Howdy, Folks! And welcome to the great State Fair of Texas!
Okay, so the State Fair doesn’t start for another 3 weeks but that doesn’t mean my taste buds aren’t already a-waterin’ with a hankerin’ for some good ol’ down-home Southern-fried treats. And the best place to enjoy those artery-cloggin’ deep fried goodies is – you guessed it – at the State Fair.
If this transplanted Yankee has learned nothing else in the years I’ve called myself “Texan”, I can claim to fully understand this: Southerners can fry ANYTHING. And I do mean ANYTHING. If it grows, sows, or blows, they can fry it. If it breathes, bleeds, or has teeths, they can fry it. If it hops, drops, or flops, they can fry it.
Oh, and they can pickle anything, too. But that’s a different blog post.
See, Northerners don’t FRY stuff. They BOIL it. They STEW it. They ROAST it. Have you ever heard of New England FRIED dinner? How about a traditional New England Open-Faced FRIED Beef Sandwich? Or better yet, how about New England Lobster FRY? Those sound like someting on the menu at Hardee’s that should come with a large sweet tea and hash browns and pickled fried okra on the side.
But even in the South, we have our own chicken-fried heaven. A beacon of bacon grease shining forth it’s golden light for all to see: the State Fair of Texas. THE place to go for anything fried.
Don’t believe me? Just check out this year’s winner of this year’s Big Tex Choice Awards: for best taste we have FRIED Frito Pie (because Frito’s are apparently not fried enough), and for most creative we have FRIED Beer. Yes, you heard me right: fried BEER.
Just in case you still need further proof, you can check out this post from a couple years ago, listing all the fried delicacies that were available in Big Tex’s backyard.