Posted by Chicago Tribune, IL on August 03, 2010 at 12:30:32:
Tried, true and blue
It's state fair time! And America's home cooks compete for the blue ribbon
By Monica Kass Rogers, Special to Tribune Newspapers
Thousands of Americans nationwide go for the blue — ribbon, that is — in state fair food contests.
Jim Woodworth is one of those home cooks who enter the cooking competitions each year with a healthy case of ribbon lust.
They call him "The Pie Guy" in Pueblo West, Colo. And for good reason. To keep his Colorado State Fair blue-ribbon-winning chops, Woodworth bakes pies year-round. But at 4 a.m. Aug. 22, he gets serious. At that early hour, Woodworth will be elbow-deep in pie crust, baking the pies he'll enter in this year's fair. He'll start with pumpkin, move on to mincemeat, berry and peach before finishing sometime in the afternoon with his prize-winning cherry and apple pie recipes.
"The apple are my favorite," said the 82-year-old, rattling off his recipe for a honey-sweetened version with three kinds of apples that has won many blue ribbons.
Will it win again? "I hope so," he chuckled. "This year may be my last at the fair, and I'm kind of competitive."
While some contests offer big prizes from food-company sponsors (Hormel, Fleischmann's, Hershey's), most winners only get modest monetary awards in the $5 to $10 range.
"So it's really more about that ribbon!" said Barb Schaller, of Burnsville, Minn., whose corn relish has won her a blue ribbon eight times at the Minnesota State Fair, plus a (mock) marriage proposal from Garrison Keillor.
Evon Fuerst, of Renton, Wash., a blue-ribboned jam- and jelly-maker who competes in the Puyallup State Fair, agrees: "I love that goofy little rush you get going up to the case to see if you got a ribbon."
In many households, state fair food fever is contagious, with ribbon-winning cooks passing their skills and competition craving on to their kids, and grandkids.
So who enters what? Today's fair food contests are hugely varied. Far from the handful of competitions of the late 1800s, today's culinary "divisions" and "classes" number in the hundreds at each fair. Iowa has the most, with 869 food classes, according to Lori Chappell, marketing director for the Iowa State Fair. There are meatloaf contests, scone contests, crepe, conserve and cake contests, potato salad and pickle contests, bar cookies and beer contests — almost anything you can imagine.
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