The Wisconsin State Fair

The Wisconsin State Fair may be about a lot of things, but mainly it's about food. Lining every walkway of the fairgrounds are booths selling almost anything edible, that is, if you aren’t a vegan or vegetarian. This is meat eating country. And since Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland, you’d be hard pressed to find something lactose-free or with half the fat.

Actually, Wisconsin’s products don’t come fattening enough for fair-goers. Everything is deep-fried. The health nuts get the deep-fried pickle spears or eggplant. The more liberal mouths chomp on deep-fried mozzarella bits or cheese curds.

Everyone indulges in the most famous treat of the fair, the Crème Puff. The line for them is a good five minutes long. The Crème Puff starts as an ordinary, thin pastry. An assembly line of teenagers build the pastries non-stop for the hordes of fans who have come from every corner of the state and beyond for the main attraction. The pastry is cut in half and the bottom half receives a four inch high tower of whipped cream. The top half is lightly pressed onto the whipped cream. The final touch is a blizzard of powdered sugar. That’s it. Once you scarf your Wisconsin State Fair Crème Puff down you can safely go home. If you do one thing at the fair, you do that.

If you fancy the homegrown products the fair offers a Wisconsin Products tent. Everything under this roof is born, bred, raised, and slaughtered in Wisconsin. The tent has the fair staples, but it also features Wisconsin milk, meat, candied apples, grilled cheese sandwiches made with Real Wisconsin Cheese, and the sausages and bratwursts.

And what would a Wisconsin event be without a wide selection of beer. The only problem…they all have Miller somewhere in the name. Damn.