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Archive for the 'fair' Category

Tomato meets the deep fryer

August 13th, 2009, 6:42 am by davis

Hoosier voters failed to disappoint in one of their last elections — choosing this year’s so-called Indiana State Fair Tomato Signature Foods.

Their top selection tapped two choice foods — tomatoes and the brown food group (that, of course, is anything fried, deep, pan or otherwise).
Voters chose the Deep-Fried Pizza from Urick Concessions as the top signature food at this year’s state fair. They’re being sold in front of the Grand Hall on the fairgrounds.

This year’s fair, which opened last Friday and runs through Aug. 23, pays a salute to that fruit-slash-vegetable known as the tomato, if not tomahto.

The corporate sponsor is Red Gold, an Orestes-based tomato processor in northern Indiana. It contracts with farmers around the state, including here in Jackson County, to keep its line of products, including ketchup, tomato sauces and canned tomatoes, on grocery store shelves.

Other tomato-based foods spotlighted by concessionaires this summer at the fair include the Pizza Cone, Ya Ya’s Tomato Balls, Sun-dried Tomato Pork Burger and the Tomato Bob.

Do you like tomatoes?

I love tomato sauce. I love ketchup. I love pizza sauce and salsa. I even love stewed tomatoes. It’s the one way I can eat zucchini that’s not been turned into bread.

But I have a confession. I don’t like raw tomatoes.

Ann Lentini, whose accent reveals she moved to Seymour from New York, urged me to try them again, telling me that’s what her grandfather once told her. She’s been eating them ever since.

But I have tried them, over and over, at least once each summer.

And much to my Pop’s dismay, I just don’t like them. Pop loved snapping a tomato off the vine and eating it like an apple.

I don’t know. I think it’s the texture. That usually gets a roll of the eyes from true tomato lovers. Lentini gave an understanding nod as we talked after she bought some tomatoes Wednesday at the Seymour farmers market.

“I don’t like peanut butter,” she said. “Although I can eat some on a cracker.”

I’m certainly not in the majority, however, in my disdain for raw tomatoes. According to the USDA, Indiana ranked second in U.S. tomato production in 2007. That year, Hoosier farmers planted tomatoes on 10,000 acres.

That’s not including the thousands of home gardens like Ed Mills’ plot on North Elm Street in Seymour. He was selling tomatoes, watermelons and blackberries produce Wednesday at the market.

“There’s nothing better than a big slice of tomato, green beans and corn,” Mills said.

I’m down with the sweet corn and beans. Just don’t make me eat a raw tomato.

Thanks for reading my blog, and thanks for logging on to TribTown.com.

Alton Brown, Food Network should sample these good eats

July 26th, 2009, 8:01 pm by davis

There’s nothing like July in Jackson County.

There’s first the anticipation of the arrival of cantaloupes, watermelons, sweet corn and the Jackson County Fair.

Then, slowly, the month progresses and you boil or roast that first ear of yellow, white or perhaps mixed ear of corn.

The butter and salt, of course, the gravy on the kernals. There’s nothing like it in the vegetable world, although of course there’s nothing green about it.

Then, you start asking the produce managers and vegetable stand operators the big question of the month — where are your melons from? They’re used to it. Those really in the know realize you’re not just interested in whether the cantaloupes and watermelons are from Indiana. They know you want to  hear the words “Vallonia” or “Brownstown” or “Jackson County” because we all know that while those melons grown in Davies or Knox counties in southwestern Indiana are good, so much better than the hard, almost inedible melons we must tolerate — or ignore — all through the winter and spring, they still don’t compare to the orange and red delights grown in the sandy soils of Jackson County.

No, they don’t. They can’t. Maybe it’s regional pride, but I don’t really think so, and that’s my story and it’s the story I’m sticking with.

And then, of course, there’s the arrival of the Jackson County Fair, a time when all three of the best — the fair, the melons and corn — all collide. You can enjoy the treats, sights and sounds of the fair, all the while knowing you can pick up a melon or two or three on the way home, with produce stands just a few miles out of the way down one road or another.

What’s your favorite treat of July? The corn? Do you favor cantaloupes over watermelons? Do you like the long, striped melons or those that are squat and dark?

Do you like salt or pepper, or maybe both, on your melons? I like mine plain, thanks, although as a kid I always used salt on watermelon because Pop and Grandpa Davis did.

And what about butter on a roasting ear? How do you spread it? With a knife, fork, fingers, bread or some other method unique to your family?

Surely Alton Brown of The Food Network could devote 30 minutes of his “Good Eats” to these questions if not just on the greater qualities of Jackson County melons.

Hope you enjoy the fair and the good eats that Jackson County has to offer.

Thanks for reading my blog, and thanks for logging on to TribTown.com

Miss America Katie Stam to visit fair

April 9th, 2009, 12:14 pm by davis

Our advertising director, Scott Embry, told me this afternoon that Miss America Katie Stam will visit this summer’s Jackson County Fair on July 27.

