Fair Food for All!

Fair Food For All!

Equal Access to Fair Food!

On most occasions, yes, that should be true. However, when it comes to the kind of fair food that you enjoy at the Wisconsin State Fair...it's a totally different story.

I am fascinated with state fairs. This is possibly because I never attended a state or county fair as a child or because I love livestock, people watching and fried foods. Not any fried foods, but the specialty fried foods that you can only consume at state fairs, large street festivals or outdoor music venues. For someone who savors a home cooked meal full of fresh ingredients and blah blah blah...I have a mean (occasional) appetite for processed, unnatural, unidentifiable foods - often fried. Consumption of foods in this category is very limited. I'll pass up the fried chicken, tempura, egg roll or french fry at meal time, but watch out if you take me to the fair. There is an allure to the special event corn dog or funnel cake, even though I know my belly and general well being will pay the price.

My great enthusiasm for the State Fair is rather unfounded. It began with a visit to the Iowa State Fair in 2004, a stop along the way while biking cross country. I vaguely remember wonderful conversations with carnival workers, big political brouhaha in preparation for the upcoming election and my first ever funnel cake. The most life changing? The funnel cake. I grew up looking forward to a weekly jelly-filled donut after every Sunday mass, but that was the extent of my fried, cake-like food desires until that point...most likely because I had never seen anything like a funnel cake before. The texture, the greasiness, the powdered sugar that induces coughing if accidentally inhaled, it opened up a new world for me. Between the unimaginably diverse attendants, the blue ribbon livestock, the food and the political atmosphere...I was hooked on the fair concept.

Being hooked, however, did not mean I became a regular fair attendant. There was the trip to the Oregon State Fair to check out the poultry exhibition, which was canceled thanks to the eminent threat of Avian Flu. I wanted to see my Sebrights and Americaunas on show, and instead I got an empty pavilion. Most recently there was an invitation to the Big E, New England's regional fair. I considered, until I heard the area surrounding Springfield, MA turns into a giant parking lot during the time of the event. The State Fair experience would have to wait until Wisconsin.

Something special happened as August approached in our new home state of Wisconsin, and my internal State Fair radar began to perk up. Radio ads for county fairs throughout Wisconsin passed over the airwaves, and I knew the main even, the State Fair, must be close behind. I asked my usual adventure buddy if she would make the trek to Milwaukee for a day of gawking at animals, people and more people. She signed on for the midweek adventure with the promise of pizza dinner in Milwaukee and the possibility her brother could join us. Excellent.

The big day arrived and I was giddy as we drove east to the large metropolis of Milwaukee. We parked blocks away, where we could do so for free, and walked our way to the main gates. The midway stood behind those large entrance gates, and we found our way through the fun and games to the information booth. With a newly acquired map in hand, and the Food on a Stick guide, we made our way to the main stretch of food vendors and entertainers. I was eager for two things: livestock and food.

The adventuring began with a pass through the Wisconsin Products Pavilion featuring all of the food products made in Wisconsin or from Wisconsin commodities (I use that term generally). The Apple Growers Association sold caramel apples on a stick, cider, apple sauce...you get the picture. Now imagine that for everything grown or made in this fine state. Our excitement peaked at the Wisconsin Dairy Goat Association display that featured a Dreamfarm pamphlet and jars of Rose Memories cheese - two small rounds of fresh Crotin steeped in a jar of extra virgin olive oil, chili pepper flakes, oregano and other delicious flavors. The three of us almost squealed to see cheese we knew so well on display! We then turned around and instantly spotted the dark brown Pretzilla pretzel bites from Miller Bakery and I knew they would be the first snack of the day. I am a sucker for a soft pretzel, and these were delicious. At first bite, we were all surprised they were not warm (quite cold, in fact), but soon realized that their deep molasses kick and robust pretzel flavor was all we needed. Even the small cup of mustard went unused, as this was the perfect soft pretzel. From here we meandered between the livestock pavilions and food vendors. Below is a brief summary of edible highlights from the day.

Deep Fried Butter

I secretly wish they were empty

Yes friends, I just couldn't resist. I'd been hearing about deep fried butter for a few years and between my love of butter and my love of fried novelty items, I was magnetically attracted. My overly creative imagination was expecting a gourmet twist on deep fried ice cream. Maybe a pat of frozen butter dipped in tempura batter and flash fried...offering me a hot, light and crispy exterior with all the satisfaction of creamy, salty butter on the inside. In reality, six chicken nugget-sized fried blobs in a tradition red and white paperboard tray were handed to me over the counter, along with the suggestion to grab plenty of napkins. At the first bite, hot and very liquid butter squired out the sides of the fried-until-chewy batter. Imagine a pat of butter seasoned with old black pepper, tucked inside a stale egg roll wrapper that is deep fried until chewy and unpalatable. If you can imagine that, then you can understand the deep fried butter experience. Ick. I gave it a second chance, even though I knew this short lived relationship was over.

