Vacation Food: Kids Just Eat It Up

At some point this summer or fall, it's a safe bet you'll find yourself on the beach or hitting the fairgrounds. It's an equally safe bet that at some point the kids are going to get hungry and demand to be fed. I've got one of my own, and he requires feeding with regularity or he becomes very cranky and disagreeable.

For those of you who prefer to feed your kids healthy diets free of fried foods and loaded with fresh vegetables and lean chicken, I offer hearty congratulations. I also ask you to cast back to your own memories of youth and see if you can remember going to the beach and spending all day romping in the surf and building sand castles, then plopping down on your beach towel to enjoy a ... salad. Anyone?

Most of what we know as fair food today can be traced back to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, where the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea came to great public notice for the first time. Times have changed, and the menu has increased immeasurably. However, it all still basically falls into three categories: fried, grilled and iced. In this article, we'll take a look at the latest and greatest in the first two categories. Keep your eyes peeled when you're out and about this summer and fall, and you just might find something tasty!

Fried

What would a midway or beachside boardwalk be without that all-too-familiar smell of hot frying oil? How can you say you've had a good time until your fingers are coated with powdered sugar from a funnel cake? The deep fryer is the king of fair food, with a truly mind-bending array of items going into the oil. Any kid who ends his or her summer without having ingested the requisite amount of fry grease can be held back a grade in some states. It's true.

A few years back, the Scots allowed their semi-sacred fried Mars bars to leave the country. Once the concept hit the fair food circuit in the U.S., it sparked an explosion in fried dessert goodies. The Snickers bar is actually more popular here in the States, but you'll find just about any candy bar that's got the requisite chocolate coating being batter-dipped and fried.

Of course, once you've got a batch of batter mixed up, why not experiment? From this sort of thinking came the fried Twinkie and its cousin, the fried Oreo. Both of these, properly made, are wonderful little sweet treats.

The hottest thing on the fryer circuit this year, however, is fried Coke. A Coke-flavored batter is deep-fried, then drizzled with pure Coke fountain syrup (no carbonated water added) and served. The final product is extremely sweet, but for hardcore Coke drinkers, it's also highly addictive.

Of course, not everything out of the fryer is eaten for dessert. Any Texan will be proud to tell you the corn dog was invented at the Texas State Fair in 1942. You don't want to say that too loudly in the Midwest, though, as Pronto Pup backers claim it was invented a year earlier. Either way, no beach binge or fair feast is complete without at least one.

You'll want a side item for your corn dog, and you could do worse than fried macaroni and cheese. It's sheer genius: Mac and cheese is already a kid favorite, and this makes it easily portable. I actually first encountered this goodie on an episode of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" show, and was pleasantly surprised to see it had made the big time.

The humble potato is a deep fryer star, too, with french fries, potato chips, circle fries, fried baked potatoes and countless other incarnations. Depending on the region of the country you're in, you'll also find all manner of local produce taking a dip in the hot grease. From fried avocados in the Southwest to fried corn on the cob in the Midwest, if it will fit in a fryer without exploding, you'll most likely find it being cooked.

Grilled

Let's see Â… hot metal surface or grill grate? Check. Steam drawer for buns? Check. Rack full of condiments? Check. You, my friend, are ready to sell some hot dogs. Of course, if you want to add bratwurst to the menu, you'll have to add a boil pot for the pre-cooking.

The array of meats in a tube of some sort available in the nation's outdoor eating venues is limited only by the human imagination. The king of them all, of course, is the hot dog. Whether boiled, grilled, pan-fried or even deep-fried (hello, New Jersey!), the dog is the boss.

If you're lucky on your stroll, your nose will detect the sweet aroma of grilling onions and green peppers. This is the sign of one of two things: Italian sausages or Philly cheesesteaks. Either way, you're in for a treat. At the beach, there's something about the salt tang in the air that makes a lightly toasted bun overstuffed with shaved steak, onions, peppers and Cheez Whiz (that's how they're really made, you provolone purveyors and mozzarella munchers) taste like the finest four-star restaurant chow.

Once a staple of the Southwest, fajitas are now making inroads across the country. Cheap cuts of skirt steak, seasoned to perfection, sliced on an angle and grilled to perfection, fajitas are a fair food natural. And, being wrapped in a flour or corn tortilla, they fit the portability requirements nicely.

When it comes to portability, though, you really can't beat the "-on-a-stick" school. From sausage on a stick right through steak, shrimp, fish, squid, pork chop, meatball, rattlesnake, rabbit, and various non-meat items (otherwise known as vegetables), there's not much out there that hasn't been seasoned, skewered and grilled. It all owes a debt to the shish kabob, a Turkish delight that you just might also find if you go to the right places.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned much in the way of health food here. There's a reason. There isn't any.

OK, maybe there's some. Somewhere out there, there's some well-meaning goober running a preservative-free, fat-reduced, cholesterol-free vegan fair food booth. If you see him, give the poor guy a corn dog.