2003oct11.

Arizona Deep-Fried State Fair (6).

The upper-left sign reads "Chile Relleno dog on a stick." I really need to keep up with stick technology, this one totally caught me by surprise. Also please note "Alpine SHAVED ICE." "Now, I don't need you smarty-pants hucksters pulling the 50-50 polyesteer-cotton blend over mah eyes ... this is really from the Alpine?"

I like the food trailers with the sloped sides, it feels slightly menacing. I don't watch horror movies, so yeah, I get juiced by structures leaning toward me. See what you're missing? LOOK OUT THE GIANT CURLY FRY TRAILER IS SLANTING TOWARD YOU

When I first saw this sign I thought they were advertising "Spiral Fries Sausage" and that the fries spiralled around the sausage. After purchasing one, you would then apply a positive potato charge to the fries, and the sausage would shoot out from the resultant french-fried potato magnetic field and break a window. I'll stop now.

On the side of the trailer is a koala bear hugging a tree carrying a bindlestick reading "G'day mate!" My personal feeling is that this has no relevance to anything whatsoever and should be ignored.

FUNNEL CAKES! I'm not sure why funnel cakes are my favorite carnival confection -- I don't really "eat" funnel cakes, I've had a funnel cake once and I wasn't jumping up and down about it -- I think it's the name. Also the assocation with the Pennsylvania Dutch. I think they're screwed, trade name wise, with so many food vendors using the Pennsylvania Dutch name to sell their version of this historically accurate Pennsylvania Dutch traditional confection. Soon it will be like Xerox. "Hey, can you Pennsylvania Dutch that new Alpine Shaved Ice Live CD for me?"

I don't know what a "popover" is. It sounds good, though, sort of like the "fatball" they were offering at the Michigan State Fair. That's one of my random exclamations. Say I'm puttering about the house, and a scorpion climbs into my toolbox and steals a screwdriver. "FATBALLS!" I would exclaim, calling to mind this mysterious snack of years gone by. Fatballs.

Close-up of fry bread/popover trailer signage.

A lot of trailers had the grill out front, so you could watch your food being cooked. Although, theoretically, some of the time, the food isn't yours while it's being cooked. It could have been someone else's, but you put your money down to claim it. Eating someone else's food. Creepy. Note: too much yellow. Note #2: When I was in my interview to teach English in Japan, the interviewer asked me to explain how I would explain the difference between "a" and "the" to someone Japanese. And I said, "'A' is like 'the "A"' whereas a 'the' is 'A "the".' Capiche? Wakaru?" Here, I would say something like "a cob" could be sitting in the garbage whereas "the cob" would mean "the cob that is attached to the corn," thus "the cob" jibes logically and rolls off the tongue whereas "a cob" could be this cob [here interviewee produces a twelve-week old cob]. Then we went and had some fry bread while the interviewer told me about how I would have to live in an apartment provided by the company so they could make more money off of me.

"Oh."

FUNNEL CAKES!

The easiest way to recognize the hot new trend-setters in carnival food technology is to find the trailer with the least amount of garish lighting and signage. Everything's so new there's no time for advertising, just throw the stuff in grandma's trailer and ROLL! This trailer offered the following foodual item: take a hunk of hot pepper cheese. Then cram that inside a green chili. Then wrap that in turkey, ham, or roast beef. Then dip that in batter. Then what the hell, deep-fry the whole schmeer. Naturally, this is called a Kaktus Kutter. It will have its own talk show in a couple of months, most likely. [I wrote this before examining the note above the knife-wielding chili - part of it reads "as seen on TV!" Talk show. One month.]

Ah, now the name makes much more sense. The chili itself kuts the kaktus with a knife, and therefore it ... what?

I have invented a new foodstuff for which I am hurriedly installing an antiseptic operating theatre in my trailer. It is called the Kardhouse Keep-Kried Korn Kangioplasty. I take a pot roast, cram that inside a Turducken which is then slammed inside an eel, that goes inside a rotating gyro slab, which is then crammed into '57 Cadillac and driven across the border and stuffed with drug-infused churros then driven back and jammed with wrapped candy and panicky messages from castaways, which is then stuffed into a cardboard box, dipped in a light crispy deep batter and mailed third-class to the underwater post office in Vanatu where it is made available for general pick-up. VOTE FOR KANGIOPLASTY 2004

This carnival trailer is at every carnival. It must be a pretty sweet ride, trailer-wise, because no matter what carnivalesque event I attend, there will be this exact model trailer parked in the food section. Is there a catalog you purchase to order food trailers? I must have this theoretical catalog.