{"id":87409,"date":"2026-11-13T07:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T07:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/87409\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T07:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T07:38:35","slug":"the-state-fair-of-texas-returns-in-all-its-fried-glory-texas-monthly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/87409\/","title":{"rendered":"The State Fair of Texas Returns in All Its Fried Glory \u2013 Texas Monthly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walking through the State Fair of Texas with a fresh-cut Papa Loca from Lerma\u2019s Gorditas makes you feel like a celebrity. Other visitors gasp and stare. They smile when they see you walk past the Cotton Bowl with a spiral-cut potato, skewered and flash-fried, reaching from your eager hands up toward the sky, as if it\u2019s trying to reach the smiling maw of Big Tex himself. There are weirder foods at the state fair, more beloved ones, more uniquely Texan items being fried or chopped or smoked, but few with such immediate charisma. Everybody who comes to the state fair is there to eat something they already know they like, but in a novel way.<\/p>\n

The 24-day event fills so many of my fellow Texans with a childlike glee, which is on vivid display in photos by Allison V. Smith. Food is the main draw, and who doesn\u2019t like an event geared to indulge our appetite with an array of batter-fried novelties\u2014but was that the whole appeal? I had never been to the state fair, and I wanted to find out what it was about the affair that brings families back year after year. Even without the Papa Loca, folks were generally happy to meet me\u2014happy to meet everyone\u2014and pose for a portrait, because they were all in a pretty great mood.<\/p>\n

The State Fair of Texas was canceled in 2020 for the same reason most things were canceled in 2020 (a comparatively minuscule drive-through version popped up in its stead), and those who attended the first day of the 2021 installment had missed it dearly. They come three or four (or ten or eleven) times over three-plus weeks to try the best food at the state fair. They bring their kids. They come alone. They show up with groups of coworkers. They fly in to meet up with the rest of the members of obscure Facebook groups under Big Tex. They sneak off to attend on a Friday while their kids are at school, and then come back on the weekend with the whole family. They line up dozens deep for Fletcher\u2019s corny dogs, then walk around with little flecks of mustard in their mustaches. Missing the state fair in 2020 hurt them deeply, in their hearts, and they could not wait to return. \u201cI never miss it,\u201d said Christopher Mosely. \u201cIt was a real bummer last year, when all you could do was drive through. It feels great to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state fair is distinctly old-fashioned, an event that\u2019s been held more or less annually since 1886 (prior to 2020, the last time it was canceled was during World War II, when Fair Park was being used by the military) and hasn\u2019t changed a whole lot in that time. The attractions in 2021 are the sort that attracted fairgoers of generations past to the site: Horses! Fried Foods! Rides! A petting zoo, pig races, live music, midway games, sculptures carved out of butter\u2014the same stuff that was already corny when Pat Boone and Ann-Margret sang about them in State Fair, set at the State Fair of Texas, back in 1962. But that\u2019s more or less the point of the event, as I found when talking to the array of fairgoers who posed for portraits.<\/p>\n

I met Joan Richardson, a real estate agent from Frisco, in the line for Fletcher\u2019s corny dogs. Getting in that line was the first thing she did upon arriving at Fair Park, but she had a lot on her agenda. \u201cThe food, the cars. I don\u2019t know if they\u2019ve done the carved pumpkins yet, but this is just trip one,\u201d she said. She\u2019d be back two or three more times, she told me, just like she had most every year since moving to the area as a kid in 1974. \u201cIt\u2019s always the same thing,\u201d she said wistfully. What did she do last year? \u201cI was sad,\u201d she told me. \u201cI was very sad. I didn\u2019t have a corny dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson peer-pressured me into trying a corny dog\u2014\u201cYou\u2019re from Texas Monthly and you\u2019ve never had one?\u201d\u2014and I got the feeling after taking a few bites that the key ingredient in the Fletcher\u2019s recipe is nostalgia for all of the corny dogs you ate at the state fair in years past.<\/p>\n

\"State\"StateChris Sanchez and Maaz Satti stopped by Fried Jesus\u2019s booth for fried jambalaya and fried PB&J, respectively.Allison V. Smith<\/p>\n

Serving up those fried whatevers is a unique experience too in 2021. I asked Abel Gonzales, a five-time Big Tex Choice Award winner, how he felt about being back. He was thrilled\u2014he loves the fair, loves frying things, added a \u201cFair Stuff\u201d menu to his Dallas restaurant Cocina Italiano during the pandemic\u2014but admitted that filling out a staff is harder this year than in the past. \u201cWe\u2019re good right now, but I can\u2019t tell you that we will be tomorrow,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe were struggling last night [at the food preview], and I think it\u2019s going to be like that the whole time we\u2019re here.\u201d Gonzales, something of a prophet in the world of the deep fryer, is known as Fried Jesus for creations like Fried Coke (Big Tex Choice Award winner, 2005) and Deep Fried Butter (Big Tex Choice Award winner, 2009), which have gone on to be staples not only at the State Fair of Texas but at similar events around the country. Even for Fried Jesus, 2020 was a hard year. \u201cI was looking under seat cushions for money to pay bills,\u201d he said. He was cautiously optimistic about 2021. \u201cHopefully we have a good little run, I hope, I hope, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

A single fried Oreo is a spectacular confection; eating one makes you feel like a baby on TikTok who just had ice cream for the first time. Eating dozens of items whose common ingredient is fried dough one after another, ad literal nauseam, makes them all indistinguishable. If I\u2019ve learned anything from the past eighteen months, it\u2019s that the immense prosperity I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to have been born into\u2014a prosperity that allows us to take sugars and fats and proteins, things that humans have only for a brief blip in our species\u2019 existence had such unfettered access to, and turn them into absurdist spectacles\u2014is more fragile than it previously seemed. I wanted to celebrate living through a time of abundance, not make a mockery of it. Where\u2019s the line? I\u2019m not certain, but if even the weirdly delicious Deep Fried I-35 (peaches, brisket, Dr Pepper barbecue sauce, all served atop a fried kolache) doesn\u2019t cross it, state fair chefs will have to keep looking.<\/p>\n

Even while clutching my Papa Loca, I couldn\u2019t help but think about the pandemic context under which the event is taking place. There were posters\u2014based on the famous art deco image from the 1936 state fair, celebrating the Texas centennial\u2014reminding visitors to mask up when entering buildings, and free COVID-19 vaccines on offer a few yards behind Big Tex. There are some places one can go\u2014Sixth Street, maybe, or an Applebee\u2019s in Montgomery County\u2014where it feels like there is no pandemic, there was never a pandemic, and whatever we lived through in 2020 was a weird mass hallucination. I thought the state fair might be one of those places, but for the most part, it was not. While masked faces were a rare sight while strolling the midway, it\u2019s easy enough to spend the entire day outside, and most folks seemed to at least have a mask on their person for when they went indoors.<\/p>\n

\"State\"StateLatrell Anderson, just moments away from getting his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.Allison V. Smith<\/p>\n

Under the shadow of Big Tex, I met Latrell Anderson, a 21-year-old visitor who came down from St. Louis to attend the fair with his uncle. He was waiting in line, but not for a corny dog\u2014rather, Anderson was getting his first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, which came with twenty free food tickets. The vaccinations at the fair weren\u2019t exactly the hottest item on the agenda\u2014most of the handful of folks I saw get one were already vaccinated and taking advantage of the Biden administration\u2019s newly announced booster shot policy\u2014but his uncle suggested he do it, and he agreed. \u201cI was never opposed to getting the vaccine,\u201d he told me. \u201cI just hadn\u2019t gotten around to it yet.\u201d He wore a face mask that he took off to try the fried pizza (\u201cnothing really special\u201d) and fried cheesecake (\u201cten out of ten\u201d), and seemed comfortable navigating the balance between life in a pandemic and life at the state fair.<\/p>\n

