It's County Fair Time...Food On A Stick

[barndweller Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close barndweller]

Do you all go to the fair? I grew up in a rural area & have fond memories of the big tents full of vendors & salesmen with free samples. We always visited the animal exhibits with the big new mamma sow & her 18 piglets and the smell of manure in the air. We admired all the 4-H & FFA projects & the giant vegetables and winning jams & jellies. We tossed quarters at the fancy glass bowls in the midway booths & won a few cheep stuffed animals & rode the tilt-a-whirl. Mostly we ate the original junk food. Namely stuff on a stick.

Nowdays the trend is to fry everything & anything. Our California State Fair this year has Fried Coca Cola.

Folks who have tried it say it tastes like funnel cakes.

So what's your favorite fair food? Mine is Chocolate dipped frozen bananas.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Funnel cake!

DH took the kids to a fair in Cape Cod and was stunned to discover that they do not have funnel cake at the fairs up there, they have fried dough. I always thought that would be like zeppole, but it's not, it's sort of like a deep-fried thick pancake thing. Vastly more resistible than funnel cake, which luuuuuurrres you in....

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Our Royal Adelaide Show (yearly agricultural fair) is becoming more health conscious. The freshest, tastiest, most perfect fruit, vegetables, yoghurt and cheeses are available as samples and for sale. I must be getting old because I look forward to the Avocados with sour cream and a touch of chilli sauce, (followed by the deep fried donuts with sugar - an oldie but a goodie) .

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

That is one day I eat and eat. Around the fair I go. My favs are roasted corn on the cob (oh yeah, baby) Fried apples on a skewer, pintos and cornbread, and oh yeah, the funnel cakes!! shaggy

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

We don't have too many Fairs in my area, but we do have lots of Feast's. Sausage and Pepper hero, & Zeppoles are my favorites. I also like Funnel Cake, and roasted corn. Yummy

[Sance Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sance]

I Love Fair Food

I love fair food I start with an Italian Sausage sandwich, a speidie on a stick
curly potatoes topped with cheese washed down with a Birch beer Float. Then while walking around I will have some freshly made kettle corn, homemade chocolate peanut butter fudge and then either a deep fried Twinkie or oreo.
Then go home and find the Pepto Bismo.
Bob

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

I like the roasted corn also.

My brother got very sick from eating fair food a few years ago. He ate a steak hero and ended up with Shigellosis, a very serious reportable disease usually seen in 3rd world countries. It's generally passed on through a fecal-oral route which means the vendor did not wash his hands well!
Now that I've killed everyone's appetite.....

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

We have lots of fairs, the closest being Riverton (where Hitchcock chairs were made) and Goshen. I rarely go and if I do, I keep away from the chow. I'm no stranger to the Riverton General Store, where they make on of the best sandwiches (on a hard roll) around. Now I'm thinking about a fishing trip to the Hogsback reservoir- which puts me on the road by or near the RGS.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

Tony

I rarely go and if I do, I keep away from the chow.

That doesn't sound like fun. Isn't eating all the 'bad for you food' the purpose in going? Well, at least it is for me.

[IreneLF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IreneLF]

Yes, they deep fry oreos, just not in transfat

What have they done to fair food??



INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 17 — The deep-fried Combo Plate may be a little more healthful this year at the Great Indiana State Fair. So say the fair’s leaders, who, taking a step rarely seen in the realm of corn dogs and fried pickles, have banned oils with trans fats from all the fryers that line the grounds here.
The change is only the latest in a string of bans on artificial trans fats. Tied to health problems including heart disease, they have been banished by national restaurant chains, snack brands and New York City, which forbids restaurants to use them in food preparation.

But this is perhaps the most unlikely locale yet: the nation’s classic summer fair, long seen as one final safe haven from the health police.

Along the steamy thoroughfare here, where only sensitive palates can distinguish among the various cuts of potato (curly fries, ribbon fries and the old standby, French), fairgoers seemed pleased with the switch. The food tasted the same, they said happily. And if this meant they could indulge without guilt or have one more helping, so much the better.

“This is a slice of heaven,” said Ryan Howell, 31, as he cradled his Combo Plate, which, for the record, consists of one battered Snickers bar, two battered Oreos and a battered Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup — all deep-fried in oil that is trans-fat free, thank goodness.

