Treat Your Local Food Police to the County or State Fair

Recent years have witnessed the rise of elected officials, bureaucrats, health officials, and concerned citizens trying to control our diet. We can refer to these do-gooders as food Nannys or the food police.

They have a difficult, often Sisyphean, task of trying to change our eating habits.

Give them a break. Take them, treat them to the county or state fair. Savor the delights of the artery clogging, cholesterol loaded cuisine. Let them inhale the odiferous aroma of fried, greased, BBQ foods. The fair attitude is all you can eat, all you can drink, no questions asked.

The Orange County Fair, the OC Fair, opens up tomorrow in Costa Mesa. The four basic food groups are fat, grease, salt, and sugar, with a heavy dose of bacon. “Everything is big and bacon’y”

Forget the standard fare of corn dogs, funnel cakes, hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza.

Go straight to the epicurean delights of the Bacon A–Fair Booth, the successor to last year’s Deep Fried Butter Stand. It features the “Cave Man Club,” a 2 lb turkey leg wrapped in a full pound of thick cut bacon. 

Or you can partake the mouth savoring delights of deep-fried beer battered bacon-wrapped hot dogs served with nacho cheese.

Biggy’s Meat Market is offering The Big Rib, a two-pound beef rib on a 17 inch bone.

You can enjoy for dessert fried Oreos, chocolate covered, bacon-wrapped Oreos, or chocolate dipped cheesecake.

The theme of last year’s OC Fair was “Let’s Eat,” and eat they did, all 1,352,973 attendees. Chicken Charley responded with deep fried Kool-Aid, deep fried Klondike Bars, deep fried brownies, and deep fried Girl Scout Cookies. The Burger Joint offered a Belly Buster Burger. Texas Donuts served up a Texas sized Maple/bacon donut.

Not your taste? You could have tried the Monte Cristo Sandwich, a grilled cinnamon French toast sandwich with turkey, ham, and Swiss cheese. Also available was a white chocolate Rice Krispie Bar on a stick.

West Coast not your thing. Let's try New York.  

 

New York City under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg has taken a leading role in attacking the obesity problem by trying to restrict what we consume. The City has many street fairs, but no city or county fair. The New York City Board of Health therefore has no jurisdiction over the New York State Fair, which is held in Syracuse.  Some of its culinary delights last year included the donut burger, which was a ¼ pound burger between a sliced glazed donut to which you could add cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion, getting to 1,500 calories. The fair also featured deep fried Snickers Bars wrapped in bacon.

As an added bonus on hot, humid days, the fairs do not impose a limit on the size of drinks, such as 20oz on sugared sodas.

Eat, drink, and be merry. Savor the moment.