Sun 9/4 @ 10AM-9PM
The Cleveland area is packed with an increasingly diverse group of ethnicities, as the expanding number of gardens at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens shows. And while we celebrate newcomers, we should also take the time to honor the earlier waves of immigrants who settled here.
Among those are the Hungarians, and their culture will be on full display at Ohio’s largest Hungarian Festival at German Central Park on Sunday September 4, presented by the American Hungarian Friends of Scouting
The 66th annual festival opens with a flag-raising ceremony at 10:30am, followed by both Catholic and Protestant church services in Hungarian at 11am. At noon the kitchen opens for what’s always the greatest attraction at any ethnic festival; the traditional homemade food. That includes chicken paprikash with dumplings, stuffed cabbage, grilled pork steak, Hungarian sausage and many, many sweets including tortes, strudel and jam-filled crepes with espresso to wash them down.
Food is also available for takeout, but why would you leave and miss the live entertainment, including music by Clevelander Walt Mahovlich and his band Harmonia, and the Chicago-based band of Alex Udvary, and the Hungarian Scout Folk Ensemble performing in their traditional costumes, along with DJ Laszlo Bohar playing Hungarian hits? You can even take a free Hungarian folk dance lesson. And there’s plenty of other stuff to do including kids’ activities, a live animal show, a soccer mach, a book fair, crafts, folk art and vendors with small items for sale.
Admission is $9, free for kids under 10, and all money raised benefits the Hungarian boy and Girl scouts of northeast Ohio. For more information and a full schedule of activities go to www.csbk.org.