I attended the Minnesota State Fair on Saturday August 24th. This was the second visit I had made in my life having also visited four years ago. I always love a good state fair and Minnesota is one of the best in the country in my opinion. There are 322 acres to cover including almost 300 food booths (you know for me it is all about the food and beverage). This year it was slated to set an attendance record given the seasonally mild weather in August. In 2018, over 2 million people visited. It runs for the 12 days before (and including) Labor Day. Through Saturday 8/31, they had already set four daily attendance records.
So where to start? Our group arrived at the turnstiles at 9AM so we were ready to start with a breakfast item. As with my prior visit, that meant mini donuts. These are best right from the fryer which is not hard to find since they are constantly making them. I love a great plain donut (or some would call it old fashioned). Growing up I remember getting fresh ones at Dunkin Donuts. This was the 1970's when DD actually did make all the donuts in house instead of using regional bakeries. These mini donuts reminder me of those treats. Pillowy, soft inside with a slight crunch outside. All that was missing was a great cup of black coffee. They added powdered at the fair which wasn't required for my taste, but when you are at the fair you just need to have powdered sugar on anything fried. Seems to be part of some federal mandate.
After a sweet start, I needed something salty. What caught my eye was a Spam food stand. I was in 5th grade in the mid 1970's and Spam was a staple item in our house. My mother would make what she called "Chopped Ham and Pickle" as a sandwich spread. It was not ham at all but mashed up Spam. I loved it - much to the shock of my brother and sister. It was a great sandwich on what my mother called Puff O Wind bread - or some will know it as Wonder Bread. The kind of bread you could mash together into a ball of dough. Also great for peanut butter and jelly.
The item that I decided to try was the Spam Curds. Now if you have ever been to a state fair (especially in the mid-west), cheese curds are a staple item and a must have. Having not known Spam to come in a "curd" I was intrigued. What I received was a well fried basket of salty and flavorful Spam morsels. Not 100% sure how they achieved the "curd" form. Maybe the Spam was mashed and then put into an extruder? In hindsight I should have investigated more. It certainly helped that these were fresh from the fryer otherwise they would have suffered from being soggy. They had a ranch dressing which I drizzled in the corner of the basket. The ranch really did nothing to enhance the flavor. I would have gone with a horseradish sauce (Horsey sauce at Arby's) which would have helped a little with the fattiness of the Spam. One thing to know about Spam if you have never tried it: Don't read the ingredients or you will never try it.
Next up was more breakfast at the Blue Barn! This was one of the new fair offerings called a Breakfast Potato Skin. It has a meat preparation I had never heard of called chislic. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out what this was. Simple stated, it is deep fried cubed meat - which made perfect sense at a state fair!! Traditionally it is lamb or mutton but I guess to meet the tastes of fair-goers, they used beef at the Blue Barn. I got a cream ale to accompany the skin which was also new to the fair. It was called a Great Minnesota Handshake which was supposed to be akin to a strawberry milkshake. It definitely had the slight sourness you get from strawberries but I got none of the creaminess I have found in previous cream ales. If you have ever had Abita's Purple Haze it was very similar to how this tasted.
Back to the chislic potato skin. This item had lots of potential but had an execution error. There was simply too much potato for it to be called a "skin" and this made it too dry It was more like a split baked potato topped with beef and a very well-made creamy bearnise sauce. Sounds good but there was not enough sauce or beef to complement the dry potato. It did make me want just an order or chislic and bearnise - but sadly that was not on the menu.
Another fair staple is fried pickles. Preferred Pickle didn't disappoint with crispy, salty nuggets ot pickily goodness. I think they use cornmeal for added crunch which was so welcome. And of course some cool ranch dressing for dunking. So well done!! I wouldn't change a thing.
I next tried something I have never had from the Potato Man and Sweety Churro both. Of course you will look at the picture and ask how I've never had a churro. Well, I had never had a sweet potato churro before. I give them some points for trying something different. The biggest issue with these is they had a flavor that I think was caused by the higher sugar content found in sweet potatoes. I call that flavor "Burned". They came with a traditional chocolate sauce but these screamed out for that icing Pillsbury has at the end of the cinnamon roll package. Would have improved them - if only slightly.
Next up was an item I was anxiously awaiting for. This was a new item at the fair this year called the Deep-Fried Dilly Dog. It was perfectly executed item which they kept cleverly simple. A dill pickle was hollowed out, large enough for a bratwurst to be stuffed into the pickle. Then coated in corn dog batter and fried. That's it. Optional mustard or ketchup (the horror!!!) but it needed nothing else. The pickle was salty enough to season the brat and the crispy corn dog batter. Hard to tell from the picture, but this was definitely big enough for 2 or three people to share as a snack.
Next up was the signature item at Turkey to Go. They call it the Juicy Turkey Sandwich and it is well named. Perfectly cooked, moist turkey on a soft roll. The turkey juices "melted" into the roll which only added to the deliciousness. They had additional toppings (at extra cost) and I went to the cranberry and brie. There are a few perfect combinations of foods - and turkey and cranberry is one of them. The brie also added a nice sharpness to the sandwich.
The Jammin's Brisket Grilled Cheese at RC's was crispy sourdough sliced chock full of well smoked brisket and gooey pepper jack cheese. Nothing wrong with any of those ingredients by themselves of together. What brought them all together was the smear of savory and slight sweet onion jam. The brisket and cheese both needed something to cut their richness and it was the perfect job for the jam. Two of my top three items at the fair!!!
Also tried their smoke sausage with grain mustard. It was still juicy and the skin had that snap I love in a good sausage or hot dog.
All the food tastings made we thirsty!! Good thing they have a section of the fair where they have many local flights of beers to try. I always love a good sour beer so not surprisingly my favorites were the Saison, Raspberry Honey Ale and Watermelon Sour. The Peanut Butter Stout was also tasty.
One of the most popular stands at the fair is Sweet Martha's where you can get freshly made chocolate chip cookies. Being honest, the cookies themselves are no better than a supermarket brand of ""slice and bake" cookies. The real draw is the Instagram moments that people want to create since you can get a bucket of 4 dozen cookies. You see so many people with the buckets literally dripping with cookies that you want to find where they sell them. I will also say they are best when fresh from the stand and don't hold up too well afterwards.
That is it for this year's fair. What were my favorites? Number one was the Deep Fried Dilly Dog. It lived up (and exceeded) the hype. I suspect to see this at future state fairs across the country. Next was the Hot Hen. And third (maybe surprisingly) were the Spam curds. They get a mention because of the excellent execution.
TOP TIPS:
- Plan you day. You will not be able to get to everything. All state fairs will have website and/or apps where you can see what is new. The Minnesota State Fair let you make a list of our favorites and it showed you the location. Prioritize and you'll have a much better day.
- Get there early, We arrived at 9AM and were able to get to a majority of the booths before we really noticed the crowds around 12:30PM.
- Bring a water bottle and hydrate frequently. There were places (although not enough) to fill up bottles.
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