food Scotchtoberfest: The ‘Simpsons’-inspired Food Fest You’ve Been Missing By Jen Ring
AMANDA HAGOOD
Framed placards from Scotchtoberfests past, including the disastrous mango-datil pepper sausage.
Gulfport resident Daniel Spoth celebrated his 17th annual Scotchtoberfest Saturday, October 24, pandemic be damned. According to the Eckerd literature professor’s invitation, he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be hosting this year’s Scotchtoberfest
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via Zoom, but it had to be done. “Scotchtoberfest will happen whether you like it or not,” he wrote, tongue firmly planted in cheek. “It has been long before you were born. It will be long after your death. It cares nothing for death, in fact, for death is simply another step on its inevitable march toward oblivion.” Like most great ideas, Spoth’s Scotchtoberfest was inspired by a classic episode of “The Simpsons.” In “Bart’s Girlfriend,” Bart falls for the Reverend’s daughter, but he can’t seem to win her over, so he returns to Sunday school to prove that he can be good. Bart makes it all the way through his first class without incident. Then he sees Groundskeeper Willie playing bagpipes in the park across the street under a green Scotchtoberfest banner. “It turns out to be a ruse to get Bart Simpson to do something punishable,” says Spoth’s wife and Scotchtoberfest co-host Dr. Amanda Hagood, an Animal Studies Instructor at Eckerd College. As Willie explains Scottish traditions
to a small group of people, Bart lifts up Willie’s kilt. Suddenly, Principal Skinner pops up out of nowhere and gives Bart three months’ detention. “Congratulations Simpson. You just fell for our sting and won yourself three-month detention,” says Skinner. “There’s no such thing as Scotchtoberfest.” But there should be, right? The beauty of a nonexistent holiday like Scotchtoberfest is that you can make it yours. There are no rules but your own. “We originally intended it to be (as it appears on “The Simpsons”) a fusion of Scottish and German cuisine and culture,” says Spoth, “so typically there is terrible bagpipe and polka music flooding the area and an array of sides (German cabbage, bier cheese soup, Scotch eggs, vegan haggis, etc.) from both countries.” Spoth’s homemade sausage is the centerpiece of the event, which typically is extended to those in the Spoth family circle. “We tell of Scotchtoberfests where we used store-bought sausage,” says Spoth. “That was only for about three or four years, until I taught myself to make sausage around 2008.” Spoth’s tried many new sausage recipes since, some inspired by internet recipes and others pure invention. Some are successes; others not so much. The good ones stay and the bad ones go, but Dan’s mother Jean designs placards for them all. “Jean started making these beautiful little placards for the different kinds of sausage,” says Hagood. “I have some of them framed.” She looks at the old framed placards and recalls the sausages that didn’t work: “The Hawaiian Portuguese is still around. The Bratwurst is still around – it’s a perennial. The one that hasn’t returned — in fact, it should probably be recalled altogether — is the datil, because when you cook it, it explodes. It is not a safe sausage. Unsafe at any speed.” “We didn’t know it was going to happen,” says Spoth. “We didn’t have cameras prepared. It was the first Scotchtoberfest in St. Pete. Everything about the sausage seemed fine. I was like, ‘Here I am in this tropical location; I’m going to make use of some local ingredients.’ So I got some mangoes, and I got some datil peppers from St.
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