The first Eierbal Festival in Groningen was held this weekend, and it appears to have been a victim of its own success: the event ran out of its namesake snack.
Translation by Traci White
The event, which was held at EM2 in Groningen on Sunday, proved so popular that it ran out of the Groningen version of the Scotch Egg – a hard-boiled egg covered in ragout and deep fried – a few hours after the doors opened at noon. By 4 p.m., ticket sales online and at the door were stopped due to the snack shortage: the festival continued until 10 p.m.
Saskia Jonker, who organised the event and runs the Groningen culinary guide De Smaak van Stad, told RTV Noord that they had estimated being able to provide two eierbals for each 12.50 euro ticket sold, “but it turns out that people wanted more eierbals than we anticipated.” Some guests took to social media to call for at least a partial refund because of the lack of the festival’s namesake snack relatively early in the day.
In a comment on the event’s Facebook page, Jonker wrote that an eierbal starts going bad within a day or two and cannot be frozen, which made it difficult to prepare more of them in advance. Jonker also wrote that the participating stands worked hard to make more of the savoury snack on site to feed the festival goers.
The Groninger Internet Courant reports that people travelled from far and wide to attend the festival and try out different varieties of the Groningen delicacy, including a version with chorizo.
