New England Fair Food

Fall is one of those special seasons that has something for everyone to look forward to. Some look forward to the change of the seasons and the brilliant colors of the leaves. Others look forward to the Fall holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving. And some of us look forward to Fall fair season.

In New England, lots of small towns have big fairs - Berlin, Harwinton, Durham among them - but there are no state fairs. That’s because all six New England states band together to hold a blow out fair called the Big E. At the Big E, each state has its own building where it can showcase its unique products - especially the food and drink!

My really good friend Bea and her crew having been going to the Big E every year for quite some time. When I moved back to New England a few years ago, they invited me to join in on the adventure. I was hesitant at first, because I envisioned a mass of humanity and hundreds of farm animals, neither of which screamed FUN to me. But the ladies convinced me that it was going to be a good time - and that batch of ladies definitely knew how to make pretty much anything a good time.

I approached my first Big E since a grade school field trip with some trepidation; however, as my third Big E approached, I greeted it with enthusiasm. The mass of humanity was fascinating; the things people wore, the attitudes and postures they adopted, and just the randomness of it all was fun to observe. And all the farm animals were confined to the Agricultural Building, so I didn’t have to visit them if I didn’t want to.

It was a very pleasant surprise to learn that the fabulous food and drink wasn’t limited to the State buildings. It was all over the place at the Big E. And I’m not referring to just the classic fair foods like fried dough, kettle corn, and corn dogs. Big E fair food can be pretty outrageous. In fact, one local newspaper makes it an annual tradition to preview all the new fair foods. One year, there were fried martinis. This year, there were fried Pop Tarts! And there was also the Dilly Dilly Dog: a giant dill pickle that was hollowed out to hold a hotdog, that then got battered and deep fried.

Of course, each member of the Big E crew has her favorite fair food. The Maine baked potato for one. The giant turkey leg for another. And, of course, funnel cake for me - with powdered sugar that inevitably gets all over me.

Each Big E trip starts out the same way: Bea drives the back roads to avoid the fair traffic on the highway, but we meet up with it all when we get into town. The proper fair parking lot is pretty comical: you hand one guy ten dollars for parking, he gives you a ticket, you drive 100 feet, and another guy collects the ticket. Pretty much every parking lot along the route through town goes rogue and offers fair parking for something more than ten dollars. Sometimes, it is worth paying the premium and walking a little just to get out of the traffic!

Once we are inside the Big E, we always head straight for the same booth near the Better Living Center for millennium chips. Basically, it is one potato (maybe two, perhaps three) that gets spiraled into super thin curls, then deep fried, then doused in nacho cheese. It’s just a huge bowl of fried cheesy salty crunchy goodness. We all share the millennium chips while sitting at a picnic table near the band shell to plan our day.

Wouldn’t you know that, on this trip, we took a detour on our way to the millennium chips? Almost immediately after we got our bearings, Bea stopped to get an order of deep fried cheese curds. These are a favorite of one of the ladies in the crew, who usually gets them a little later in the day. However, we were in the area of the vendor, and we were hungry, so deep fried cheese curds happened early. I’m not a fan of regular cheese curds, no matter how many I sampled during my short stint in Wisconsin, but the deep fried variant is something completely different. They are warm, fantastic, blobs of gooey goodness. However, I had to pace myself.

After our break for millennium chips, we headed over to the State buildings. We breezed through New Hampshire, which is known for its delightful macaroni and cheese vendor. There might have been some samples of maple cotton candy and kettle corn, but we pretty much kept to ourselves and went with the flow of people through the building. Of course, when we entered Connecticut, we instantly lost one of the crew to the Pez shop. It’s been a few years since Lego has appeared at the Big E, but Pez never disappoints.

We ambled through the State buildings, pausing at Maine for one of the crew to get her famous Maine baked potato, until we reached Rhode Island at the end of the avenue. Since two of the ladies grew up in Rhode Island, we always stop to get a Dell’s frozen lemonade from the Rhode Island building. I was skeptical the first time I tried one, but I’m totally a convert to it, even though it always seems to give me a brain freeze. And not just with the first sip - it happens multiple times, much to the amusement of the crew. Fortunately, I brought a bottle of water with me to help me recover from the brain freeze, and otherwise quell what turned out to be an unusually hot day.

After the State buildings, we usually go to the dollar tent. Not that we ever need anything from the small tent, but it is always is fun to look. Once, I was surprised to find the little winter gloves that I like. After the dollar tent, we head over to the Better Living Center, which we always call The Made for TV building. That can be sheer madness, depending on how busy the fair is that particular day. One of the ladies and I decided that next year we need to make a Bingo game out of our visit to that building. There always certain random things that perennially present: grandfather clocks, pianos, massage chairs, a revolutionary floor cleaner, a miracle food chopper, Polish pottery, the alpaca fur booth. Not to mention the booth with a dozen different types of jerky and the fruit and nut booth with open bins (at a fair??? why???) Sometimes we make a second pass through the building because there is something that catches someone’s eye. Last year I bought magic silicone lids for my mother (long story why I felt like she needed them). And because they had a super deal going on, I bought a second set for Bea. But this year, we emerged from the Better Living Building without any purchases.

By this time, we ready to eat again. I decided to have a proper lunch, and went back to the Connecticut building for a baked potato with barbecue pulled pork. Oddly enough, there are TWO Texas-style barbecue booths outside at the Connecticut building - one on each side. Not that Connecticut is known for barbecue; it’s just good food. In fact, two of the crew accompanied me to the booth to get their lunch as well.

After bringing our super hot potatoes back to the Arts and Crafts Building, we took a few moments to eat and figure out where to head next. We hadn’t yet visited the famous butter sculpture outside the Agricultural Building or the animals inside the Agricultural Building. We also hadn’t visited the International Building, which is a lot like the Better Living Center but with international stuff. Finally, we still had to visit Storrowtown Village, which is commonly known as the colonial craft common but known to us as the home of the Pickle Barrel. Before our potatoes were finished, we had a plan that included visiting all those attractions and getting me my much anticipated funnel cake.

Funnel cake is best described as pancake-like batter poured through a funnel into super hot oil in order to form a glorious cake of fried goodness. I usually wait until near the end of the day to get a funnel cake to share with the crew because I invariably end up getting the powdered sugar all over myself. Part of the fun for the crew is watching me get powdered sugar on my clothes, attempting to clean it off, yet still discovering more and more sugar all the way back to Bea’s house.

The Verdict

I know that it sounds like I ate a lot at the Big E. But it’s a judgement free zone, so I didn’t really mind. However, I did point out to my nutritionist during our meeting the following day that I successfully resisted devouring a half sour pickle in Storrowtown Village and bringing home fudge from the New Hampshire building. Thank goodness for small victories!