By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Forget fancy celebrity chefs. They’ve got nothing on fair food vendors who have figured out how to deep fry just about any food and put it on a stick for the convenience of mobile fairgoers.
Pure genius.
Sure, there’s more to the Wood County Fair than food. But few can walk through the gates without loading up on their annual favorites for the week.
On the first day of the fair Monday, Nancy Grimm, Bowling Green, couldn’t walk past Mike’s Cheese Shack, where she placed her first order of the week for cheese curds. For those not familiar with fair food, that’s cheese cubes drenched in batter then deep-fried.
“They’re soooo good,” Grimm said. “They are chewy and cheesey.” If eaten when still warm, the cheese stretches several inches.
“I don’t know where else to get them,” Grimm said, so she gets at least a couple orders each fair week. Any guilt with that deep fried cheese? “Oh, no,” she said, walking away with her steaming hot curds.
A few trailers away, Pat Snyder said she considered the cheese curds but decided on a corn dog (on a stick, of course) instead. “I can’t have that much grease in this heat,” she said of the fried cheese. “It’s a treat I don’t get very often,” Snyder said of the corn dog. “It brings back memories” of past fairs.
Like many, Snyder spends much of her week at the fair. So she has to eat fair food in moderation. Her annual fare usually includes a Belgium waffle, Italian sausage and French fries or onion rings. “I try to choose one item a day.”
The competition for hungry fairgoers is fierce. There’s good old farm food, like the butter drenched roasted corn on the cob, pork-a-lean sandwiches and burgers by the Beef Producers. There’s food from south of the border, like tamales and “walking tacos” in a bag – since tacos don’t work well on a stick.
“Taco Dave’s” is the mainstay for several of the county fair fire marshals, who are at the fair all week long. “We have to have Taco Dave’s all week,” said Tom Bentley. The draw is both Dave and his tacos, Bentley said. Fire marshal Randy Tolles also likes to pull up his chair at the Liberty Township food booth, where meals can be topped off with pie.
There are also some dishes along the fairway from the hillbilly south, like alligator bites, frog legs and deer burgers at the Real Southern Fried food trailer.
“Yeah, we got all the good road kill,” Dorothy Boley joked of the menu that is a little different than traditional fair food. “I’m from down south, so it’s a normal dietary thing. Once they try it, they come back. They just go crazy for it.”
Even eating vegetables can be hazardous to your health at the fair since the deep-fried menus include pickles, green tomatoes, green beans, and onion rings as big as your fist. And of course there are French fries – sold by the bucket.
On Monday, Dave Charlton, of Bowling Green, was sitting outside the beef barn, dipping his hand in a bucket of fries.
“My granddaughter couldn’t eat them all, so I’m helping her out,” like any good grandpa would. Normally, Charlton goes for the pork-a-leans or burgers. “These fries are too greasy for me – yet I’m eating them.”
Though not exactly international cuisine, the fair trailers also boast rigatoni, stromboli, eggs rolls, sweet and sour chicken, barbecued ribs, Lake Erie walleye and perch, and peanut butter and jelly with bacon.
Vicki Junge, of Deshler, was trying to make her move on the early risers by offering breakfasts like egg sandwiches, hashbrowns, pancakes and biscuits with gravy.
“We usually sell a lot of breakfasts,” Junge said. “One guy went by this morning and I saw the brake lights. He backed up and said, ‘You’ve got breakfast?’”
To satisfy those with a sweet tooth, there’s far more than classic candy apples and cotton candy – both on sticks. There’s cheesecake on a stick, elephant ears, funnel cakes, apple dumplings, frozen bananas on a stick, and lemonade.
Judy Hansen, of Bowling Green, was eating an elephant ear, drenched in sugar on Monday. “It means the fair to me,” she said. “The messier, the better.”
Her friend, Patty Herber, of Perrysburg, was holding out for something further down the fairway. “I have to get a pork-a-lean and an ear of corn. It’s messy. It’s wonderful.”
Members of 4-H clubs have been making milkshakes at the fair for 50 years, according to Joe Adams, who said he moved an old rootbeer stand to the fairgrounds more than half a century ago. “I had a Guernsey 4-H club and we wanted to make some money,” he said.
Back then all the ice cream was made by hand, and the booth became a quick success, Adams said. And judging from the lines at the milkshake barn windows, the success continues.
For those fairgoers who need a little pick-me-up, there is even a trailer selling espresso, lattes and frappes.
Denise Krupp was trying to stick to her good intentions at the fair. She was getting “my once a year elephant ear,” and Dennis Miller was getting a taco salad. “It’s good for me,” he said.
Yeah, but where’s the stick?
So once you’ve had your fill of fair food, and feel a need to walk off the calories, there is plenty to see at the Wood County Fair. The Babyland barn wins the cute award for a little lamb, baby goat, puppies, kittens, foal, calves, ducklings and chicks hatching under warm incubator lights.
There are barns full of horses, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, chickens and cows as big as small cars. For the more adventurous, there’s a mechanical bull ride.
For the younger crowd, there are carnival rides that spin as kids squeal. There are games where the lucky can win anything from goldfish to giant stuffed gorillas. And there’s the annual catch-a-pig contest, where the winners take home piglets.
There are opportunities for artists and collectors to show off their efforts, with some of the younger exhibitors showing paper plate art and sponge creations. The collections range from Star Wars or Ninja Turtle memorabilia to snow globes, princess paraphernalia and Spongebob items.
There are fancifully arranged flowers, homemade jams and cakes, a quilt show and pie auction.
For those wanting to get the ear of their local politicians, there are plenty of hands to shake and time to talk at the political party booths.
Entertainment at the fair includes a Martina McBride concert, drag racing, a truck pull, combine demolition derby and a “monster truck throwdown.”
All can be watched from the stands, while you chow down on some delicacy on a stick. The fair continues through Aug. 8.
