People like the rodeo for many reasons, but for my money there’s nothing better than the food.
It was with this in mind I set out to the rodeo last weekend in search of the most interesting carnival food available – after arming myself with a water bottle, a pack of antacids and a belly full of kale salad in the vain hope of mitigating the intestinal damage that comes from a day’s worth of carnival food.
I opted to begin my feast at the van advertising “Native Tacos” where I picked up a bannock burger.
Sheldon Cardinal explained what goes into a bannock burger as he prepared it. It is in every way like your typical burger, except instead of the usual sesame-seed bun it’s served on a piece of freshly deep-fried bannock, a type of simple fried bread popular in aboriginal Canadian cultures.
“It’s a traditional bread that’s been handed down from generation to generation,” he said. “It’s something that we’re very proud of, and it’s very competitive.”
About halfway through the burger I began to wonder how my stomach was going to react to it – we Neumans have never been known as “iron guts” – but my taste buds found little to complain about. Apparently, nobody else has negative feedback about the bannock-and-meat combos Cardinal serves up.
“I’ve never heard one person say anything bad about it,” he said.
Looking around for more in the way of unique, deep-fried offerings, I felt a little disappointed with the typical fare. While I had heard about crazy items like cricket pizza at some other fairs, there was nothing of the sort on the menu at the Rainmaker.
Making the best of a bad situation, I picked up a corn dog and slathered it in mustard before picking up a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade with which to wash it all down on a little piece of shady grass I found on the busy fair ground.
By this time my stomach, which was eternally grateful to have a bed of raw vegetables to help soak up all the grease, was letting me know there was only room left for dessert.
Again I bypassed all the usual fare and went for two items I had never tried before. First off, I picked up some bacon-maple mini donuts, which were even more delicious than they sound.
Lorne Beckett explained he’s been selling the modern twist on the classic mini donut for about three years, and demand is steady.
He said he got the idea to break out of the mould and try the bacon-maple donuts after eating breakfast one day and wondering if he could make his mini-donuts even better. He decided that everyone likes bacon, so he tried it and found it to be delicious.
“It’s like having pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. It’s the exact same flavour, basically,” he said.
In the food stand right next to Beckett’s, Ryan Carlos was offering some of his dessert inventions, including a “crazy cone,” which is soft-serve ice cream served in a hollowed-out candy-cane shaped cone made from cornmeal. I was more intrigued, however, by the “frosty nachos” he was selling.
“I make these rice discs and put on icing and cinnamon sugar, chocolate swirls, ice cream, sprinkles and apple-pie filling,” he said. “It’s like eating nachos, but it’s an ice-cream dessert.”
The experience was indeed similar to eating a plate of nachos, but by the time I got halfway through, the kale salad I began my day with had no more capacity to absorb junk food, I had to give up.
It was delicious through and through, but I was sure happy to have brought that roll of antacids with me.