Deep Fried PB&J Sandwich on a Stick
Other members of our party, those not daring enough (or too smart) to try deep fried butter, instead chose the deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a stick. Of course, this food item gets bonus points for being both fried and on a stick. Imagine, if you will, what it would would happen if you used a large round cookie cutter to remove a circle from the middle of a regular old pb&j sandwich. Then put it on a stick, dip it in batter and deep fry it. It's as simple as that. I was granted a bit of the peanut butter and jelly snack, and I have to say it was surprisingly good. My taste buds were still reeling from the butter incident, but my overall impression was positive.

The Famous Wisconsin Cream Puff

The Cream Puff is indeed famous and the highlight of the Wisconsin State Fair for many. This is obvious when you walk into the Cream Puff Pavilion, and see the near mile-long line that winds within it. This, of course, is highlighted by the smiling people who have just paid for their cardboard tote box full of a baker's dozen of these specialty bakery item. The cream puff has its own page on the State Fair website, a long and illustrious history and now even merits a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The cream puff is, at best, a novelty baked good created to promote Wisconsin agricultural items like butter and cream. The production of cream puffs at the fair this year used 10,000 gallons of Wisconsin heavy cream alone. I say, at best, because the final product ends up tasting like a bland, whipped, dairy-like, food-like substance sandwiched between two pieces of stale, flavorless, puffed cardboard. It may just be that I am not a cream puff kind of girl, but it's more likely that I was turned off of this fine pastry while watching the assembly line of cream puff mass production one is subjected to while standing in line to purchase one of these specialty items. Behind a long window, high-school age 'bakers' hand make these cream puffs right before your eyes. That is if you consider hand made to include machine-like assembly production, air-injection machines that instantly poof crates of heavy cream into whipped cream and puff pastry rolling in by the thousands on bakery racks. If a picture is worth a million words, this You Tube video of the production line is worth a billion. Here's the catch after all the cream puff buzz: it doesn't even taste good, but the people watching is amazing

Some Non-Fried Food Activities
Our bellies needed a break after significant rounds of fried and puffed foods. We enjoyed several typical state fair activities including: air hockey, photo booth and livestock competitions. I love a good livestock show, and I still can't believe that there is a market for special hair dryers and combs and accoutrement to prepare beef cattle for show competitions. But there are, and I love it. Please enjoy this trio of cow photos, but just know they look so much prettier in person (and so much bigger too). I could watch cows, sheep and pigs all day...but eventually we moved on to more food items.

Deep Fried Cheese Curds!
Somewhere at this point in the afternoon I was told I couldn't leave the fair without experiencing deep fried cheese curds. It took a good twenty minutes to actually find a booth featuring this Wisconsin delicacy, but our pace picked up to a jog when we saw the big, painted sign "Fresh, Deep Fried Cheese Curds". I knew it would be love at first bite.

Also known as squeaky cheese, curds form when rennet or acid is added to milk in the cheese making process. The milk proteins clump together into the solid curds, and only the liquid whey protein remains. The curds are then pressed together to form cheese as we know it. However, in these parts, the curds are also enjoyed as a delicacy - within a few hours of becoming curds and fresh enough to still having a squeaky consistency when chomped. When I sunk into my first deep fried cheese curd, it really was love at first site. This is the kind of deep fried I was looking for: salty, lightly battered, gooey and good consistency. We wandered happily, a pile of cheese curds in hand, and I was satisfied. There was nothing more I needed to eat that day.

Since nothing could top the deep fried cheese curds, we headed in the direction of the exit. We passed the poultry pavilion along the way, but the space was used largely for dog-jumping competitions, dog weddings, pet store vendors and baby chick incubator and less than ten poultry. We thought about waiting fifteen minutes to congratulate the next round of canine newlyweds, but we were pretty tuckered out and happy to head home. We meandered through the midway...passing on the deep fried pickles and deep fried Oreos...and found our way out the enormous State Fair gates. I made a mental list of fried fair foods I could hardly wait a whole year to consume (cheese curds and the aforementioned pickles and Oreos) but was grateful to depart with a full tummy and some great memories.