We’ve all handled the pandemic with such delicate grace and aplomb. We’ve all listened to the advice of medical professionals, people who have spent years studying viruses and public health, instead of arguing with each about our rights and supporting our arguments with comments we’re pretty sure we saw on Facebook that one time.
As a member of the media, I can say my industry would never engage in sensationalism to try to scare people or seek out the angriest person on either side of an issue.
Surely, none of us would ever do any of those things.
But we’ve earned a break from COVID, haven’t we?! That brings us to the State Fair of Texas. Last year’s was cancelled, forced to transition to a drive-thru event.
This year, though, the State Fair of Texas is back. It is back because we are Americans, and filling ourselves with a variety of foods deep fried to a golden brown is our right.
Big Tex has had a busy week. Loyal Scaiaholics will recall he was cheering on kids at the Back to School Round-Up. Then a few days later, he had to start judging the Big Tex Choice Awards.
The finalists were named this week. Five items will compete in the “Savory” division; five will compete in “Sweet.” One entry in each division will be declared “best tasting,” and one item overall will be deemed “most creative.”
Last year’s Big Tex Choice Awards were cancelled. Needless to say, the vendors had a year’s worth of new ideas to try out, and reporters all showed up at Fair Park this week to try the finalists.
One of the State Fair of Texas’ executives welcomed us one morning, saying she hoped we had all brought our appetite. In the interest of journalism, I had.
And so many cultures have deep fried that tradition to a golden brown.
The State Fair of Texas always provides a detailed fact sheet to ensure thorough reporting:
— This year, four of the ten finalists used the term, “fried,” in their entry.
— The title of “Most Creative” has gone to a sweet entry eight times and a savory entry four times. A drink has been named Most Creative four times.
— Deep Fried Seafood Gumbo Balls advanced to the finals this year, the first time seafood has been named a finalist since 2017.
— Chicken, paradoxically, has advanced to the finals every year since 2014, but a chicken-based dish has only won twice.
And yea, I started wandering around the Briscoe Carpenter Livestock Center to try this year’s finalists.
Ruth Hauntz and her family designed both Crispy Crazy Corn and Brisket Brittle. Hauntz has been in the game for years.
More on Miss Fernie later in the blog. First, let’s get to the bottom of this Brisket Brittle. We’ve all been dealing with cabin fever because of COVID, but Hauntz’ kids says that gave them an extra year for R&D.
If you search hard enough, you can always find a positive. For instance, Hauntz’ family also had extra time to design the Brittle Boot.
A common theme among Big Tex Choice competitors is “walkability.” In fact, Hauntz had succeeded with walkability in the last competition.
But it’s not as though the other finalists just threw up their hands and declared, “We’ll never compete with a Brittle Boot.” In addition to our right to fry foods to a golden brown, we are also a nation of innovators.
For the Texas Pumpkin Poke Cake, Michelle Edwards forged her own mold.
This is billed as a “Texas-shaped, decadent pumpkin cake with a finger-licking, gooey vanilla glaze, silky caramel, topped with fluffy whipped cream and lightly sprinkled with secret sauce.” John Culberson would have a fit over all those adjectives.
Allow me to simplify: This is a cake that tastes like autumn, like those first days when it gets cool at night, not so cold you want a jacket but maybe cold enough that you bring one with you just in case.
That may not have been simpler.
Not to be outdone, James Barrera had an armadillo branding iron made.
The idea for the Armadillo came, like many great ideas, while he was Las Vegas.
He presents a strong point of cookie butter being delicious. The Armadillo is, essentially, ice cream and cookie butter held together in ice cream sandwich form with two armadillo-shaped cookies that have been deep fried to a golden brown. Then the whole dish is “dusted with buttery sugar.” Buttery sugar.
The cookies are shaped like armadillos. Then he brands it with the armadillo to drive the point home.
But ideas don’t always strike in the form of cake molds or branding irons. Sometimes the best ideas come to us when we’re sitting in traffic.
Clint Probst explains the idea came to him on a road trip. I-35 in Austin is the most congested highway in Texas, so sitting in traffic gave him time for some thinkin’.
There’s no off position on the genius switch. Lucky Duck Dumplin’ formulator Nick Bert explains he is always planning for next year’s fair. He understands walkability, but fair food must also be produced quickly.
With speed in mind, his dumplin’s are deep fried to a golden brown. They’re also filled with duck bacon. I didn’t realize how empty my life had been until I tried duck bacon. I look forward to making bacon out of other animals.
You’ll never believe this, but Deep Fried Halloween is finalist in the Sweet category, not savory.
“But how will we ever support so much Halloween candy on top of a pretzel?!” I imagine a member of the Rousso family crying out.
“What if, and hear me out here,” Isaac Rousso calmly responds. “What if we added structural integrity by deep frying the preztel?”
Obviously an Oreo Cookie on top. It’ll be years before they figure out how to shove more candy on a pretzel.
Because a reporter asks, I checked to see if they had just showed up at the store one day and bought whatever bags of candy they had in stock. Instead, Rousso says their R&D department had been working to figure out which candies work better with marshmallow whipped cream and which work better with buttercream icing.
Candy corn glaze. It’ll be years before they come up with another use for candy corn. Rousso says the candies were used because the different tastes need to complement each other.
Consider Fernie’s Funnel Cakes. Fernie’s daughter, Christi Erpillo, has the same message that long-term success doesn’t come from deep frying the most outrageous thing [like a Thanksgiving dinner] to a golden brown. People might buy that once. Success comes from giving people something delicious they want to order again and again.
Erpillo says this year’s entry is an homage to her mom, Fernie. She’d been a stalwart at the fair, but she passed away earlier this year. Hear Erpillo talk about how her mom lit up when the Big Tex Choice Awards came up in conversation:
And that’s how Fernie’s Fried Toffee Coffee Crunch Cake came to be. Erpillo preaches walkability, too, saying funnel cakes must be eaten straight out of the fryer, but this is more portable.
You can see a complete list of the Big Tex Choice Award finalists here. They’ll announce the winners for each category at the end of the month, but because of the pandemic, it’s not open the public this year, so you’ll have to take my word for it: All ten are delicious. And I’m sure Keto-friendly or zero point foods or “flexitarian” friendly.
