Foodie goes to the fair:
Day 5 of the Foodie trek

[August 06, 2016]  Before I can say goodbye to fair food for another year (or at the very least, until the state fair), I thought it appropriate that I stop for dessert. I’m not a huge dessert person by nature. I enjoy cake and pie on occasion, especially now that I’m an adult and I can buy cake for no other reason than to have it. But overall, I tend to avoid a lot of sweets. But there is a very sweet dessert that I have avoided for the last few years at the fair, and I decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about. It was time to eat a deep-fried candy bar.

At the county fair, there is a stand called Pam’s, and they sell deep-fried candy bars in three varieties. Deep-fried candy is a concept that has baffled me for the last few years. Is it possible to deep-fry candy? Does batter go well with chocolate? Won’t the chocolate just melt away under the heat of the fryer? The answer to all of these questions is apparently yes. A deep-fried candy bar is a candy bar dipped in batter and fried for three minutes. The result looks like a corn dog; for, like all great things, it is served on a stick. It is then coated in powdered sugar. I will admit, I remained a little skeptical as the woman at the counter handed it to me and told me to be careful; it was really hot.

I should specify before going any further that I had my choice of Three Musketeers, Snickers, or a Milky Way for the candy bar in the middle of the batter. I went with the first option. Out of all three, it’s my favorite, and seeing as I do appreciate deep-fried foods, the two could go together and turn out okay.

As I took the first bite, I stopped for a moment and asked myself; where has this been all my life? How could fried dough and chocolate go so well together? How could melted chocolate covered in batter on a stick taste so good?

It’s the mystery and magic of fair food, I suppose.

If there was a downside to the deep-fried candy bar, it was twofold. One, my mouth was incredibly dry when I was finished, and I had no drink left at this point. Two, I’m still not sure it was completely worth how expensive it was. Either way, with such a strange yet delicious treat for my dessert, I felt I had finished my journey through such delicacies, at least until next year. Maybe by that point in time my stomach will have completely recovered.

[Derek Hurley]