Finding the Beauty — and the Real Food — at the Iowa State Fair
Plus, see Bernie eat a corn dog
Every four years during the run-up to the presidential election, the world gets a peek at the 10-day Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, the biggest yearly event in the region. We’re usually treated to a run-down of all the fried foods found on a stick, photos of candidates looking silly scarfing corn dogs or riding the Big Slide, plus a few glamour shots of farm animals.
Having spent four days at this year’s fair with photographer John Taggart, whose work you’ll see below, I can tell you those stories don’t even begin to get to the heart of this event, essentially a 445-acre Midwestern food festival. There is a midway with rides here, and an amphitheater where 25,000 people take in a show, but the vast majority of fairgoers are either eating, waiting to eat, looking at food, participating in a food competition, or engaged in raising the food the rest of us eat. If you find yourself at the fair, here’s what not to miss.
The butter cow is one of the fair’s more famous attractions. In truth she’s part of a display of Iowa food products in refrigerated cases at the Agriculture Building, including other butter statues (this year’s theme was Sesame Street) as well as prize-winning Iowa artisan goods like hand-rolled Kolona Creamery butter and a few whole smoked hams that are auctioned off at the fair’s end.
Some of the best corn dogs at the fair — they’re a must — are found at Fyfe’s Concessions at the prime location of the intersection of the fair’s Grand Concourse and Rock Island Avenue. They’re always fresh, usually made dipped and fried while you wait, and have a sweet, moist cornmeal pancake batter that is worth seeking out. There are vegan and cheese versions too, in case you don’t eat franks.
The Iowa Pork Producers Association runs a tent every year where political candidates line up for a chance to flip tenderloins on TV. This stand is run by volunteers from a different county in Iowa each day, many of whom raise pork or are friends and neighbors with those who do. The stand’s offerings are minimal but are fair requirements: They serve freshly grilled pork tenderloins and sticky sweet slices of slab bacon ribboned on a skewer and basted with brown sugar. I ate three.
A pork tenderloin sandwich two ways, fried and grilled. This is perhaps Iowa’s most famous food at the fair (and in general), for good reason. Center-cut pork tenderloin is battered and fried or simply grilled, then served on what is possibly the best hamburger bun in the country. In Iowa, they’re soft yet dense, like a cross between the Italian and Cuban loaves sold at the supermarket, and often made by Italian bakeries. Surprisingly, these simple sandwiches don’t really don’t even need condiments, though the thin dill pickles, sweet white onion, and yellow mustard found at every stand are an excellent addition.
The Sky Glides are one of the few fair rides that are always crowded. There are two, and both provide a moment of zen, a lift from one end of the fair to the other, and the chance to scope out the food options from above.
Where the fairgrounds end, acres of hilly, wooded campgrounds begin. This is where more than 100,000 fairgoers and participating vendors and farmers live for the two weeks while the fair is in session. These are like small cities, and many families build porches between their rigs where they picnic and party every evening. (For some, this is the highlight of the fair.) Meanwhile, the fanciest Iowans crash in luxury rigs with tented galas right inside the fairgrounds, in what is known as Billionaire’s Row.
The Animal Learning Center features prize-winning poultry from 4-H members — this is an Ameraucana Black — and lessons on how to wash and dry chickens for show.
Lemonade “shake-ups” are found every few feet, all made the way summer lemonade should be: sliced lemons and white sugar shaken to order over ice. Many stands still do the shaking in heavy glass pint jars, like fancy fair bartenders.
The Food Center building is where you’ll find dozens of judged cooking and baking competitions per day, along with the winning foods. These ladies are presiding over a candy contest, while just next door, judges ponder strawberry-rhubarb desserts and jerky.
Plenty of concessionaires run half a dozen operations, but in between you’ll find extra-special one-offs like Crescenti’s. This 36-year-old stand humbly calls what it makes a meat sandwich. For “the works,” they take a fresh round of focaccia dough, fry it to order, split it and stuff it with capicola, salami, ham, and grated mozzarella. You eat it hot, wrapped in parchment paper, drizzled with several squeezes from the bottle of hot green Italian chile set out on the counter, the only condiment Crescenti’s serves. (There are also sweet versions, plus I saw one of many regulars try their “works” with an extra layer of cream cheese for 50 cents more.)
“Crazy taters” — as in fresh-made, curly cut potato chips made from a spud stuck into a hand-cranked shaver — are a state fair classic. Here they’re turned into nachos with pickled jalapeño and sour cream.
Visitors to the fair are encouraged to post their favorite things to the wall of the museum on the fairgrounds. Food is by far the top choice… and cute boys.
The fair is dotted with real sit-down restaurants serving prime rib dinners with potatoes and gravy, barbecued ribs and beans, or fresh-cut watermelon and Iowa-made vanilla soft-serve, occasionally prepared by the people that raised your food. Some have bands and a few turn into nightclubs once the sun sets, though beer tents (and beer drinkers) are everywhere; there’s even an Iowa craft beer tent with sours and double IPAs.
The Agriculture Building is where you’ll find the fruits and vegetables submitted to the fair for judging. These are grapes, but other categories include snap beans, tomatoes, chiles, sweet peppers, dried corn, and the salsa plate.
Iowa takes its grains seriously: The winners of the kernel corn and other corn categories have special permanent display sections.
In addition to judged produce and butter cows, the Agriculture Building has an ice cream stand and sells apple cider slushies, apple sundaes, apples and peanut butter, cider doughnuts, and hot fruit pies.
Hundreds of farmers who raise animals come to show livestock at the fair. These are the state’s animal world beauty queens, raised for their looks and polished and primped before they and their owners take the stage.
In the Food Center, Iowa brands often give out free samples of their products to convert new customers.
Pioneer Hall, up at the top of the fairground’s steep hill, is a barn-like space that features old farm zines and cooking tools for sale, plus a few stalls selling farm fashion. There are also pottery and metal-smithing demos and a stage for fiddlers or an Elvis impersonation by a singer named — yup — James Brown. (Almost every building contains at least two restaurants: Here you can get lemonades, ice cream, hot dogs or pork tenderloin while you watch Elvis perform.)
Sunset is prime time at the fair, when things cool off and locals come after work for dinner and a beer. The fair is 15 minutes from downtown Des Moines; many come multiple times a week.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders eats the unofficial Iowa State Fair food, the corn dog, flanked by his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders.
Every four years, presidential candidates like Joseph Biden speak to the crowds at the Des Moines Register “soapbox,” technically a stage surrounded by hay bales (and the media). The Register plays an even more important role at the fair, however: It prints up a newsprint guide to the fair whose first feature is a guide to the fair’s new foods and where to find them.
Rachel Wharton is a James Beard Award-winning journalist and author of “American Food (A Not-So-Serious History),” available from Abrams Books in fall 2019.
