I was filling in on the morning shift at the station today, which gave me an opportunity to get off the air in time to sample the finalists for this year’s Big Tex Choice Awards.
I didn’t do it, though. My desire to leave work at 9 am trumped my desire to go to Fair Park.
Besides, I’ve attended the judging before. While it’s a fun event, I can tell you that after a while, all the foods start to taste the same: delicious.
But delicious can also become monotonous. When I was growing up, I would never have believed there existed a place with so much batter-dipped food fried to a crispy, golden brown that I’d grow bored with it.
Then I moved to Texas.
Today, we honor the Deep Fried Cuban Roll and Deep Fried Thanksgiving Dinner as the finest entries in this year’s contest.
Consider, though, what these two dishes mean. Gone are the days when Fried Coke, Fried Beer and Fried Bubblegum packed the midway at Fair Park.
This year’s winners focused less on spectacle and more on dazzling and challenging our collective palate. The Big Tex Choice Awards have reached maturity.
If you review the finalists from the past few years, you’ll notice fewer outrageous entries. Last year’s Fried Bacon Cinnamon Roll might sound borderline, but the bacon was a necessity to ensure the cinnamon roll’s structural integrity. It was included as a load-bearing element first and a shameless attempt to capitalize on America’s current love affair with salted, cured pork second.
Similarly, I can envision the back story for each of this year’s finalists, and none of them involves one of the chefs saying, “We need to do something crazy!”
– For the Cuban sandwich, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to stick it in a fryer instead of on a press. I’m not surprised that happened in Texas.
– “Hey, we’re almost out of chips but we have more dip! And also boiling hot cooking oil!” And the Spinach Dip Bite was born!
– Abel Gonzales, who hit it big with fried jambalaya last year, appears to have recognized that the peanut-butter-that-doesn’t-taste-like-peanut-butter craze must be peaking and decided to experiment with Nutella.
One must look no further than the annual appearance of Elsie and Elmer to see how the State Fair of Texas reminds us of a simpler time, a time when a cow and a bull could enjoy a loving marriage despite living their lives in the media spotlight. Now, too, have the fried foods embraced the simplicity and quality of yesteryear.
Ironically, though, Nutella has sparked an arms race that has led the peanut butter aisle at the grocery store to become more complicated than ever:
