Minnesota... on a stick!
While I was visiting my family in Minneapolis, they suggested a fun experience for me would be to go to the local fair with my cousin and two of her friends.
Now in Britain, and I would think, most of Europe, going to the local fair means visiting a patch of grass no bigger than a supermarket, on which some fairly mediocre entertainment takes place. You may stumble upon a fair accidentally whilst driving through the countryside and decide to while away a few hours, or you may have planned a visit because you have absolutely nothing else to do, but either way, it will probably register fairly low on the excitement scale. Village fairs or fêtes, usually have no more than a few meagre food offerings, a couple of craft stalls and a beer tent. If you manage to find one where you can toss a welly, buy a Victoria sponge, drink some warm cider, watch a gymnastic display, compete in a tug-of-war, and enter your dog into the waggiest tale competition... then you've found yourself a good one and you will most probably have a smashing time.
In towns, however, fairs can sometimes up the ante by having the added "fun" of a fairground. These consist of overpriced stalls where you cant possibly win anything, and fairground rides. These contraptions of death are usually so old and dilapidated that you are lucky if you escape amputation or at the very least, a severe case of whiplash! The inbred attendants are usually too busy ogling the unusually well-developed local 15 years old girls to notice a possible fatality, so it's a hazardous undertaking all in all. Therefore, when the local Minneapolis fair was suggested as an evening out, I expected pretty much the same thing but with American accents. How wrong could I be?
The Minnesota State fair is massive. It is so large, in fact, that a small town has been built within Minneapolis to house it. And forget burger vans and tractor rides, this fair offers big brash America in all its weird and wonderful glory. If you went every day for the two weeks that its on, I'm not sure you would see everything. There is a full scale rodeo with horses and cowboys competing from all over the States; animal barns the size of football stadiums with every breed of cow, pig, chicken and goat you can imagine; there is the "wonder of birth" tent where if you sit still for long enough, a sheep will give birth in front of you; there is a huge music stadium and smaller bands playing on every street corner; fruit and veg barns proudly display the biggest pumpkin and the longest cucumber; there are giant boars with the biggest balls I have ever seen; there is a beauty queen pageant where the top ten contestants have their portraits carved out of butter; and then there is the really weird stuff like the freak show. Bearded ladies and a lobster family to name but a few.
But after ALL that, there is the thing that dominates everything... food! Elaborately decorated caravans and shacks line every single street. Hundreds of them, all serving the most fattening and nutritionally bereft food I have ever seen. Things that are already high in fat, such as snickers bars or pats of butter, are simply deep fried for added flavour. During our evening, I saw outlets for deep fried curd cheese, deep fried pickles, deep fried ice cream, deep fried pizza, deep fried turkey legs, deep fried bacon, deep fried steak and deep fried oreos. But even more bizarre were how many items of food were served on sticks!
In my entire lifetime the only thing I have eaten on a stick is a lollipop. Cheese & pineapple and chipolata sausages don't count because they are on cocktail sticks. These were full size lolly sticks, and at the Minnesota State Fair, everything seems to be served on them: pork chop on a stick, lamb chop on a stick, pizza on a stick, turkey leg on a stick, burger on a stick, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick (I swear to god), doughnuts on a stick, hot dogs on a stick, and finally, the mind blowing, cream-filled pastry puff wrapped in bacon, deep fried and, you guessed it... on a bloody stick. I didn't really understand it to be honest. I do realise the purpose of the stick is to save your fingers getting dirty but looking around at all the people carrying these food laden sticks, they weren't working. No stick in the world can support a giant turkey leg as you ravenously gnaw into it, so food was randomly being catapulted onto the ground as the sticks snapped, others people were jabbing themselves in the back of the throat as they misjudged a bite, and a few were just pulling the food off the stick and ramming it into their mouths. Health and safety was definitely not present when this idea came to fruition.
But as we left the fair later that night, tired, happy and relieved that we had avoided heart attacks from eating our own body weight in saturated fat, we noticed a sad looking food shack, away from the others, boarded up, but with a hand painted sign on the front defiantly saying. "We don't sell anything on a stick!"
