JEFF DUNN
Copy Editor
They say that certain senses are stronger than others when it comes to memory. The fair will always be something I remember with taste.
Fair food will always hold a special place in my heart, and I’m not sure why. It’s not the most appealing thing, especially since it’s mostly overpriced, grease-covered fried food that is certainly not filling.
Calling it “food” is a stretch. A more appropriate term would be “palate attraction,” since eating it is a similar experience to riding a roller coaster or bumper cars.
The Washington State Spring Fair was by no means short on palate attractions when I attended April 18. I picked out my favorites from the myriad of fair food I consumed that day.
When everything’s said and done, the food at the fair won’t satisfy you. You’ll end up spending way too much on way too little.
But, I believe that eating fair food is about the experience. It’s a part of American culture to overindulge to the point where you endanger your digestive tract. Besides, it beats paying for the rides.
SWEET LEMONADE
Lemonade at the fair was by far the most obvious rip-off. It was available in two sizes, “Large” ($4 per cup) and “Jumbo” ($5 per cup). What you get is some Crystal Lite with a generous helping of sugar mixed in. The real appeal of the lemonade stands was that there were so many of them dispersed throughout the grounds, and if you paid an extra dollar on top of the “Jumbo” price, your cup was refillable at every station.
CORN DOG PUPS
Purchased from the “Two-fer” for $3.49 for two bags of approximately 6 pups each. Corn Dog Pups are chicken-nugget sized bites of a corn dog, and they weren’t bad. They taste just like corn dogs, and after I got a cup of ketchup to dip them in, they got my seal of approval. They really would have been improved with some barbecue sauce or campfire sauce.
FUNNEL CAKE
After a long day of waiting in lines for food, all I wanted was a funnel cake. It’s the essential fair food in my mind, and it’s hard to mess it up. I purchased a funnel cake for an outrageous $9 after tax, and it came with powdered sugar, a scoop of strawberries and a dollop of whip cream. This was the fair food I remembered. Sweet dough mixed with honey and fried in a pan – you can’t go wrong. The whole thing was gone in less than two minutes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
