"Texas State Fair" news and stories

This year's State Fair of Texas drew a lot of press over fried beer and the 2010 Big Tex Choice Award winner fried frito pie (let's not forget last years winner -- fried butter). While the Slashfood team wasn't able to make the trip down, a fellow AOL colleague attended this past weekend and snapped some shots of the fried-food lineup this fair has to offer.

This year's Big Tex Choice Award winners were chosen by a three-judge panel who sampled all of the deep-fried food entries before crowning the Fried Frito Pie the best in show.

Entries in the contest must be new to the fair, as well as "unique and taste-tempting," the fair's Web site says. Fair food vendors are sent invitations to participate in mid-summer and interested parties can submit menus to a committee for consideration. Those chosen to participate vie for the Big Tex Choice Awards on Labor Day.

The awards were created in 2005 to draw attention to the bounty of creativity in the fair's fried food offerings.

Founded in 1886, the State Fair of Texas is a 24-day-long exhibition and competition featuring food competitions, live entertainment and an auto show.

Some compared it to a rookie winning the Super Bowl MVP when three culinary novices swept the Best Taste award at the sixth annual Big Tex Choice Awards yesterday.

The creators of Texas Fried Frito Pie beat out the competition to take the prize at the Texas State Fair, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The team was made up of Michael Thomas, the originator, Richard Roznowski, the motivator and Jeffrey Lovel, the facilitator, all of whom had a hand in creating the Texas Fried Frito Pie -- balls of cheese and chili rolled in corn chips and then battered and deep fried -- and getting it to the fair.

The Texas State Fair is here, and you know what that means: Another extraordinary deep fried concoction from the undisputed King of the Deep Fryer, Abel Gonzales, Jr. Slashfood spoke to the oligarch of oil to find out what he's got cooking this year.

Is it true that you only work three weeks a year, and it's at the State Fair?
AG: That is correct.

That's unbelievable!
AG: I know! I feel pretty lucky. It is great but it's not like I'm rolling around in a Rolls Royce. I have a pretty good lifestyle but it's not mansion stuff.

Ever since the inauguration five years ago of the Big Tex Choice Awards at the Texas State Fair, food vendors have been deep-frying the impossible in their pursuit of the Most Creative and Best Taste awards.

Nothing in the rules says the food has to be fried, but this is an event, after all, that carries the semi-official slogan: "Fried Food Capital of Texas."

Big Tex has given us the Deep Fried Latte, Texas Fried Cookie Dough, Fried Coke, and last year's Most Creative winner: Deep Fried Butter. That would seem to qualify the fair as the Fried Food Capital of the World.

This year's contestants have batter-dipped their way into whole new territory with two new concoctions: Fried Beer and the Deep Fried Frozen Margarita.

Photo: Jessica S. Ralat.

Is there anyone whose grandmother hasn't served a casserole surprise, cobbled together from leftovers or the contents of the cupboard, and topped with cheese, potatoes and/or fried onions? And is there anyone who hasn't winced when it reached the table?

On Monday, the State Fair of Texas held the All-American Casserole Contest. Sixteen competitors -- mostly of the geriatric set -- entered casseroles in three categories: vegetable, chicken and meat.

The panel of judges, at first, gobbled entry samples with gusto. Once the initial excitement waned, however, the judges paced themselves for the long haul. Then the power went out.

Lest you think technical difficulties might have impeded the culinary tête-à-tête, Slashfood is here to remind you that cooking competitions are serious business at fairs nationwide. No dysfunctional lightbulb was going to halt these casseroles and their creators! Find out who won and see photos from the fair after the jump.