Bacon just picked a fight with dessert this year, and dessert is losing. Five state fairs handed bacon the win, wrapping it around candy, dipping it in horchata sauce and folding it into hard cider. Every fair reached the same idea completely on its own, with vendors hundreds of miles apart landing on the same weird bet.
National Bacon Lovers Day on Aug. 20 is right in the middle of peak state fair season. Fair food has always rewarded the dish strange enough to get people talking over the one that just tastes fine.
Bacon keeps winning that assignment because it does two jobs at once. It reads as comfort food, familiar enough that people order it without a second thought. Then it shows up wrapped around a churro or dropped into a cocktail, and it stops people mid-scroll.
5 Fairs Land On 1 Idea
The State Fair of Texas named a bacon jam hard cider a finalist in this year’s 22nd annual Big Tex Choice Awards, one of five fairs nationwide featuring a bacon-heavy new dish. Each fair runs its own separate concession process. They landed on the same bet anyway.
California And Indiana Go Sweet
California and Indiana each gave bacon a sugary makeover this year, though not the same way. At the Orange County Fair, which wrapped its run Aug. 16, a concession called Bacon Nation served bacon-wrapped churros dipped in a creamy horchata sauce.
The Indiana State Fair, open through Aug. 23, took a different route with Colp’s Concessions. Their Sweet and Salty Spiral piles bacon crumbles onto spiral-cut potatoes, then finishes with a heavy drizzle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
Iowa And New York Reinvent Comfort Food
The Iowa State Fair, open through Aug. 23, is serving the Ultimate Bacon-Brisket Mac and Cheese Donut. The dish takes mac and cheese loaded with bacon and brisket, then breads it and shapes it like a cake donut instead of serving it in a bowl.
The New York State Fair, opening Aug. 26, brings back a Fried Specialties favorite. Snickers bars get wrapped in bacon, battered and deep-fried right alongside the vendor’s other over-the-top creations.
Texas Bets Big Before It Opens
The State Fair of Texas won’t open until Sept. 25, but its Big Tex Choice Awards named 15 finalists this month, with winners announced Aug. 18. The bacon jam caramel apple hard cider from Rousso’s built its case on smoky bacon jam folded into apple, caramel and churro spice. It competed in the sipper category against a chocolate-stuffed corny dog for the title.
National Bacon Lovers Day doesn’t need a fairgrounds trip to prove the point. The same move that wrapped bacon around a churro or dropped it into hard cider works just as well on a home stove. Pick something bacon has no business touching, like chocolate, fruit or a candy bar, and see if it survives contact with a skillet.