State Fair - Food

I went to the State Fair of Texas this year. Twice actually. Originally I was just going to go on Columbus Day since I had the day off from work and I thought it would be relatively non-crowded. And it wasn't since it was a cool and drearily-overcast day. However, I found that I just didn't have enough time to see everything that I wanted to see and eat everything that I wanted to eat. And so many photo ops! So I went back on the last day of the Fair the following Sunday. And spent about 9 hours (!) there.

I have so many photos that I thought it might be a good idea to break them into categories. For the first category I have chosen "Food".


One of the biggest draws to the Fair is the wide variety of exotic foodstuffs. Due to the hectic schedule that I maintained while there I didn't get to try as many things as I had planned, but I had enough.

I didn't try any of the alligator stuff. I've had alligator before, and it was OK although a bit chewy for my tastes.

Chicken fried bacon was new last year, and it won the 2008 "Best Taste" prize in the competition that is held before the Fair every year. Last year I thought it sounded awful, but the more I thought about it this year the more I thought it might actually be good. I had decided to try some on the second day that I went, but I ran out of time! You can literally spend all day in line for foodstuffs if you want to try lots of things. Maybe next year...

You can also see a new item on the menu board in this photo - fried pork chips. They were very thin pieces of pork battered & fried. I don't think they sounded all that great.

The corny dog is the granddaddy of Fair foods. It's more commonly known as the "corn dog".
The Fletcher people claim to have invented the corny dog right here at the State Fair of Texas, although there is some dispute over this assertion.

There's no comparison between freshly-made corn dogs and frozen ones.

This is my day 2 dog. Mustard seems to be the preferred condiment in Texas. I got laughed at as a kid for putting ketchup on a corny dog. I actually think ketchup tastes pretty good on them too though.

See it glistening in the sun.

This was my day 1 dog. This one was actually a bit better because there was no line, therefore it hadn't sat around long after coming out of the fryer. It was piping hot perfection. Look at that golden brown color!

I didn't get any cotton candy - I just liked the way this stand looked. I also like that the girl buying CC is wearing a hooded jacket & gloves (!), meanwhile the kid in the background is wearing a short-sleeved shirt (as was I). I mean, it was cool, but it wasn't cold.

Here's a guy slicing "Tornado Taters". They're very thinly sliced and then fried (of course).

I posted this photo the other day for comedic effect. This was the fried butter stand. Fried butter got all the attention as the craziest new food item this year. I didn't try it. The lines were absolutely mammoth. From what I understand it tasted like a really buttery biscuit.

This is the winner of the 2009 Best Taste award - Fried Peaches & Cream. I thought the lines were long for this on day 1, but I had to wait in line for close to an hour on Sunday night. The stuff in the cup was a creamy vanilla icing. It was pretty good, the fried coating went well with the peaches. I was really impressed with the presentation considering how many of these they were churning out.