A Good Pig Spoiled

Last week, I had the opportunity for the first time in a few years to go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Longtime readers will know that I've got a great love for fair food in all its greasy, sugary, fat-resplendent glory and consider its proper execution to be an art form unto itself. Sure, any idiot with a vat of oil can drop potatoes into it and make chips, but it takes an evil genius to make a basket of chips in a huge strip cut from a single potato.

I always pay attention to the State Fair of Texas, because the powers that be there hold a "best new food" contest each year. Called the Big Tex Choice Awards, they are the southern counterpart to the introduction of new grub at the Minnesota State Fair. Between Texans and Minnesotans, they'll eat ANYthing. Some of the promising candidates this year were deep-fried grilled cheese sandwiches, deep-fried s'mores, fried banana split (are you seeing a pattern?) and chicken-fried bacon. In the Ferran Adrià mold, we had "Fire & Ice," a pineapple ring, battered and deep-fried, topped with banana-flavored whipped cream that’s been frozen in liquid nitrogen so it smokes.

In the end, the chicken-fried bacon took the prize at the fair. Made from thick-sliced bacon which is seasoned, breaded, battered and then deep-fried, it sounded like just the sort of thing I'd go for.

Since my sons would be experiencing their first rodeo, we elected to go early in the day on Monday, before the carnival midway was open and the massive crowds had arrived. This meant that most of the fair food booths outside were closed. However, this being Texas, a large part of the livestock show takes place inside air-conditioned buildings, and the food booths there were open and running full-steam. For those in the know, this is actually the best time to feed your fair food jones, since the vendors aren't as overloaded and the food is likely to be fresher. No one wants a stale fried Twinkie, after all.

It didn't take long for me to find the chicken-fried bacon. It was the centerpiece of one of the biggest booths on the strip, sold alongside various other fried delicacies for the non-nosebleed price of $5 an order. I handed over my fiver, declined the offer of ranch dressing on the side, and parked myself on a handy bench (unoccupied benches: another benefit of arriving early) with my older son, Alex, to partake.

It took great strength of will not to leap to my feet after the first bite, point an accusing finger at the booth operator and accuse him in a voice worthy of Charlton Heston delivering stone tablets of committing bacon heresy most foul. Here was thick-sliced bacon, one of the greatest creations of nature and woodsmoke, that had been utterly and thoroughly deprived of its essential bacony goodness. The breading, battering and frying, rather than accentuating the bacon's deliciousness, had completely obliterated it. What remained was a vaguely salty wedge of tough, cardboard-like meat that I wouldn't have known was bacon unless I'd been told so.

I'm not sure if the product served at the State Fair of Texas was prepared differently, although the young man running the booth in Houston claimed to be the same purveyor, or if the judges there tasted something I missed.

The trip wasn't a total loss, though. I got to drink an ice-cold Shiner Bock while standing in the hot sun. I got to take Alex on his first real carnival rides. I got to watch Cooper, now 17 months, feed sheep at the petting zoo.

And the next morning, for breakfast, I fried up some mesquite-smoked Blue Ribbon bacon to go with my pancakes and almost managed to erase the memory of my deep-fried misadventure. Order was restored to the universe.

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