The Caviar and Chicken Nuggets from JR’s SouthPork Ranch.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
DES MOINES — Smells like Fair spirit.Every year, the Iowa State Fair embraces the ultimate American experience through thousands of food inventions that deliver adventure, tenacity and freedom. It’s a place where the world’s rules of cooking are broken, and the borders of cuisine are blurred.
This year, America’s semiquincentennial is giving vendors permission to amp it up about 250% more, by my estimates.
Whether you’re looking for authentic colonial favorites, a new way to eat butter, a collision of cuisines or a way to treat yourself, this year’s new foods list has plenty of wonderful and weird new items.
Here’s what intrigued us this year.
1. Saigon Birria Pupusa by Saigonis Cuisine
The Saigon Birria Pupusa from Saigon’s Cuisine at the Iowa State Fair.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
As the owners of Saigonis looked at their pupusas, they asked two questions.
One: How can they fuse this with Vietnamese cuisine? Two: How do they make it work for the State Fair?
“We want to reimagine how Asian flavor can be reinterpreted across everything,” co-owner Tony Truong said. “We love pupusas, period. But it was so ethnic.”
After some experiments, they figured out that beef pho — the soup that most people picture when they think of Vietnamese food — was their ticket to making this marriage work with a traditional staple of Central American countries like El Salvador.
Fresh cilantro greets my nostrils before I even have time to visually examine the dish. A mini pupusa full of cheese is as good as it looks — golden and crispy on the edges, and soft below the surface. Cilantro and onion act as fair parking attendants, directing the cheese to languish on my tastebuds as other traffic files in.
Then, I hit the Vietnamese flavors. Soft, shredded beef cooked in a rich broth with star anise and cinnamon comes out of its shell.
But it doesn’t end there. Just as it seemed to get a little dry, I dipped it in the consommé, where a rich Hoisin sauce adds an extra umami.
Pupusas have been trending as a street food and in a limited number of Iowa restaurants in recent years. I think the true mark of a food’s acceptance in American culture is the moment that it is incorporated with other cuisines.
Diners can sometimes think of Asian foods as incompatible with other cuisines, putting them in their own boxes. Each year, Saigonis beats that rap in inventive and persuasive ways.
2. Zower Sour Tanghulu by Bao Bao’s Tanghulu
The Zower Sour Tanghulu from Bao Bao Tanghulu (owned by M&K Concessions).
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
It is billed as “magical candied fruit” with a panda on the sign, and I’m personally delighted to see this treat gaining traction stateside after I experienced it in Japan two years ago.
“It was all over the TikTok. We debuted it in Battle Creek, (Michigan), and it was a hit,” Bao Bao’s Tanghulu manager Lawrence Funnell said.
This gives the kind of sensational flavor I always imagined an Everlasting Gobstopper would have while watching “Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory” as a child.
As you ride the glass elevator, your teeth crash through a crunchy glass ceiling of sour and sweet sugar coating that leads to a luscious, juicy piece of fruit. There are two pieces each of mandarin, grape and strawberry.
Multi-colored Nerds on top Americanize this unique Asian treat without ruining it.
3. PB & J Corndog by Sampler Corndog Stand
The PB & J Corndog from Sampler Corndog Stand (owned by Campbell Concessions).
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
I went in prepared to judge this item. It’s a standard corndog topped with a thin layer of peanut butter, your choice of grape or strawberry jelly, and a dipping mixture of syrup and frosting.
Instead, it was love at first bite.
Syrup and icing whet my whistle as my teeth sink into the breading. The peanut butter is thinly spread, which is critical to the balance of flavors as it brings out the salty flavor of the “dog” inside. Meanwhile, jelly melds compatibly with the sweet breading.
As other food vendors go ham with red, white and blue theming or patriotic names that start with “1776” for America’s semiquincentennial, this one manages to be all-American without even trying.
It is an admittedly strange trio, but one worth trying at least once.
4. Caviar and Chicken Nuggets by JR’s SouthPork Ranch
The Caviar and Chicken Nuggets from JR’s SouthPork Ranch.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
Which came first: the chicken nugget or the fish egg?
Caviar and chicken nuggets, wherever the combo came from, has been having a mainstream moment. In February, McDonald’s released a limited edition “McNugget Caviar” package for Valentine’s Day, which sold out online almost instantly.
