Took the four kids to the Mountain State Fair on Saturday and I brought my reading glasses, a small flashlight, and a stack of index cards, because if a county fair is going to call something “homemade” I am going to verify it. Garrett told me on the drive in that he was not going to be a part of this. Within forty minutes he was holding the flashlight for me at the canned-goods table.
First stop was the funnel cake stand. I asked the woman in the visor what oil they were using and she said “the regular one” and pointed at a jug labeled FRYING BLEND with the barcode peeled off. I asked when they last changed it and she said “we top it off.” That is not the same answer. Topping off is how you build a stew. I wrote that down on an index card and underlined it twice.
The blue-ribbon peach preserves had Yellow #5 listed on the entry card. I want to be very clear about this: a HOME canner, in Henderson County, won a ribbon for peaches she had to TINT. My sister-in-law works the front desk at a pediatric office and she has said for years that Yellow #5 is the one that makes kids “vibrate.” A peach is already yellow. A peach is BORN yellow. We are tinting the truth, Marjorie.
The petting zoo had a pump bottle of hand sanitizer chained to the gate that said “industrial use only — ventilate area before application.” I read the back of it out loud to a 4-H teenager who was holding a goat, and she said, “oh we don’t really use that one on people, that’s for the goat.” The GOAT. They are sanitizing a goat with a product that requires ventilation and then putting toddlers’ hands directly on the sanitized goat. Cleo went for the udder before I could intercept and I rinsed her in the women’s restroom for nine minutes with my own water bottle.
I will entertain sourdough arguments all day long — time is a process, not an ingredient, fine, I have made my peace — but the prize-winning sourdough in the home arts tent had BROMATED flour written right there on the entry card. Bromated. At a county fair. In 2025. The judge had written “lovely open crumb” in cursive at the bottom. The crumb is a CRIME.
The sno-cone syrups were poured from unlabeled gallon jugs marked only by number. Number 4 was blue. I asked the man working the cart what was in Number 4 and he said “blue.” I told him that’s a color, not an ingredient, and he said “ma’am, the line is moving.” Tessa got a Number 4 anyway because Garrett “wanted to keep the day moving,” and her tongue stayed that color through bath time, through bedtime, and into Sunday’s pancakes.
The cotton candy machine had a small label on the spinner head that said “contains titanium dioxide for optimal whitening,” which — at a fair — for a product that is famously, ostentatiously PINK — is a choice somebody made on purpose. The twins each had a full bag and slept the entire ride home with their mouths open like they had been sedated, which, mineral-wise, they sort of had been.
A very nice 4-H mom in a sunflower shirt found me near the quilt barn around 4 p.m. and asked if I would mind “letting other folks enjoy the booths.” She said it the way you ask a dog to please get down off the couch. I told her I was a journalist and she said “okay honey” and walked me toward the exit with one hand on my elbow and one hand on the small of my back. I have been in the front row of a Brené Brown talk and felt less seen.
We drove home with four kids dyed three different colors and I made them each a bowl of Jovial einkorn pasta with a little sea salt (a mineral, not a food) and a spoon of our own honey, and they ate it without complaint, which tells you everything you need to know. The fair comes back next August. I will be there at the gate when it opens, with a fresh headlamp and a clipboard, and Garrett can stay in the truck.