Editor’s note: Staff writer Ty Hardin accompanied Garcia in her brave quest to sample the food at the fair. They have both since undergone surgical procedures to have their stomachs replaced.
The mission: to sample “weird” food. The location: the Kern County Fair. The aim: to see whether or not us hicks in Bakersfield will ever be exposed to food that’s stranger than a “Yummy” corn dog. The afternoon was spent sampling food, spitting out food, and paying entirely too much for, you guessed it, food. I was just hoping I wouldn’t vomit later.
Our first step into the arena of unique cuisines at the fair was a sweet potato pie. The female vendor’s face lit up when we bought it — the sign of a desperate woman stalking her first prey of the afternoon. She hands us a cold, little pie wrapped in plastic that had probably been piled high in a box just fermenting, waiting for a new victim. The title “sweet potato” pie is really misleading since essentially it looks, smells and tastes like a watered down pumpkin pie. It was like a chicken pot pie that someone picked the chicken out of and sprinkled sugar on to sell to a bunch of suckers. Anything pertaining to vegetables shouldn’t be sweet — there’s something very unsettling about that. I could have lived with the bland taste if I hadn’t had to use the tiny midget forks they give you to eat the damn thing with, and oh yeah, found a hair in it. Since we were at the fair, I was actually hoping it was a horse’s hair and not a human hick hair.
Our choices of drinks were Big Bubba’s lemonade and water that’s supposedly “spring fresh.” The lemonade was really water and sugar (thank God for Sweet ’n’ Low) and was aptly described by Ty as “horse piss” (although I would assume horse piss would actually have some flavor). I should have asked the girl who served it to actually squeeze a lemon before handing it to us. Then at least it would have been entertaining to degrade someone (plus I wouldn’t feel lied to by false advertising) and be worth my money. The “spring fresh” water didn’t taste like it was from a spring of any kind. It was probably a refilled bottle of tap water from the vendor’s backyard hose.
The first dessert we dug into was a funnel cake. Granted, there is nothing weird about a funnel cake (or “spring” water from the tap, for that matter), but I had never had one before. We decided on a funnel cake with “The Works,” which included strawberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream and powdered sugar. Basically the funnel cake itself is a very fried ice cream cone with lots of sweet crap on it. The cake itself wasn’t bad, but the chocolate chips were a sugary overload. I found myself avoiding them at all costs. It becomes a tiresome chore as you get to the center of the cake — you definitely need more than two people to eat it entirely. The best thing about the funnel cake was the excess powder I snorted from the rim of the plate.
We made the mistake of trying two “desserts” in a row. The second one was a French crepe (no, that isn’t pronounced “creep”). It looked like a soggy tortilla folded into a triangle, from which frightening brown ooze emerged from when I cut into it. The minute I put it in my mouth, I knew it was a mistake and didn’t want to swallow it. This thing is a diabetic nightmare. I felt like I was stuck in Willy Wonka’s factory and it had turned into a glucose suicide. I could actually feel it ooze down my throat, leaving a filmy sweetness and a bad aftertaste. I could only take one gaggingly sweet bite — a second was unthinkable — unless you spit it out like Ty did. I have a feeling there’s a grand conspiracy involving the “spring fresh” water people and the French crepe pushers since you have to drink water immediately after eating that crap.
We made a stop at a place advertising “Hoppin’ Jalape§os.” The cashier didn’t know what “Hoppin’ Jalape§os” were when we ordered them, which scares me. You should at least have the common decency to at least pretend to know what the hell the crap is that you’re selling to the hoards of innocent bystanders. The first thing I thought when I bit down was, where the hell are the jalape§os? These things were fried cheddar with small bits of jalape§os thrown in. I never eat jalape§os, so I was looking forward to biting down on one and waiting for my head to explode. Unfortunately, these weren’t hot at all, perfect for wusses like myself who are Hispanic, but can get heartburn from a Taco Bell bean burrito.
By the time we got to the “Egg Roll on a Stick” stand, my stomach was burning from trying to digest so much crap, which isn’t a good sign. There are two tests I use to determine whether or not I will eat something. First of all, the smell test. My snoz can detect from six miles away whether or not some strange-smelling food will make me puke later on.
The second rule is whether or not if it looks too gross. The egg roll failed the second test: it looked sick, like a murder weapon. Before the vendor dunked it in the sweet and sour sauce, it looked like some kind of giant mutant fish stick, but after she dipped it in the gooey red junk, it looked like someone used a fried corn cob on a stick to stab someone through the heart. Hmmm, sounds tasty, don’t it? I decided to be a hero and taste it anyway. The sauce tasted like thick, slightly rancid Kool-Aid and was very sweet and sour, which upsets me because the sauce should have to make up its damn mind. You can’t have it both ways, it plays with people’s emotions. For instance, I can’t be a complete idiot and be the president at the same time. On second thought … but back to the egg roll. By itself, it’s pretty good (could benefit from some more flavor) but eighty-six the sauce.
Feeling like being risk-takers, we decided to try the fried zucchini. I expected to get one or two small zucchinis and was shocked when we were served four huge zucchinis, which in themselves are a crime against nature. The zucchinis themselves aren’t really fried, just batter-dipped, almost like a vegetarian corn dog. We were served a side of watered down ranch dressing, but I always avoid that stuff unless I’m armed with baby carrots. The zucchinis were surprisingly good (better than you expect from a zucchini anyway), although I probably wouldn’t pay to eat them. They were pretty tender and flavorful. What’s sad is they were probably the best thing of the day beside the egg roll. Just don’t eat too much of it because it gives off the vibe you might puke if you do.
Our food escapade ended with the famous pickled tongue sandwich. It looked like a suspicious roast beef sandwich, except with taste buds. The meat was cold and slightly sour, so essentially it’s as if you’re eating a dead body, except this time it’s not cooked. The meat had a strange mixture of green crud on it that they want you to believe is natural ingredients to enhance the flavor, but is probably the chewed-up grass the cow had before Farmer John ripped out its poor little tongue. Even if I had liked the taste, I couldn’t eat it because I felt guilty. However, I never hear a mournful “moo” when I eat at McDonald’s, so maybe I’m just a really big hypocrite. I just don’t think I can actually eat another animal’s tongue without feeling like I was making out with it.
The bottom line? Stick to familiar food territory at the Kern County Fair. There really is no “weird” food there, just overpriced crap (usually on a delightful stick you can use after you’re done to stab yourself in the eye and hopefully stop yourself from wasting more of your money).
There were two things that saved me from feeling I had completely wasted my money, and both are equally disturbing. For starters, at one of the exhibit galleries, I saw a sign advertising the selling of “Happy Feet.” Immediately, I envisioned the vendor selling me a pair of hacked-off human feet. How could I tell if they were truly happy or not? The other was another sign that was selling five children (supposedly wooden decorations, but you have to wonder). It read, “Kids for sale, $195.99,” which is reasonable.
Seeing that really tied into the eating extravaganza because I really like my children extra crispy.