{"id":91225,"date":"2024-08-27T03:00:49","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T07:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=91225"},"modified":"2024-08-27T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T14:30:00","slug":"food-at-your-regional-end-of-summer-fair-exhibition-extravaganza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/08\/27\/food-at-your-regional-end-of-summer-fair-exhibition-extravaganza\/","title":{"rendered":"Food at your regional end-of-summer fair\/exhibition\/extravaganza"},"content":{"rendered":"

For us in the Greater Toronto Area, it’s the Canadian National Exhibition but for a lot of Americans it’s their State Fair. James Lileks<\/a> considers the sad fact that the interesting and exotic food choices at these shindigs is … overrated:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“Fruity Cereal Tenders”, one of the weird food offerings at the 2024 Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.
Photo from blogTO<\/em>, “Here’s all the outrageous food and drinks at the 2024 CNE<\/a>”<\/p><\/div>\n

I do not understand is why people go to the Fair and queue up at the hamburger stand. I often think this as I am in the queue at the hamburger stand.<\/p>\n

After all, there’s so much more to eat. Corn dogs, for example. A low-flavor tube of minced abattoir sweepings, dipped in batter, plunged in oil, and served on a stick with a sharp point on the end. When you get to the last few bites, you either have to shimmy the butt of the corn dog up the skewer, or sword-swallow the thing so the sharp point spears your soft palate. Condiments? Why, yes — a smear of ketchup, or a smear of mustard, or, if you’re one of those people who believe in grabbing life by the lapels and shouting give me all you got<\/em>, you have both.<\/p>\n

Never in my life have I ever thought “I could go for a Corn Dog right about now,” but put me at the Fair and I have to eat one within five minutes of entering the grounds. It’s like the pistol shot that starts a race, and, like a bullet, goes through you just as fast.<\/p>\n

It’s the same with mini-donuts. When I was doing the trivia contest at the newspaper stage, one of the questions was “how many mini-donuts can you eat before you are overcome with self-loathing?” The answer varies, I suppose, according to how much pre-existing self-loathing you bring to the job. Maybe you’re already hating yourself for eating a Sweet Martha’s bucket of cookies, a popular item at the fair. It has a handle so you can amble around as you eat. One of these years I expect it will come with a yoke and a spring-loaded tab that pops them in your you at present intervals, for hands-free consumption. My friends, a bucket of cookies<\/em> is to personal girth management as a cup of quarters at a casino is to financial planning.<\/p>\n

This year’s hot new item<\/strong> is “deep fried ranch dressing”, which seems impossible, like “sugar-dusted humidity on a stick”. How do they do that? Just pour the ranch in the roiling oil and and scoop out a globule?<\/p>\n

“Well, first you shape the dressing into patties, then — ”<\/p>\n

Wait, no, you cannot shape dressing. It defies your attempts to give it form, unless you’ve added a thickening element. (Of course, everything they serve at the Fair is a thickening element, in a sense.) It’s supposed to be delicious, but I wouldn’t eat one without first unbuttoning my shirt and smearing conducting gel on my chest, just to save time. Maybe even draw a dotted line on my sternum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Updated to add the correct URL. Management would like to apologize for this error. The people responsible for it have been sacked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For us in the Greater Toronto Area, it’s the Canadian National Exhibition but for a lot of Americans it’s their State Fair. James Lileks considers the sad fact that the interesting and exotic food choices at these shindigs is … overrated: I do not understand is why people go to the Fair and queue up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,57],"tags":[156,463],"class_list":["post-91225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-humour","tag-fail","tag-parody"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-nJn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91239,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91225\/revisions\/91239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}