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Fair cuisine feeds local folks’ guilty pleasures

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Jim Noelker /Dayton Daily News Sara Taylor, from Huber Heights, loves the roasted corn at the Montgomery County Fair.

By Jim DeBrosse, Staff Writer Updated 9:39 AM Thursday, September 3, 2009

DAYTON — Sara Taylor of Huber Heights was holding up two ears of roasted corn dripping in butter (the extra one for her mother) while easing her way over to the funnel cake stand at the Montgomery County Fair. Later, she planned to round out the day’s lunch with a giant fried turkey breast, her county fair fave.

Do any of these items happen to contain calories?

“Absolutely not,” Taylor quipped on the fair’s opening day, Tuesday, Sept. 2. “I have to keep my girlish figure.”

County fair cuisine is one of those guilty pleasures where calories and cholesterol don’t exist, at least within the confines of the fairgrounds. In other words, what you eat at the fair, stays at the fair.

“When you come here, you don’t think about eating healthy,” said Diana Williamson of Miami Twp., one of six Community Blood Center co-workers who lunched together at the fair Tuesday. They shared a grease-shielding, plastic-covered picnic table.

Williamson’s top fair pick was the $7 Roast Beef Sundae. The popular item starts with tender beef in a bowl, topped by a mound of whipped potatoes, then gravy and peaked by (gasp! a vegetable!) a cherry tomato. For a dollar extra, you can have your choice of cheese or bacon bit toppings.

Co-worker Monique Adams of Trotwood was eating a pork tenderloin sandwich the size of plate.

How many calories? “Pick a number,” she said.

The table members agreed the healthiest fare at the fair were the sweet potato chips — chock full of vitamin A and C — if you can ignore that “they’re covered in brown sugar and fried,” said Bonnie Trimbach of Medway.

Jim Miller, 35, of Dayton was on a health food quest at the fair. “I like the Roast Beef Mashed Potato Sundae. Looks pretty appetizing. And the slab of ribs here that look like half a cow,” he said.

Miller explained those items “are part of the new food pyramid they just put out — you got your meat, your carbs. What else do you need?”

Montgomery County fairgoers can indulge all their deepest, guilty food cravings through Sept. 7.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2437 or jdebrosse@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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Alter fest will have food, it will not be healthy. You know how Catholics are beer and brats and kids. Italian have a food fest and will stuff you full of pasta and cannoli. The Greeks are will have high fat pastries. This article had an unfortunate slant, fact is you could have written about grilled corn (very popular) the fact the beef is low carb and roasted; not fried. How you can walk it all off with plenty of exercise and fresh air. I expect the same shabby treatment of the others.

Susan Reynolds
12:52 PM, 9/4/2009

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I really do not have any problem with people going to the fair and enjoying themselves.

RacerX
11:24 AM, 9/4/2009

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Well, if America would practice common sense and start using methanol to fuel cars and electric plants, county fairs could become quite useful. Aside from that, they're nothing more than a fat-fest paying homage to the great god of gluttony.

YeahRight
10:39 AM, 9/4/2009

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RacerX...you seriously need to get a better attitude and a real life. Stop badgering people because they want to have fun and indulge once in a while (maybe some more than others, but that is NOT your concern). Try to be nice...you might actually like it. It takes way too much energy to be hateful, spiteful and evil!

Come On...
9:55 AM, 9/4/2009

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I really do not have any problem with people going to the fair and enjoying themselves. If you want to have fun by eating a ton of calories, that's fine. But really, facts are facts. If anyone finds the facts offensive, there's not much I can do about that.

RacerX
8:48 AM, 9/4/2009

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