T.I.TDMF. Part Two: Food

Ah, fair food. No other culinary subcategory can claim to be so populated by items both wholly disgusting and impossible to stop eating. The food I eat at the fair would likely cause me to die of something like shame, were I to consume it in my daily life. Shame, and the inevitable heart attack. But mostly shame.

Tasty, Australian shame.

During the Del Mar fair, San Diego becomes the world capital of both fried foods and foods that have been inappropriately shoved onto sticks. In fact, it’s widely believed that the earthquakes experienced by San Diegans are not in fact due to tectonic shifts, but to Mother Nature’s residual displeasure at the general culinary goings-on at the fair. Seriously, most anything you could want (and many, many things you would never want) batter-dipped and tossed into oil and/or shoved onto a stick can be located there. See for yourself: http://www.sdfair.com/fair/pdf/10food_type_map.pdf.

“Eh,” you might shrug. “Most of that’s old news. I already saw it all on that one show on Travel Channel about deep-frying.” If so, you are cynical. Also, I have you beat. Allow me to call your attention to a glorious nugget of information from that menu:

Don’t see it? No problem. Let me blow that up for you.

You know you’re dealing with a true culinary horror when
chocolate-covered bacon doesn’t even warrant a mention.

DRINK IT IN (OR, YOU KNOW, NOT). DEEP FRIED BUTTER, PEOPLE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? THEY TOOK BUTTER, DIPPED IT IN BATTER, AND THEN FRIED IT.

And lest you think some wayward soul responsible for developing the Del Mar Fair menu decided to insert such a monstrosity as a whim, take a look:

Mmmmm. Fat-fried fat.

Now, there is a chance that they put that up there purely as a promotional stunt, but why would they do that if they weren’t prepared for someone to order it? And I’m certain someone must have, just out of pure curiosity. Hopefully just out of curiosity. I wasn’t one of those people, just because I do have to draw the line at something, and this appeared to be that something.

Honestly, though, I would happily hork down* most anything at the fair, abovementioned atrocity aside, so much so that I ended up having to mentally pit certain food choices against each other, World Cup style, as too much food causes my stomach to lash out via the dreaded food coma.

Strawberry Shortcake à la Mode won the dessert round, natch.

So, am I completely indiscriminate, food-wise, or taken by the fabulousness that is Del Mar Fair food? YOU DECIDE. Except, you know, I’m pretty sure it’s the second one. Though if you feel the need to head out and see for yourselves, I happen to STRONGLY encourage that.




*According to Urban Dictionary, this means both “to eat quickly” and “to vomit up”. I most definitely used it with the former definition in mind, though I like how it’s essentially the “shalom” or “aloha” of food--it means hello and goodbye.