Now in Britain, and I would think, most of Europe, going to the local fair means visiting a patch of grass no bigger than a supermarket, on which some fairly mediocre entertainment takes place. You may stumble upon a fair accidentally whilst driving through the countryside and decide to while away a few hours, or you may have planned a visit because you have absolutely nothing else to do, but either way, it will probably register fairly low on the excitement scale. Village fairs or fêtes, usually have no more than a few meagre food offerings, a couple of craft stalls and a beer tent. If you manage to find one where you can toss a welly, buy a Victoria sponge, drink some warm cider, watch a gymnastic display, compete in a tug-of-war, and enter your dog into the waggiest tale competition... then you've found yourself a good one and you will most probably have a smashing time.
In towns, however, fairs can sometimes up the ante by having the added "fun" of a fairground. These consist of overpriced stalls where you cant possibly win anything, and fairground rides. These contraptions of death are usually so old and dilapidated that you are lucky if you escape amputation or at the very least, a severe case of whiplash! The inbred attendants are usually too busy ogling the unusually well-developed local 15 years old girls to notice a possible fatality, so it's a hazardous undertaking all in all. Therefore, when the local Minneapolis fair was suggested as an evening out, I expected pretty much the same thing but with American accents. How wrong could I be?
The Minnesota State fair is massive. It is so large, in fact, that a small town has been built within Minneapolis to house it. And forget burger vans and tractor rides, this fair offers big brash America in all its weird and wonderful glory. If you went every day for the two weeks that its on, I'm not sure you would see everything. There is a full scale rodeo with horses and cowboys competing from all over the States; animal barns the size of football stadiums with every breed of cow, pig, chicken and goat you can imagine; there is the "wonder of birth" tent where if you sit still for long enough, a sheep will give birth in front of you; there is a huge music stadium and smaller bands playing on every street corner; fruit and veg barns proudly display the biggest pumpkin and the longest cucumber; there are giant boars with the biggest balls I have ever seen; there is a beauty queen pageant where the top ten contestants have their portraits carved out of butter; and then there is the really weird stuff like the freak show. Bearded ladies and a lobster family to name but a few.
But after ALL that, there is the thing that dominates everything... food! Elaborately decorated caravans and shacks line every single street. Hundreds of them, all serving the most fattening and nutritionally bereft food I have ever seen. Things that are already high in fat, such as snickers bars or pats of butter, are simply deep fried for added flavour. During our evening, I saw outlets for deep fried curd cheese, deep fried pickles, deep fried ice cream, deep fried pizza, deep fried turkey legs, deep fried bacon, deep fried steak and deep fried oreos. But even more bizarre were how many items of food were served on sticks!
In my entire lifetime the only thing I have eaten on a stick is a lollipop. Cheese & pineapple and chipolata sausages don't count because they are on cocktail sticks. These were full size lolly sticks, and at the Minnesota State Fair, everything seems to be served on them: pork chop on a stick, lamb chop on a stick, pizza on a stick, turkey leg on a stick, burger on a stick, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick (I swear to god), doughnuts on a stick, hot dogs on a stick, and finally, the mind blowing, cream-filled pastry puff wrapped in bacon, deep fried and, you guessed it... on a bloody stick. I didn't really understand it to be honest. I do realise the purpose of the stick is to save your fingers getting dirty but looking around at all the people carrying these food laden sticks, they weren't working. No stick in the world can support a giant turkey leg as you ravenously gnaw into it, so food was randomly being catapulted onto the ground as the sticks snapped, others people were jabbing themselves in the back of the throat as they misjudged a bite, and a few were just pulling the food off the stick and ramming it into their mouths. Health and safety was definitely not present when this idea came to fruition.
But as we left the fair later that night, tired, happy and relieved that we had avoided heart attacks from eating our own body weight in saturated fat, we noticed a sad looking food shack, away from the others, boarded up, but with a hand painted sign on the front defiantly saying. "We don't sell anything on a stick!"
Comments
State Fairs are loads of fun and your right - Everything is on a Stick!