By the time you read this, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s food team will be on our way to tasting all 33 official new State Fair foods, plus dozens of others making their debut (just without the “official” designation). We’re filled with caffeine and enthusiasm: This is our Super Bowl.
Preparation started weeks ago, before we even knew deep fried ranch existed. When the official food list was released, reporter Sharyn Jackson sprung into action researching vendors and their new offerings, which resulted in a detailed spreadsheet and our first day fair food route, broken down by zones. It’s a masterpiece.
On First Day Eve, we vow to eat only salad and obsessively check the weather, knowing that rain or blazing heat will drastically affect our day (it was 79 degrees at dawn last year 🥵). We also assemble our toolkit, which includes: admission tickets, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, plastic silverware, napkins, cellphone, portable phone chargers, Tums, cash, credit card, refillable water bottle, sunscreen, notebooks, pens and our route. Comfortable shoes and clothes are a must, as is a step tracker. Seeing 20,000-plus steps at the end of the day takes some of the sting out of all the calories.
This year, in addition to Sharyn and me, our team includes writer Joy Summers and assistant Taste editor Nancy Ngo, as well as photographer Leila Navidi, and Abby Sliva and Ashley Miller from our Audience team. (If you see us in our new green Taste Team T-shirts, be sure to say hi!) We’ll photograph, record, tweet and talk about each bite we take, for better or worse. We will have favorites, we will be surprised and more than likely we will disagree about food rankings. And by the last bite, we might be a little cranky.
Once we leave the fairgrounds, the work begins as we write, edit and process photos and videos to get our reviews online as quickly as possible. After a 15ish-hour day, we’ll plot our return to the fair — we all go back multiple times — and eat a salad.
- Nicole Hvidsten, Taste editor
