Our picks for the best new foods to try at the ‘Fest
It was portable, nailed it on juicy texture, and beautifully tapped all the right flavor notes.
And it was made of alligator.
Alligator sausage on a stick is one of the new foods you must try at Musikfest — underway through Aug. 14 on Bethlehem’s North and South Sides.
The Lehigh Valley’s largest festival is all about the music, but each year the food competes for our attention. From favorites like Aw Shucks corn to what’s new, more than 30 food vendors are in the lineup this year.
As I do every year, I assembled our Morning Call Taste Test team to try the new foods.
Many of you fondly remember when Morning Call columnist Bill White would eat his way through Musikfest. We appreciate how much our readers loved those columns each year, but I simply cannot compete with White’s prowess as a festival-eating machine.
So once again, I assembled a helpful team to take a more surgical approach.
Joining me this year: Reporter Lindsay Weber; reporter Molly Bilinski; and Bilinski’s husband and Morning Call fan, Chris Raelinski.
We used a scale of Musikfest “stars.”
Four stars indicate must-have perfection and easy-to-eat on the go, while a one-star rating means nah, don’t bother. For flavor, we considered texture (taking the Musikfest heat into consideration), flavor and creativity. We also navigated both sides of the festival this year, as the new foods were split between them. Our team braved the heat, racked up the steps and dug in. Here’s what we found:
NORTH SIDE Fresh toast bites
Vendor: Fresh toast bites
Where to get it: Wells Fargo Festplatz What we had: Two kinds of French toast bites: Traditional with maple syrup and chocolate drizzled with whipped cream. You get these in a paper cup and the bites are about 2-inch squares so it scores some points for portability.
The chocolate drizzle/whipped cream topped variety was the more messy of the