Deep-Fried Fun

Yesterday B and I embarked on another half-day vacation. We headed down to Fun, Oregon, Pop. 10,000 (normally known as the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem).

B says that "Fun" stands for Fried-Unusual-Nourishment. That's pretty apt. The fair is mainly about food--fried food. Sure there's family entertainment, animals, exhibits (more on that stuff maybe in another blog entry). This entry is devoted to fried food.

The most inventive deep-fried treats were deep-fried Twinkies, Snickers bars, Oreo cookies, and Rocky Road bars. They all looked pretty much the same, kinda like corndogs. I was fascinated. I worked up the courage to ask the vendor to identify them for me. She said, "The Twinkies are the ones with the syrup on them," and indeed they did have some sort of red drizzle on them (probably the same syrup used to make sno-cones). What I wish I would have asked was how well these items were selling. I saw people oogling them, but I think they were like me--horribly fascinated. See--we Oregonians do draw the line somewhere!

So maybe the deep-fried Twinkies and their brothers-in-toxicity weren't selling but plenty of other deep-fried things were. And what a wide assortment there was too: Deep-fried onion rings, battered and double-fried french fries, deep-fried zucchini, tempura, donuts, funnel cakes, elephant ears, bloomin' onions, corndogs, and more that I've probably blocked at this point.

I am proud to say that I had a relatively healthy gyro; although less proud to say that I later had an ice cream cone with enough ice cream in it for three people. I ate it all.