September 16, 2011

Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude:
If It Ain't Fried, Then It Died.

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I do not necessarily want to be a food blogger, but I do LOVE to talk about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food. Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. After all, this is not meant to be an homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.

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Last weekend, Team Chaos and I met my dad for the Old Settler's parade here in Olathe.  We spent the morning reminiscing about old times, family members and past Old Settler's gatherings - even stories my great-grandpa passed along to my dad from when he was a boy and Old Settler's was actually a reunion of sorts for the folks who originally settled the town. Back in the day when they would gather on the lawn in front of the courthouse and everyone would bring a covered dish.

The most important part of the fair is the food, of course. Particularly, the culinary tradition that is exclusive to Olathe --- Grange Pups!  The Kansas Grange Association has been serving these pups for at least 60 years now -- essentially, it is a fresh, hand-dipped hotdog.  The breading is not made from corn flour, but rather seems to be made from a non-sweet pancake batter.  At least that is our guess -- it is also tradition every year to ponder the mysterious origins of the Grange Pup.

The recipe is top-secret and hopefully the folks who know it do not travel together.  Right?


My dad has been eating Grange Pups since 1947 and he is quite proud of this.

While perusing fresh-squeezed limeade options, I saw that a stand was serving deep-fried Twinkies.  I had never eaten one before and thought that in the interest of Intestinal Fortitude, I should try one at least once.

Oh my......It was amazing.  A greasy, delicious hunk of melted sponge cake, cream filling and goddamned magic.

The food stand was ran by a church.  So technically, I ate that thing FOR JESUS.

And for you, Gentle Reader.

Let us never speak of this again.


What is your favorite Fair Food?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I want to try this "Grange Pup" as it sounds amazing!

I've had deep fried Oreos and a Snickers and I vastly prefer the Snickers over the Oreo. Good artery clogging eatin!

Bethany said...

Funnel cake. Fried AND powdered sugar!

ChaosIsAFriendOfMine said...

My favorite fair food is cotton candy. Yum!

luckyfatima said...

I do love me some funnel cake. I have never had any of the fried snickers, fried sticks of butter, fried frito pie, etc that they supposedly have at the Texas State Fair. Maybe some day...I saw on TV a restaurant in England or somewhere where you can bring food items from home and have them batter dipped and deep fried.

Olivia said...

Funnel cake, and those spiraled and deep fried potatoes. Oh, and fresh squeezed lemon-aid.

The oddest thing I've eaten that was deep fried was an Oreo. Didn't like it much. I'm intrigued and disgusted by the deep fried stick of butter I've heard about on the news.