The appeal of the fair to a newcomer like Anderson seems to be tied to the circumstances under which we\u2019ve all been living. He hadn\u2019t been able to do much for fun last year, and most of the other first-timers I spoke to suggested that they were excited to go to the fair just because they could, because it was happening. Linda Morrissette, who drove in from San Antonio with her husband, their two boys, and her seventeen-year-old cousin, had planned to make a full weekend of activity: the fair, and also Six Flags. She\u2019d only just gotten to Fair Park when I met her, but it was already a success in her book. \u201cThis is our first time, we just started, and I bought a bed!\u201d she told me. She hadn\u2019t come in seeking a bed, but the state fair is a place of unexpected delights, and she\u2019d felt compelled to check out the Mattress Firm\u2013sponsored parts of the event and just fell in love.<\/p>\n

The food at the fair is the first thing everyone talks about, and for good reason\u2014most of this stuff does not exist in any other context\u2014but it\u2019s all a collection of sensory experiences. The fair is a place of unique tastes, a place where games must be touched with your hands and not just swiped across your screen, where the smell of the animals wafts from the livestock birthing barn out into the rest of the grounds, where the cacophony of music and other visitors and the hucksterlike come-ons from food vendors all blend together, where the butter sculptures must be seen to be believed, where all of that comingles with the ineffable experiences of novelty and nostalgia. This sort of full-sensory emotional experience was denied to fairgoers in 2020. The pandemic that took the state fair of 2020 is both still ongoing and not coming to an end anytime soon. You can see it in the smiles of the visitors: if this is just life for a while, then what else are we to do besides live some semblance of our lives as best we can?<\/p>\n

For a couple million Texans, their idea of living includes gathering outside and lining up for the Fletcher\u2019s corny dogs of their childhoods, and giving their own kids new experiences to be nostalgic about for decades into the future. Attending the state fair in 2021 is an act of hope: that the traditions of the past will extend into the future, even after a year that\u2019s made us all a little more cognizant of the sudden ways life can change. As these photos capture, there\u2019s an optimism to the state fair this year. If someone could figure out how to deep fry that, they\u2019d be serving up something that all of us\u2014state fair lifers, state fair rookies, and those who don\u2019t intend to set foot within ten miles of Fair Park this fall\u2014have worked up an appetite for.<\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Cotton candy, a state fair staple that\u2019s been served for nearly as long as the event has been running, ready for an expected throng of visitors. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Clinton Ausmus, 48, is a member of the Instant Film Society, which brought visitors from around the country to the state fair to photograph the event with vintage Polaroid and Leica cameras. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Smokers lined with turkey legs are one of the many signs of abundance at the fair. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Reginald Hampton, working the fair for the first time, serves turkey legs with a showman\u2019s zeal. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Everything, including the towering plates of french fries, is indeed bigger at the State Fair of Texas. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Vince Decker, 26, won a giant stuffed sloth on the midway. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Gulf Coast Grill, located near the swan boats on the lake at Fair Park, serves up the Deep Fried I-35 this year. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Sandra Board, 63, spends most of the year working at the Texas Rangers\u2019 ballpark in Arlington, and brings her staff over to the fair once baseball season ends. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

\"State\"State <\/p>\n

Leonardo Morrissette, 2, is one of countless smoked turkey enthusiasts who will bite into a leg over the next few weeks. <\/p>\n

Allison V. Smith <\/p>\n

Read Next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking through the State Fair of Texas with a fresh-cut Papa Loca from Lerma\u2019s Gorditas makes you feel like a celebrity. Other visitors gasp and stare. They smile when they see you walk past the Cotton Bowl with a spiral-cut potato, skewered and flash-fried, reaching from your eager hands up toward the sky, as if<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5711,27783,188,71,464,176,205],"class_list":["post-87409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-big-tex","tag-corny-dogs","tag-dallas","tag-food","tag-state-fair-of-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-cuisine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117607996225951682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}