Scouting out best food at the carnival
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo season is upon us, and for me, that means only one thing: carnival food, glorious carnival food.
That’s sort of from the play “Oliver” … if the street urchins were fed funnel cakes and cotton candy instead of gruel.
Cicero, the ancient Roman orator, was the first to say, and I paraphrase, “You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.” There’s another one. The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
As I prepare for my annual lap around Restaurant Row next week at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s fun-lovin’, gut-bustin carnival, let’s jump in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and review the top 5 landmark carny foods of all time. Our escort will be Dominic Palmieri, the “Midway Gourmet” and boss foodie for Ray Cammack Shows, which runs all the concessions and rides at the carnival.
Kettle corn
“Kettle corn is sweet and salty and has attained wild popularity over the past 10 years or so. Regular popcorn is usually cooked in coconut and yellow oils. Kettle corn has sugar added and uses lighter vegetable oils. Lately, kettle corn has expanded to include cherry, blueberry and caramel apple flavors, plus some spicy varieties,” Palmieri said.
I thought one of the appeals of kettle corn
was it being prepared in small batches. Palmieri corrected me. Kettle corn is cooked in very large kettles, five times bigger than the poppers used in movie theaters and other commercial venues.
Cotton candy
“It was introduced and became instantly popular at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Cotton candy was the No. 1 carnival dessert for almost 100 years. It’s basically just a mixture or sugar and flossine, which is the flavoring and coloring for cotton candy. The sugar is spun in a cotton candy machine at 3,400 revolutions per minute. As it passes over the heating element, the sugar caramelizes and gets soft. When it hits the air and cools, it winds up as cotton candy,” Palmieri said.
Here’s something weird, yet it makes perfect sense. Machine-spun cotton candy was invented by a dentist, William Morrison. Its original name was “Fairy Floss.” I wonder if dentist Morrison also invented the candy apple, the other dentist’s friend on the midway. By the way, Palmieri said candy apples should be eaten directly off the stick, not cut into slices. Don’t be a weenie. Today, the largest maker of cotton candy sold in supermarkets is Tootsie Roll, also a dentist’s good buddy.
The most popular flavors of cotton candy at the carnival are blue raspberry and pink strawberry. Two years ago, Palmieri introduced bacon-flavored cotton candy. Last year, cayenne pepper cotton candy. The only difference between Palmieri and a mad scientist in horror films: an apron.
Corn dogs
“Corn dogs are simply hot dogs on a stick, dipped in cornmeal batter and fried until they’re golden brown and topped with mustard or ketchup. There are all sorts of stories about their origin, but I believe their popularity started about 65 years ago on Muscle Beach in Venice Beach, Calif.,” Palmieri said.
“Like anything else, we’ve kept the original but added a few twists. Now we sell a Big Daddy Corn Dog, which is made with a premium, pecan-smoked sausage. We also have Chicken Corn Dogs and a Cheese Corn Dog, which is made with a block of American cheese.”
Cheese Corn Dogs? No, thank you.
Turkey legs
“That may be our No. 1 seller at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, along with corn dogs. We sell about 18 truckloads of turkey legs here,” Palmieri said.
I asked him, how many turkey legs in a truckload? He declined to answer and added that there would be a knock at my door at 3. a.m. if they told me. He did say that the turkey legs are smoked for several hours on-site before finishing off on a charcoal grill in front of customers.
“Our turkey legs are 1½ pounds, very large, and they’re one of our bigger meat items, next to our 2-pound Big Rib,” Palmieri said.
Funnel cakes
“They’re hugely popular everywhere now, but they started in Pennyslvania Dutch country in the early 1900s. Every fair has a funnel cake booth now. They use a proprietary batter than is lighter than pancake batter, so they fry up faster and crispier than pancakes, maybe three minutes per side,” Palmieri said.
The reason they’re called funnel cakes is because the batter is poured from a pitcher with a funnel spout. They’re cooked in clear, fresh vegetable oil, so they come out crispy without a greasy texture. The most popular topping is powdered sugar, but now people are asking for whipped cream and chocolate frosting and strawberries. In recent years, the carnival began offering doubledecker funnel cakes.
One year, I worked the funnel cake booth for Palmieri. Instead of making the cake in the traditional circle filled with a criss-cross pattern, I drew a portrait of the customer who ordered from me. I was asked to stop because it took too long to make each order. I suffered for my art.
Anything on a stick
They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and carnival food companies needed to create items that customers could eat while walking around. The carnival is not a fancy, leisurely, sitdown restaurant.
“Now you’re talking about decadent desserts, like deep-fried candy bars,” Palmieri said. “The first one was deep-fried Twinkies, which put the genre on the map in 1997. It was an instant hit. Two years later, we did deep fried Snickers bars, and two years after that deep-fried Oreo cookies. One year later, deep-fried cheesecake. Now you can get deep-fried everything, from Pop-Tarts to Coke to beer and butter. Deep-fried butter was an enormous hit for us last year.”
The single most insane, decadent, sugary, dangerously delicious thing at the carnival? Deep-fried pecan pie. I suggest you get that on your way out, so you can sleep in the car on your way home.
Pethouse Pet of the Week
Name: Sugar, as in Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard and the Archie’s song, “Sugar Sugar.” I know, it’s a strange name for a boy dog, but I don’t judge. Birthdate: May 5, 2016 Ethnicity: I’m darn close to being a Maltese, we’ll just say I have a few extra mystery chromosomes. Who doesn’t love a mystery?
Sugar’s rant: For the life of me, I’ve never understood why Sam Houston Race Park draws its biggest crowds of the year for Camel and Ostrich Race nights. Average crowd for camel racing, 14,000. Other nights, maybe half that. Weird.
Anyway, the camels are in town Friday and Saturday, and you might want to get your tickets early online at shrp.com.
There will be the usual horse races, too. Around 8 p.m., four daredevil jockeys will hop on camels and race about 100 yards down the homestretch. Each camel will represent a local midlevel media celebrity. Friday night’s superstars are: Phylis from the 94.5 Buzz morning show, Adam Clanton from SportsTalk 790 radio, Krystina from the 104.1 morning show, and Theresa from 94.5 Buzz radio.
Did I say “midlevel” Clearly there are too many celebrities going by one name only. That honor goes to Bono, Cher, Charo and that bunch. Not a sidekick on a local radio show.
The mega-star power turns up Saturday night with these contestants: Fred Faour from ESPN Radio 97.5, Sean Pendergast from Sports Radio 610, Ted Johnson, also from Sports Radio 610, and Ken from a local daily newspaper.
The first camel across the finish line wins $500 for the celebrity’s favorite charity.