Once a year, a rural town 60 miles north of Las Vegas becomes crisp around its golden-brown edges and soft in the center as the county fair transforms it into a deep-fried Logandale. Empty calories, nutritional detriment and gingham abounded for last weekend's event, all inviting the city- and country-loving public to get their do-si-do's on. The Clark County Fair is quaint, with racing and swimming pigs, carnivals run by Caucasian carnies with the darkest, most sun-molested skin you've ever seen, and mini-ponies, goats and chickens on display. But all of these are distractions, and occasionally obstacles, to the hungry everyman's goal: fried creations. Fried onions, fried bread, fried cake, fried potatoes, fried hot dogs—so much fried stuff you can feel the oil on your skin even before you ingest and then secrete it.
Where to begin? Half starved, I weighed my options. It's dangerous to start with something too decadent, like a funnel cake, because if not properly warmed up, it could send the body into sucrose-fried shock. It's best to start slowly, lubricating the digestive organs, and sending out a warning to the old lower G.I.
But I don't. I jumped right into the vat and went with the fry bread. It's like mixing a funnel cake with a taco, and expecting your stomach to just play along. Fry bread is a Navajo dish, essentially a plateful of fried dough. Here you could have it piled like a Mexican pizza, with beans, meat (origin unspecified), cheese, lettuce, sour cream and salsa. Or just beans and cheese. Or with cinnamon and sugar. Or plain. I chose the bean and cheese variety for $4.50, plus a water for $2. The wait was long—there was no line and it still took 10 minutes—but informative.
"Do you want a Mexican pizza?" an older woman asked her mate, as they studied the dry-erase board menu.
"Seven dollars?" declared the man. "No, it's too expensive."
"It's once a year," the woman chided.
"You buying?"
"Yes."
"OK," the man agreed.
(When your work is not paying for fair food, fair food's expensive.)
Out came the Mexican pizzas and bean-and-cheese fry bread, steaming with heat, adding to the air's 80-degree temperature, mixing with the nearby aromas of apple and peach dumplings, french fries, corn dogs, onion rings, Walla Walla burgers and funnel cakes, all sitting disturbingly close to the petting zoo and pony ride area. An interesting bouquet of smells.
The fry bread was a monstrosity. Huge. Filling the plate and beyond, and it left an oil slick on the fingers. The crust was tough, a challenge to pull apart with a fork, ripping off pieces of cheese-dripping decadence and transferring to mouth. Aside from a gritty, sand-like interference that comes with every fifth bite or so, the meal was decent. But brutal. Lacking the willpower of a Max Jacobson, or other qualified food reviewer, I told myself I'm being restrained by eating the inside and leaving the crust. But the button-popping pull of my skirt told me otherwise as I threw the remnants away. I was the opposite of hungry.
But I was thirsty, and what's a couple hundred more empty calories when there's homemade, dry iced, M&R root beer ($4) to wash away the after-slick? What's the dry ice's role? "It carbonates," said co-creator Mike Richardson, from South Dakota. The carbonation is mild, like you'd expect from a bottle of root beer that's been left in the refrigerator for a day. But the sweet sting of the beverage glugs down the throat and it's hard to stop chugging it. A dainty belch or two later, I was ready for the next course.
It had to be dipping dots. I've seen them, sneered at them, scorned them for years in malls, seeing through the creator's ploy to freeze ice cream into little balls so it takes up more surface space than regular ice cream. But still. Orbit-style ice cream of the future suddenly seems kind of cool, as I watched others eat it, and the little balls rolled from the spoon like mini-marbles, without sticking to anything on their way down. I ordered cookies 'n' cream (small cup, $3). The Oreos weren't mashed into the dot, so they added a crunchy texture interruption. The ice cream was extra cold, sticking to my tongue and the inside of my mouth until melting into the regular non-futuristic ice cream. As the novelty wore off, I wandered over to the Swifty Swine pig races, and watched Christina Hog-ulera battle Sarah Jessica Porker, Britney Spareribs and Jennifer Lopig for their very own Oreos. I mashed the dots just to be obstinate. Then came the food coma. Fatigue. Thirst. A tickle in my throat. It started to rain. On my way out, I bought some kettle corn (large bag $6), thinking the salty sweet summed up the day well. I got in my car just as the downpour started. And thank God, because we all know oil and water just don't mix.