first. There were yellow, red, brown, and white cars; some looked like the classic Fiat while others looked like old-timey race cars. I am really glad that my friend found out about this festival and invited me because I had such a fun time, andI never would have known it was going on otherwise. Exploring Lancaster County has been a goal for me in my last year of school here and this festival was a great addition to my list!
Photos courtesy of Madeleine Yeingst.
Madeleine Yeingst is a Contributing Writer. Her email is myeingst@fandm.edu.