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State fairs!
So I'm currently at my local state fair getting lunch, so I figured this might be a fun topic. Let's talk about state fairs! What are your favorite memories? Favorite activities to do? Go-to snack foods? Weirdest deep fried food booths you've seen?
For me, I'm looking forward to getting kettle corn and soft serve ice cream later. The kettle corn I love is only sold at fairs, and I haven't had it in years. Otherwise we're just going to walk around and see what's going on, going wherever our feet take us.
Oh man, a small town where I grew up had the strawberry festival. It was a rural/agricultural based town but is one of the world leaders for strawberries in winter time.
Everything there was strawberries. The rides, decorations, foods based on it. Wanted strawberry pizza? They got it. Strawberry sauce dipped sweets? Boom. The cattle live show? Strawberry costumes.
We got school off for it and everything. Really fond memories to look back on.
Ha, this sounds similar to my hometown's Tomato Festival! Apparently years and years ago it was "the tomato capital of the world," so naturally tomato-themed decorations dot the town (where do you even get a molding for a giant concrete tomato?). Do you guys have a "strawberry queen?"
Fond memories indeed :)
Oh yeah! We totally had strawberry king/Queen. Never me tho.
Usually went to the daughters of the biggest plantation in the area, which everyone knew was rigged.
Oh man I grew up in a fruit town too: Peach Days was outlr town event. Same thing as what you described but substitute peach cobbler haha.
There was a small town near where I used to live in the rural(ish) South that had a strawberry festival - it wasn't too much to look at, but good GOD the preserves were so good.
You'd just go and load up on tons of the stuff for next to nothing, everyone wasn't trying to make money, they just wanted to get the cost of the jars covered. Good times.
I'm not much of a crowds person or a 4H person, so I don't go to my state fair often (MN), but the MN state fair has some absolutely ridiculous foods and I am a foodie, so I drag myself there once in a while, at least.
I really want to try the dill pickle cheese curd taco, walleye fritter pops, lutefisk steam bun, and the bacon wrapped waffle dog. This is, of course, in addition to the hundreds of ridiculous foods that already exist there.
https://www.mnstatefair.org/new-this-year/food/
I'm with you. I'm usually okay with crowds but the Minnesota state fair really is something else. I think the often sweltering heat and the air that is at least a few percent aerosolized grease on top of the crowd of a couple hundred thousand can make the fair a bit much to deal with. Like you said though, there isnt anything else quite like it for the ungodly concoctions of food you can get there.
I think feeling sick after hitting the all you can drink milk a bit too hard with a bucket of sweet Martha's after a cacophony of strange foods mixed in with the more traditional corn dogs and cheese curds is something of a Minnesota rite of passage.
There's usually some pretty big name bands you can see at the grandstand along with lots of fun smaller acts at the free stages too if you're in to that.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever been to a state fair. I might have been to the Nevada State fair when I was a kid, but I barely remember it. I've been to a bunch of county fairs, though.
There are fun things that I like to do, but the ones I've been to have generally been so huge that you kind of have to go out of the way to find them. The LA county fair is so big that you'd probably want to come down there just to experience it, and the OC county fair is no slouch either.
I think for a lot of people the appeal is that it basically turns into a temporary mall that sells things that you wouldn't normally be able to get at a mall. There are some products that are still sold largely door-to-door like Tupperware, and for most people county fairs are the best chance to get them. But there's also booths for local interests, like the local unions and schools, and even some for contractors to do home improvements.
A lot of people seem to be drawn there for the food, but to be honest it's nothing worth going for. Most of the food places are either novelty shops where you get weird deep-fried things that are incredibly bad for your health such as fried butter. There are also a lot of barbecue/grill options, and they are pretty good but not great. Most food vendors will focus on a small handful of dishes, so you'll probably find something that appeals to you, but in my experience it wasn't worth going just for the food.
There are a lot of rides and attractions, which can be a good reason to go, but not for LA or OC. Its your standard traveling carnival stuff, which could be fun, but in this case it's competing with Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and a bunch of smaller ones that locals would know about already.
The things I would most recommend going to a county fair would be for the crafts and agricultural displays. I enjoy looking at the results of the baking and crafts competitions. There's also a lot of regular demonstrations for cooking and crafts, and you can find information on local groups if you have something that interests you. I really enjoyed when I talked to some ladies who were into handmaking lace. The agricultural stuff got old to me after repeated viewings, but it's something I would recommend anyone to see once, and they also have people to help answer your gardening questions.
One of the neat things about the LA county fair in particular is that LA has a really major wine competition, and during the fair they do tastings of some of the wines entered into them. They also have an olive oil competition, and the top selection is set out for tastings; you can buy a full bottle of the one you like the best.
We’ve only gone to our state fair (Ohio) once because the tickets+parking are expensive, it’s on the other side of town, and it’s so crazy busy. BUT we went to the county fair this year and had an amazing time, cheap tickets, free parking and close enough we could have biked. I was happy to see some variety in food (multiple countries represented) and during the day it was pretty chill, so great to take our kid to meet the animals. Went back at night for the demolition derby, one of the craziest I’ve ever see . One driver put two other drivers in the ambulance. Wild. We also had a lot of fun checking out the local arts and crafts booth, the Sheriff booth (love seeing police interact with the community), and even the county engineers booth.
As a kid, the county fair was the best part of summer. Every day we walked to the fair, rode the rides, at funnel cakes and steak burgers, and stayed until they kicked us out of the arcade (or we ran out of quarters). I always had friends with RVs on the grounds we would go and recover from the heat from or grab some snacks. One of the best parts of my childhood.
The only thing I really remember from the state fair from decades ago is The Giant Slide, tilt -a-whirl, elephant ears, and the unrelenting hornets. Ronald Reagan sans security detail shook my 9 year old hand one year, which is crazy to think about today. Imagine Obama at at a state fair totally on his own, it just wouldn't be allowed now.
Still feel like I had a good time every summer, though
Ho boy, I really hope "unrelenting hornets" is the name of a fun carnival ride.
You should go to the next one! Even if it's nothing like your childhood, it should still be fun.
I have fond memories of the county fair when I was a kid. The local rock hounds would sell collections of colorful polished rocks in small bags for a quarter. The rides were fun. It was a family event.
I have been to the state fair, but it gets so so hot. I do like to see the crafts and the prize winning animals.
As a kid, the State Fair was a way to go near what I considered a Big City at the time without having to travel multiple hours from home (I grew up in a very rural area). There were all sorts of awesome displays, rides, and events.
As I got older, I found I still enjoyed a lot of things, but I was going more for the events and displays that could only be seen at the State Fair. Plus sometimes State Fair food just... hits differently.
Although there is one thing I always found hysterical: I'm talking about NY's State Fair. The other Big Cities in New York are several hours away, so I often wondered if people would make the 3+ hour drive to the middle of the state for the fair.
It being in Syracuse probably helps make it more accessible to upstate? I doubt many people from NYC would go, though.
Honestly never been to my state fair (California) mainly because my local county fair was much easier to get to haha. That being said, the county fair was always fun to go to. I remember going to it as a really young kid with my parents and having fun on the rides. I mainly remember going to it with my friends in highschool just before we all went our separate ways for uni, fun times. The rides were never groundbreaking nor was the food any good but it was always a nice way to chill with friends for the day.