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Hey LeAnne/BackforMore - - Im not pulling your leg. LeAnne/BackforMore - - I found you something about fried coke at the rodeo here. We batter and fry everything at the rodeo. Here is a story from our major newspapers last March. I found it on their website when I googled Fried Coke. March 2, 2007, 4:44PM Who wants healthy? It's the rodeo. People love their giant turkey legs and deep-fried, well, everything Before I asked, "Why?," I wondered ... how do you even make Deep-Fried Frozen Coca-Cola? "First, you freeze the Coke and crush it into little pieces. Then you drop it into batter and deep-fry it. When it comes out of the fryer, you splash on pure Coke syrup or chocolate syrup or strawberry syrup," said Tony Fiori, the man in charge of food concessions on the carnival midway at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I asked, "Do you make Deep-Fried Frozen Diet Coca-Cola?" He just laughed. Deep-Fried Frozen Coca-Cola looks like squiggly fried clams and tastes like hot, greasy, doughy Coke. It's the height of junk food, the perfect storm of everything you shouldn't eat. It's a pillar of the Four Major Carnival Food Groups: 1. Sugar 2. Dough 3. Grease 4. Brown I had mine with chocolate syrup. Delicious. That'll be $5.50, please. "No, there's not really a demand for healthy foods. This is the carnival. When you walk through that gate, your diet is the last thing on your mind," Fiori said. "Texans love to eat. An event like the rodeo is like Thanksgiving or Christmas: You eat what you want, and people love the food we serve here. It's classic carnival food. It's like that saying about Las Vegas – you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." What you eat at the rodeo stays on your hips. Rodeo food is fattening, there's no getting around that (unless you make a wide turn). But I love it. I went on an eating rampage, up one side of the carnival and down the other. In other words, just like last year. And all those years before that. There's nothing better than a big old humongous turkey leg and curly fries and sausage on a stick and deep-fried you-name-it. If you can stick it on a stick, you can eat it at the rodeo. My favorite is the original on-a-stick – the turkey leg. I'm not alone. Turkey legs are the No. 1 food item sold at the rodeo. I don't know where they get turkey legs that big. I imagine genetically altered turkeys invading Tokyo. "We get them from a farm in Texas," said Brett Enright, owner of two Juicy's stands on the midway. "Because we order in such volume, we can be pretty precise in what we want. They have to be a minimum of a pound and a half, and they have to look just right, too." The days of popping up a cotton-candy tent on the midway, hiring local drifters of questionable character and dental structure are long gone. The carnival at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a sophisticated, smooth-running, massive operation. The whole deal, from the rides to the games to the onion rings, is run by Ray Cammack Shows out of Laveen, Ariz. In addition to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Ray Cammack Shows does carnivals for major fairs and events across the country, including the Arizona State Fair and California State Fair. It's a year-round operation. And nothing is more important at the carnival than food. "We're like a traveling catering business that does a lot of business. Customers don't see how big it is. Every night at 10 o'clock, between 40,000 and 70,000 people are going to be pouring out of Reliant Stadium. We have to have all of our food hot, ready and accessible. It's a tough business. We do 85 percent of our business between 7 and 11 p.m. We can't let down. If we're not ready, we're losing business." Enright paid $250,000 for each of his two Juicy's stands on the midway. His stands are the standard for the modern-carny eatery. The billboards are high and colorful. They are efficient, with several places to order and pay for your food. Each stand has refrigeration units and prep areas in the back, out of sight. Over the next two weeks, Enright will sell 100,000 pounds of turkey legs at the rodeo. Turkey gams are $8.25 each. You crunch the numbers. Customers can watch the turkey legs cooking over wood on large open pits. Juicy's recently switched to white oak wood because smoke from mesquite was irritating his workers' eyes. The open pit is just for show. The turkey legs are really smoked at a factory in special $24,000 ovens – one hour at 325 degrees – and just heated over wood at the rodeo. It would be impossible to cook that many turkey legs from scratch on the midway. Juicy's half-pound burgers are cooked fresh to order. And the fries are really fried. The burgers are delicious – this isn't movie-theater or vending-machine food. The onion rings are the best I ever ate. Not cheap, but tremendous. I used to bring dates to the carnival for dinner. A word about the workers. They have to wear neat uniforms. Their backgrounds are thoroughly checked. No tattoos that show are allowed. Guys can't wear jewelry, and women can't wear too much. All employees are drug-tested twice during the rodeo. A few years ago, I worked in Mike Ousie's Pennsylvania Dutch Funnel Cake stand. I poured and fried funnel cakes for eight hours a day. I used to draw the customer's face in dough. They made me pass a drug test before they allowed me near the powdered sugar. I think Ousie lost money on my employment. I love funnel cakes and ate the ones I messed up (a couple on purpose). Funnel cakes are the No. 2 most popular food at the carnival. "You can eat healthy if you wish. We have salads at the pizza stand. You can get baked potatoes and corn on the cob. But the truth is, people come here and expect cotton candy and sausage on a stick and deep-fried