Anyone thinking they could wait until 1:30 or 2 p.m. to go to Veishea’s International Food Fair was greatly disappointed.

After the parade finished, around 12:30 p.m., the entrance line to the International Food Fair steadily grew until it spilled out of the Great Hall and into the hallway of the Memorial Union.

The Great Hall was so full of students and families, the only way to locate specific food booths was by overhead signs. Swapnil Eaga, sophomore in chemical engineering and chairman of Veishea Council for the International Student Council, estimated 1,700 people attended the food fair, based on the sale of entrance tickets.

Fourteen international student groups served food, including the Arab Student Association, the Nigerian Students Association, the Indian Students Association, the Sudanese Student Association, the Indonesian Student Association, the Ukrainian Club and the Kenyan Students Association.

The Indian Student Association said once the crowd increased around 12:30 p.m., they sold out of Tandoori chicken and mango milkshakes in less than an hour.

“We had people returning five and six times for our mango milkshakes,” Balasubramani Karthikeyan, graduate student in mechanical engineering and president of the Indian Student Association said.

“People were curious to know the ingredients we used to make our food,” Karthikeyan said. The five members of the association who served food at the booth wore the traditional Indian outfit for men comprised of long decorative shirts called “kurtha” and loose pants called “pyjama”.

“We spent about five hours preparing the food,” said Olamide Shadiya, sophomore in chemical engineering and vice president of the Nigerian Student Association. Shadiya said the group started cooking Friday and came to the union at 9:30 a.m. Saturday to get everything ready.

“The food fair was really great,” Shadiya said. “We sold out of our baked chicken and Jolof rice and ending up making more money than we expected.”

The Pakistani Student Association reported more than $500 in sales, up from revenue from last year.

“We sold out of every dish we made,” said Syed Imran Ahmed, postdoctoral associate in agricultural and biosystems engineering and adviser to the group. “We wish we were allowed to make more food,” Ahmed said, referring to the kitchen time restriction of five hours for each student group.

In addition to a wide variety of ethnic foods, many international student groups also had displays showcasing the flags of their home countries and photographs. The Kenyan Student Association had a long table decorated with brightly printed Kenyan cloth and figurines of rhinos and lions carved from ebony wood.

“The Veishea International Food Fair was a big improvement from the International Food Fair this past fall,” said Joseph Abrahams, lecturer in physics.