JR’s SouthPork Ranch, the restaurant that has brought footlong lobster rolls and pricey packages like the “High Roller” to the Iowa State Fair, is getting in on the trend with a package of chicken nuggets, creme fraiche and caviar for $99.
Founder Brooks Reynolds added it to the menu after trying it in the Coachella Valley of California. Growing up, his father would bring caviar home from work travels to Europe and offer it as a treat on Christmas mornings.
“I want to bring flavors that are not common,” Reynolds said.
The nuggets are a huge step up in quality from fast food but resemble the style of Mickey D’s. The ample-size breast meat has that distinct kind of coating that nugget connoisseurs will recognize. They come with a tin of sturgeon caviar, which retail for $72, plus a mother-of-pearl spoon that optimizes the flavor of roe.
The nuggets don’t seem to have much salt, allowing the caviar to shine. The dippable cream contrasts the crunchy breading nicely. It’s a taste you can easily acquire and remains an altogether mild flavor profile.
It’s a contrast of the haves and the have-nots buffered by creme fraiche. For the average fairgoer, it’s a chance to taste something most people in the world will only ever hear about.
When Reynolds brought lobster rolls to the fair, he said people called him crazy. But they sold.
Chicken nuggets with caviar may not be for everyone, he conceded. But for some, it will generate a buzz.
5. 1776 Parmesan Ice Cream by Bubbly
The 1776 Parmesan Ice Cream from Bubbly.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
This creation comes from 13-year-old Grant Enloe, son of Bubbly owners Bryan and Jennie Enloe. He came across the idea while on a deep dive of American history on YouTube.
It’s a standard ice cream base, minus the vanilla extract, with added parmesan flavor and a sprinkle of cheese on top of each scoop.
The first bite wasn’t shocking, as I expected. For a dish predicated on the Parmesan, the cheese was more of a subtle punctuation — a semi-colon between vanilla and bright, tart cherries.
Buttery flavor from the moist pound cake adds layers of yet another form of dairy to offer a trifecta the cattle barn down the hill would be proud of — cream, cheese and butter. Plus, the combination with pound cake and cherries is true to the heritage of this once-popular 18th century American dessert.
6. Banana Cream Fries by Taylor Concessions
The Banana Cream Fries from Taylor Concessions.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
These funnel cake fries with mildly sweet toppings are a substantial improvement from last year’s offering from this vendor — the Deep Fried Banana Cream Pie.
Sweet funnel cake fries are fluffy in each bite with a little crunch on the ends. Vanilla pudding atop, softening each bite, is the perfect pairing. I would have paid extra for a cup of pudding to dip the fries in.
Real slices of banana and whipped cream come in to add a more authentic taste.
Taylor Concessions knows how to make big swings with its new offerings every year. This is the same vendor who brought us the Hot Cheeto float in 2024.
But this year, they have a hit. I might even add a little chocolate syrup drizzle on top to tie it all together.
7. Bedrock Twist by Smith’s
The Bedrock Twist from Smith’s.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
Yabba-dabba-do consider this, if you’re looking for a sweet treat.
After introducing the Hot Cheeto pretzel last year, vendor Liz Smith wanted to offer something sweet with the same kind of textured crunch.
This pretzel, which seems to be fried, is slathered in frosting and a coat of many cereal colors. The icing is viscous, creamy and not too sugary.
It would make for a decent breakfast, if you’re at the fair in the morning.
8. Butter Dipped Ice Cream Cone by Coney Corner
The Butter Dipped Ice Cream Cone at the Iowa State Fair was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who’s running for the U.S. Senate.
Savannah Blake/The Gazette
With this treat, the cows have come home.
Vendor Grant Campbell’s creation was inspired by the deep-fried butter on a stick that debuted at the Iowa State Fair in 2011. It’s a standard ice cream cone dipped in pure melted butter with a sprinkle of coarse salt on top.
Not butter flavored or butter inspired — just butter.
In the first couple of bites, the salty and sweet interact well and play off of each other.
But a few bites later, after the salt is gone, the novelty wears off. The butter starts to congeal in my mouth and form a kind of waxy ball as I process the soft serve.
It’s a great idea, and a wonderful example of Iowa State Fair spirit. It needs just a little bit of tinkering to make the feeling in those first few bites last longer.
If you order it, consider asking for a little extra salt on the sides of the cone.
Dining and Cooking