Twinkies and turkey legs," Fiori said. "Our job is to give them the best-quality cotton candy and sausage on a stick possible. Yes, prices are high, but the cost of living has gone up. Our workers are well paid; they travel with us all year. The cost of product has gone up. At Juicy's, for example, they have an exclusive sausage that is very, very high quality." Fiori is always on the lookout for new food trends for the carnival. "We have to use our imagination, be on the cutting edge, think outside the box. A few years ago, we introduced deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos. I thought they'd be a fad and go away. I was wrong," he said. Battered Snickers bars and Twinkies were no flash in the frying pan. They're here to stay – and they're insanely delicious. Luckily, the carnival doesn't put nutritional information on its products. They would be pretty scary numbers. "The customers are very demanding today. They want continuity, quality and cleanliness. Each wagon now has antiseptic hand-cleaner dispensers and paper towels. The condiments have to be clean and organized. The food has to be visually appealing. You eat with your eyes, too, you know. We can't serve food that doesn't make our customers happy. There are other places at the event where they can eat. "It's carnival food, but we serve great carnival food." RESOURCES Smoked turkey legs (20 ounces) Cost: $8.25 Calories: 1,136 Fat grams: 54 Deep-fried Twinkie Cost: $3.50 Calories: 425 Fat grams: 34 Roasted corn (8-inch ear) Cost: $3.50 Calories: 200 (no butter) Fat grams: 1 |
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9/30/2007 10:34 am |
Nicks friend is here right now as I read this blog. When I mentioned deep fried frozen coke to the boys, Jerimiah got all excited!! He said his grama made it for him this summer while he was in Texas with her!! He loves it!!
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My personal favorite fried food(of the unusual type) is fried ice cream. In December, one of the local towns has a pickle festival and they serve deep fried pickles. I have yet to go and try one.
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Deep fried twinkie?
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Nicks friend is here right now as I read this blog. When I mentioned deep fried frozen coke to the boys, Jerimiah got all excited!! He said his grama made it for him this summer while he was in Texas with her!! He loves it!!
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My personal favorite fried food(of the unusual type) is fried ice cream. In December, one of the local towns has a pickle festival and they serve deep fried pickles. I have yet to go and try one. You just roll the ice cream in crushed cornflakes, freeze again and then run them a mixture of stirred up uncooked egg and back into the crushed cornflakes again and back into the freezer. After they refreeze again, then you fry them in hot oil. I had deep fried pickles at Sonic once. It was a special promotion and I haven't seen them back there since. They just bread and fry the little dill hamburger slices like you would do with zuchini. (I don't like fried zuchini. It's so slimy!
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Yup, everything's bigger in Texas! I've never imagined eating a fried turkey leg. When we make whole turkeys for Thanksgiving, the leg is a very difficult part to eat because of all the tendons and stuff. Do they remove those? Or is it a chopped and formed product? Do you just eat around the bones and tendons? or is it just a code name for something else? I remember back when fried ice cream and fried cheese was just becoming popular. I couldn't understand how you could fry ice cream. But I tried it and it was really good. And fried cheese? Yummy! I've heard that there are places that sell deep-fried pizza.  Sure brings back memories of the fairs I attended as a member of the marching band back in high school. (Men's egos are bigger in Texas as well!) No they aren't preprocessed and smushed together turkey legs. You have to eat around the tendons and bone and grisel and all that jazz. Like Fried Ice Cream, Fried Turkey Legs are immensely popular at the Renn Fest as well. After all, would you rather be a manly man carrying around a turkey leg or sausage on a stick if you had your choice? LOL
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9/30/2007 2:39 pm |
visions of gen mod turkeys invading tokyo  I kinda get the fried coke thing, I guess because of the amount of sugar it would turn to a toffee, but sounds like a mad experiment someone tried when their conscience was in a chemical induced, altered state, no offence intended, but the munchies do strange things to folks! Thanks for the laugh Corrie!!! And I dont think I like the sound of grits, yuk!  
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9/30/2007 3:08 pm |
       Isaiah 66:2b; But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.
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visions of gen mod turkeys invading tokyo I kinda get the fried coke thing, I guess because of the amount of sugar it would turn to a toffee, but sounds like a mad experiment someone tried when their conscience was in a chemical induced, altered state, no offence intended, but the munchies do strange things to folks! Thanks for the laugh Corrie!!! And I dont think I like the sound of grits, yuk!
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10/2/2007 1:40 am |
Are your smiley emoticons running amok? Isaiah 66:2b; But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.
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Yeah, a little, but more then that I didn't know what to say. The smilelys expressed what I felt, so I went with that.
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