Quick - think of the scariest or grossest thing that you would never consider eating under any circumstances.
Now, what if it were deep fried or dipped in chocolate and served on a stick. Would you now consider eating what you previously considered to be totally uneatable?1
And what if we called it something like "Road Kill" (pictured above....)
Well, yes, of course you would consider eating it, otherwise the food booths at state fairs across the nation would be totally deserted! And, thanks to a slideshow at Travel and Leisure, we now have a list of the state fairs you can travel to just so you can expand your culinary horizons far beyond where you've ever considered expanding them before!
So don't think of the table below as a list of strange foods that you might have trouble digesting. It's really a digest of your future travel itinerary, with the descriptions of the foods excerpted from the Travel and Leisure slideshow (follow the links to pictures and the full write up!...)
| Travel and Leisure Strangest Fair Foods | ||
|---|---|---|
| State | State Fair "Delicacy" | Comment |
| Arizona | Deep-Fried Scorpion | Don’t worry, it’s dead: battered, fried, and served plain or dipped in chocolate. Fried scorpions have southwesterners getting their ultimate revenge on the desert menace with an adaptation of a Chinese delicacy. |
| Arizona | Sauteed Mealworms | Billed as low in fat and high in protein—really—mealworms are cooked in olive oil, sautéed in garlic, and smothered in enough barbecue sauce to make you forget, sort of, that these are worms you’re eating. |
| Florida | Snap, Krackle & Fluff on a Stick | The Florida State Fair’s filling-buster features marshmallows skewered on either side of a Rice Krispie Treat. The whole thing is then dipped in batter, deep-fried, and topped with sweetened, condensed milk, powdered sugar, chocolate, and caramel. |
| Illinois | Alligator on a Stick | This favorite at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield is deep-fried and skewered, teriyaki style. |
| Indiana | Pork Parfait | Like a Thanksgiving leftover mashup, the pork parfait layers potatoes, barbecue sauce, and pulled pork in an ice cream sundae glass for a savory lunch on-the-go. |
| Iowa | Salad on a Stick | It's a "healthy" option. There was no picture, so we're not sure how they get it to stay on the stick… |
| Kansas | Krispy Kreme Burger | An all-beef patty, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo sandwiched between two glazed doughnuts. |
| Massachussetts | Fried Jellybeans | Adapted from a version that debuted at the Texas State Fair, the “Big E”—New England’s largest fair, held in West Springfield, MA—rolls jellybeans in funnel cake batter, fries them until nicely browned, and tops with powdered sugar. Contents are soft, gooey, and tongue-scorchingly hot. |
| Minnesota | Spam Curds | At the Spam Burger booth, cubes of cheese-flavored Spam are battered, deep-fried, and smothered in ranch dressing. |
| Minnesota | Deep-Fried Pig Ears | This year, Torgerson is frying up pigs’ ears, cut to look like curly fries, with a chipotle glaze. |
| North Carolina | Emu Tacos and Ostrich Quesadillas | NC State Fair vendor Raintree Farms serves up emu tacos and ostrich quesadillas from one of the most eye-catching booths on the scene (you can’t miss the 15-foot inflatable ostrich head). |
| Oregon | "Road Kill" | At the Oregon State Fair in Salem, the Road Kill—a consistent best-seller—represents fried dough at its most abstract: deep-fried and flattened into the shape of a dead possum or rat and dressed with a variety of berry sauces and syrups to resemble oozing blood and guts. |
| Texas | Fried Butter | It sounds worse than it is: a “healthy” pat of butter battered and flash fried to produce a warm biscuit with a buttery center. |
| Wisconsin | Spaghetti and Meatballs on a Stick | The secret to making portable the Italian American classic is in the preparation: strands of cooked spaghetti are added to the meatball mix, which, when formed, is garlic-battered, deep-fried, and dipped in marinara sauce. |
Bon appetit!
1 Yes, English major, what we wrote would have been "correct" by your standards if we had used the word "inedible" in place of "uneatable", which quite possibly might not even be a real word. Or is it?. And while we're on the topic, take a chill pill, chillax and stop catastrophizing your hater campaign to defriend words you don't think should be in the dictionary and start looking for an exit strategy, less you become a fussbudget and total buzzkill. You can't be a cool hunter like us if you overthink how words we offer as freemiums might someday be automagically part of a social media dictionary attack on your cheeseball netbook. Best for you to avoid tweetups and go hikikomori.