Dumpling Festival in St Johann, Tirol, Austria.

Dumpling You’re my Baby, my Love grows Stronger Everyday.

pop quiz: the lyric above is from what song and artist? clue: Cooke-ing with sugar in the 60s.

So the Summer season in the Alps is nearly over, but hanging on until the end of the summer is not so bad. And the dumpling festival is perhaps the best reason to visit St Johann in Tirol in late Summer (around 3rd Saturday in September). Dumplings, beer, lederhosen and dirndl, cows, and oom-pah bands – what’s not to like?

Around 20 different varieties of dumpling are served from a table 300m long. As a result, they reckon on serving up over 26,000 dumplings on the day; that’s a lot of stodge!

For those of us not able to make it to the Dumpling Festival this year, perhaps we can try them at home. If your German is up to the task, there is a free forty page dumpling recipe book. This is available to download at the bottom of their page.

My veggie food blogs also include a couple of dumpling recipes in english, try; Spinach Dumplings and Plum Dumplings.

pop trivia: “Dumpling you’re my baby, my love grows stronger everyday”. From the 1965 posthumous single from Sam Cooke ‘Sugar Dumpling’.