That word came from Don Cummings with the fair board, Scott said. They were working on preparing this summer’s fair program.

We’ll report more when find out more.

Thanks for reading my blog, and thanks for logging on to TribTown.com.

Fair food

July 31st, 2007, 3:27 pm by davis

Yes, the Jackson County Fair’s over, but what’s your favoite food at the fair?

For years, my have-to-have food at the county fair has been the porkburger from the Jackson County Pork Producers and Cattlemen’s Association. They’re tasty, meaty and filling.

I’ve also been a fan of the lemon shakeups that the Young Farmers sell in the Show Arena, although for some reason they didn’t taste quite the same to me this summer. Maybe the weather wasn’t hot enough.

Last week, though, I expanded my culinary horizons, although some might argue I didn’t move too terribly far, since I mostly stayed within the pork group.

Taking the advice of our 4-H diarist, Luke Schnitker, I tried a breaded tenderloin from the Immanuel Lutheran Church food stand. The breading was light and seasoned just right, and the piece of meat was thick and juicy.

Generally, I prefer breaded tenderloins pounded to the thickness of an anorexic amoeba. Such a pounding provides much more surface area upon which to affix the breading and soak up the fat.

But the thick cutlet of pork at the Immanuel stand was quite good and satisfying.

I also tried out the Nutty Bars at the Psi Iota Beta stand. It was a fairly cool day, at least for the fair, so the nut-covered chocolate coating hung on to the ice cream, which in turn hung onto the stick. No mess and it was tasty.

Hannah, our older daughter, was satisfied again this year as every year with the chicken strips at Immanuel’s stand. How they’re any different from the chicken strips she’s constantly consuming out of our freezer or a fast food joint, I don’t know, but she craves the Immanuel chicken strips at the fair.

Our younger daughter, Sarah, did try something new, however. She hounded us for days to try the cotton candy.

“You won’t like it,” I said. “It’s a pretty yucky.”

But she persisted, and we relented on Thursday night.

What resulted were one taste, one awful look and three words: “Daddy was right.”

Yes, I was right about that, but she still pretty well ignores my advice on what would taste good. Like watermelon. And cantaloupe. And porkburgers. And corn on the cob slathered with butter. And bisquits and gravy (in my family, we thought gravy was a beverage.)

But given my girth, maybe it’s a good thing the girls don’t follow their pop’s taste buds,

Bustling fairgrounds

July 21st, 2007, 8:39 am by davis

Jackson County Fairgrounds was a beehive of activity this morning when the family and I took Hannah’s 4-H cat poster to the Show Arena.

From exhibitors bringing in their projects to vendors setting up their booths to 4-H’ers showing their cats and preening their cattle, folks were scurrying around. The fair’s not started yet — buildings open at 1 p.m. Sunday — but you could already feel the excitement. The nice weather this morning was a great addition.

We had breakfast at the St. Ambrose-Our Lady of Providence food stand. We’ll have to wait until Sunday for a lemon shakeup from the Show Arena and a porkburger from the Jackson County Pork Producers and Cattleman’s Association. They’re among my fair favorites, and I look forwward to them every summer.

Hope to see you at the fair this week. Be sure to stop by The Tribune’s booth and sign up for prizes. We also have gifts for readers renewing subscriptions or starting new ones. Tom Kesterson, Nancy Combs, Chrissey Whitson and Dennia Loudin of the circulation department have things in goods hands, and other associates from other departments will be helping, too.

Thanks for reading Dan’s blog, and thanks for logging onto TribTown.com.

Gotta love the fair

July 20th, 2007, 9:49 pm by davis

We’ll be heading to the Jackson County Fairgrounds later today. Our older daughter needs to deliver some of her projects to the 4-H building for display and judging. That process started Wednesday for her and many other children across the county.

I’ve admitted this in print before, that when I first came to Jackson County, I really didn’t “get” the fair. I found it perplexing that people arranged with vacations around the fair. That people went there every day. That people amassed in the lawn chair zone. That people were just so, well, crazy about the Jackson County Fair.

Not that I’m big on musicals (I’ve always had a problem with seeing thugs dancing in the alleys on New York City’s west side, for example, and the “Sound of Music” just wears me out), but for a while I used to smugly sing “our county fair if the best county fair,” ala Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1966 Braodway musical, “State Fair.” I just didn’t understand the big deal.

But you know what? It didn’t take too many years around here, especially since having children, before I came to really enjoy the fair. And it is a good fair. No, it’s a great fair. You can find great food, like porkburgers; great drinks, like lemon shakeups in the Show Arena; and great treats, like the ice cream at the Farm Bureau Building.

And don’t forget all the people you run into, people who you may not see the rest of the year. It really is like a homecoming for many folks.

Yeah, our county fair really is the best county fair.

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