“This was an issue we wanted to tackle,” said Cindy Hoye, executive director of the fair, which spent the winter months testing various oils and, despite the fears of some concessionaires about possible changes to taste or costs or tradition, concluded that trans-fat-free oils created what Ms. Hoye called a better product.

National fair officials say Indiana and at least one other fair, the Western Washington, have led the way on a health issue that is only now creating a buzz in the fair industry. During a national convention of fair officials in Las Vegas this November, Indiana representatives are to offer a workshop, “Going Trans-Fat Free,” which, the convention program promises, will answer the question “What is all the craze about?”

Some concessionaires here said trans-fat-free oils seemed to leave “less of a varnish buildup” on their French fry baskets and corn dog equipment. But Chris Coffman, who helps his brother, Sam, operate a stand that sells the fried-dough snack called elephant ears, was none too pleased with the new ways.

The oil they are now using has to be changed more often, Mr. Coffman said (although some other concessionaires said their new oils in fact required less changing). And he worried, briefly, that the ban might also apply to the margarine that the Coffmans use to make cinnamon sugar stick to their doughy confections; it does not, fair officials ruled.

And that, Mr. Coffman said, is the silly part of the whole ban: it will barely skim the surface of fair food’s inherently — and proudly — unhealthful nature, he said.

“It’s craziness,” said Mr. Coffman, 45, who says he eats fair food every day but who appears surprisingly trim. “They’re using this for a marketing ploy. It’s a way to convince people that they can eat more — that somehow all of this is safe now and you can eat all you want — when we all know that’s not true.”

The calorie count? The state fair does not require vendors to provide those numbers, and no one here would venture any guesses. But figures from the Web site Calorie King.com suggest that a Combo Plate, for instance, comes to well over 700 calories. That is more than a third of the entire daily caloric intake recommended by the Department of Agriculture for a 30-year-old woman who is 5-foot-6 and 130 pounds and who exercises less than 30 minutes a day.

Ms. Hoye, the fair’s executive director, pointed out some healthful (if, judging from the customer lines, less popular) offerings of salads and tomato juice here. But she was quick to acknowledge that trans-fat-free oils will not turn standard state fair cuisine into health food.

“When you are having fair food, you are having fun,” she said. “You’re probably still going to use some calories out here. Look, we can’t control what goes in an Oreo, but we can say what goes in our fryers out here.”

Jeremy Orme, who runs Fried Creations, the home of the Combo Plate, introduced a new item at this year’s fair: deep-fried Pepsi. He rolls out his Pepsi-based dough, dips it in a batter made with Pepsi and deep-fries it for 90 seconds. His oil, made of soybeans, is trans-fat free as required, and on the front of his booth he has posted a local newspaper’s account about the fair’s trans-fat ban.

But inside the booth, where the air is dense with oil, workers chuckle about the whole concept. And Mr. Orme himself rarely eats what he cooks here.

“I stay away from fried foods,” he said.

[barndweller Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close barndweller]

Oh my, Ilene. That tops my news story list of the day!!

Most folks don't realize that hydrogenated vegetable oil (think Crisco & Cool Whip) is basically plastic. That's why it clogs up all those blood vessels. We are really better off eating pure lard & real whip cream. At least they are not concocted in a laboratory somewhere.

Reading posters fav fair food is making me crave a nice big stick loaded with a huge sticky pink ball of spun sugar syrup. Cotton Candy....yummmm.

It's not fried so it's healthy, right.

[IreneLF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IreneLF]

Thought you'd really enjoy the story Julie. It was a lead in yesterday's NYTimes, funny enough given your topic recently.

I don't eat this stuff, but I do live with three people who would kill for it.
Give me plain old highly fat laden ice cream anyday, or a fabulous chocolate cake/French pastry. (i really shouldn't go here....never mind. I'm thinking of great meals past with unlimited desserts. Sigh.)

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

When you think about it Country Fair Day happens everyday in New York City. All that wonderful street food.

It is like taking life into your own hands but mystery meat is oh so good. Think about it. Hot dogs are never as good as the ones that come off a cart. Don't even think about how long it's been in that water being basted with exhaust fumes.

My favorite country fair food is candied apples.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

My favorite country fair food is candied apples.

With or without the worm ?