Oooh! A fair. I love a fair! It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the Florida State Fair, but I’m glad to have finally gotten back to it. Stinky animals, ugly people, puke-covered rides, and all the disgusting food you can eat! It exemplifies all that’s great about this state we live in.

So I went with a group of friends on Saturday night, and we walked around the whole park, sampling as many foods as we could, and enjoying the atmosphere. Despite all the sickness at a fair, there’s still something magical about it that really captivates your inner child. And clogs your inner arteries.

Fried pickles was a fine way to start our adventure. Simple and delicious, and not necessarily outlandish.

Next up was fried Oreos. I have made these before, but mine turned out like crap. These were excellent. The cream inside kind of melted away, and we were all covered in powdered sugar afterward, but they were still delightful.

Best part of the fair, in my opinion, were the sweet tea booths set up in every corner of the fairgrounds. These guys sold a 20oz styrofoam cup of iced tea for 75¢! What a great deal (especially considering any other drink at the fair was like 3 bucks minimum). And it was just the right level of sweetness. I bought two during our time there.

And then a crappy crappy corn dog! It sucked. Every time there is a fair I make sure to get a corn dog, because I love the batter commonly used by these small vendors. It is usually a very cornmealy batter, sometimes sweet to contrast with the dog. This one sucked. It was fresh dipped and fried, but it tasted like one of those store-bought microwave corn dogs. If I wanted that, I would have stayed home! Worst fair corn dog ever.

One of the big names this year in fair fare was the fried butter *shudders*. Yeah. I don’t know who came up with this idea (Paula Deen?), but it got a bit of press, so I knew I had to try one going into this thing. Well, I got an order of four of them, cooked fresh. One bite into the large balls caused slimy melted butter to burst out, all over your clothes. The butter seemed to have large quantities of sugar and cinnamon in it to make it taste like… well… anything more than just butter. It was reminiscent of french toast. At the core, stuck to the toothpick, and surrounded by a hallowed out ball of fried batter, was a chunk of unmelted butter, still cold. It made the whole experience much more disgusting.

Worst of all, I had gotten mine after someone else had ordered theirs, so every interested person in the group had already tried one, leaving me with all four to deal with. I was able to pawn one off, but the rest were mine. And any more than one of these would leave anyone feeling ill. This was a turning point for my fair food consumption.

Directly following the sickening butter balls was the infamous Krispy Kreme donut burger. This featured a beef burger patty, american cheese and bacon, stuck on two glazed Krispy Kreme donuts rather than a bun. Also available were lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onions for toppings. I went ahead and got them all.

So how was it? Well, eating it after being disgusted by the fried butter was not a great decision. I guess I can see the appeal, but really it was exactly the way you’d imagine it tasting – like a burger stuck on donuts. It would have been better without the toppings (though the pickles added something positive to the experience). It was basically just a ball of grease. Had I been in a better state, I may have enjoyed it more, but the only emotion I really felt here was regret.

As a side note, they are usually served with only one donut, cut in half, which is then grilled. This was just squished between to full donuts. A bit too sweet. But they get bonus points for serving it in a Krispy Kreme paper hat.

Standard fare standard fair lemonade. Nice and sweet, freshly squozen, with half a lemon chucked in there for good measure.

And the last bit of food at the end of the night was the red velvet funnel cake. Somebody else ordered this, because at this point I was sick enough. But I went ahead and gave it a try. It’s like a regular funnel cake, but using red velvet cake batter rather than their regular frying batter, and then covered with icing. I really don’t think there was much of a difference between this and a regular funnel cake as far as the cake itself is concerned, except maybe this was a bit more dense. The icing was a nice touch, though. It seems to me that these particular vendors were just looking for a way to cash in on the red velvet scare going on in America right now.

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And that was it! Disappointing, I think. I should have eaten much more, but I had already had a big lunch that day, and I was reeling from those last sickeningly sweet items. But I really did want to get an Italian sausage, one of my fair favorites, and also to try the mashed potatoes and gravy on a stick and the Eggo waffle chicken sandwich. Ah well. There’s always next year.

At least I got to see THE ORIGINAL BATMOBILE:

Aw hell yeah.