CARNIVAL FOOD: MIDWAY EATS AIM TO THRILL
The pizza looked like a regular cheese pie from afar. But upon further inspection, its bubbly surface was littered with a thicket of mealworms, crickets and inch-long dried scorpions.
Welcome to the fairgrounds at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, populated by both predictable and outrageous carnival foods, including some of the craziest eats in Texas.
While the State Fair of Texas deliberately traffics in zany carnival grub that tries to outdo itself each year (deep-fried clam chowder, fried pineapple “tots” and deep-fried Jell-O were on the menu last year), the rodeo mostly sticks to familiar, filling, mainstream foods. Midway dining usually means turkey legs, funnel cakes, burritos, hot dogs, barbecue sandwiches and loaded baked potatoes. Oh, there’s plenty of food on a stick: pizza, chocolate-dipped frozen cheesecake, foot-long sausage and, of course, the venerable corn dog.
But then there are wonderful oddities every bit as thrilling as the new
carnival ride that aims to scare the pants off fairgoers (or at least threatens to make them lose their lunch). Some of the more unusual fair foods in recent years: chocolate-covered pickles; deep-fried nachos; the pig-on-pig baconwrapped pork belly; deep-fried balls of butter; deep-fried Sriracha nuggets; and the aforementioned stinger of scorpion pizza.
The rodeo is so supportive of its culinary delights that every year it holds a competition among vendors for the best food at the fair. Last year, 74 vendors competed in eight different categories that covered the spectrum of sweets and savories available to rodeo attendees.
The vendors are interested in sales, sure. But they also just want to put a sticky smile on the face of a kid with something as simple as a giant cinnamon roll dripping with icing, or witness the adventurous bluster of an adult tackling a 2-pound beef steak attached to a 17-inch bone (aka the Big Rib) perhaps washed down with Pickleaide (lemonade with pickle juice). In previous years, rodeogoers have chowed through 70,000 pounds of potatoes, 55,000 pounds of barbecue (and nearly 43,000 barbecue sandwiches), 250,000 funnel cakes and 120,000 turkey legs. They spend almost $9 million on concessions spread throughout the fairgrounds.
Sometimes, however, it might just be the simple things in life that constitutes good eating at the rodeo. Cotton candy, anyone?