What makes this festival so great is the large, and I do mean large, amount of food available for consumption throughout the event. Four blocks of Franklin St. in E'ville are blocked off for six days. Along one side of one block of the street is the Midway where kids of all ages can spend their money on cotton candy, candied apples, rides and games to win crappy prizes. It's a grand time.
But the other three blocks and the four blocks on the other side of the street are where the real magic occur. This is where all the local groups set up their food booths to raise money for their organizations.
What I like to do when I get there is to walk the course and check out the items I might like to munch on while I'm there. In doing this, not only am I checking out the goodies available, but since a lot of items are available at different places, this allows me to find the cheapest prices. Maximizing your spending here is crucial.
However, I didn't arrive until almost one o'clock. Since I had had nothing to eat today, I decided to go ahead and get something quickly. The one item I had on my mind was the Texas Tenderloin. This wonderful sandwich is a fried pork tenderloin that hangs off of a regular sized bun by about an inch all the way around. A huge sandwich. And like I said, I was hungry. So I picked up one of these bad boys at the first booth I came to. I was too hungry to take a photo. I had to eat it right away.
My mom went with me and luckily she was hungry, too, so she spotted a Walking Taco that she thought would hit the spot.
And according to her, it did. Now, the Walking Taco is interesting. As you can see, the variety she got was the paperboat filled with Fritos, taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream. There actually are two other varieties: the kind that is served in the Frito bag itself and the kind that is served in a cone made out of a taco shell.
Mom prefers the open boat. Also, there are things called Haystacks, which are the same as walking tacos. Go figure.
As always, there are many things to eat and drink. I didn't get photos of everything, but here is a sampling of the unusual offerings: Pig Lickers (slices of fried bacon dipped in chocolate), Gator Gumbo, YooHoo Milkshakes (I did try one of these, and oh my was it good), BBQ Grippochos (Grippo's BBQ chips covered in BBQ -- didn't try this but really wish I had), Fried Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (I really wish I had tried that, too), and, of course Brain Sandwiches. Yes, I said brains. No, I did not eat one, but the two booths that have those usually have the longest lines. Here was one:
Yes, the sign up top says: Daughters of the Nile Brain Booth. For just $6 you could have a pile of fried pork brains on a bun to devour for your pleasure.
Also, you can get just about anything fried: candy bars, Twinkies, pickles, green beans, green tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms and macaroni and cheese. And don't forget the staples of any fall festival/festival-type gathering: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, lemon shake-ups, ice cream, nachos, onion rings and french fries.
I don't usually get that kind of stuff because I can really get that anywhere. However, one thing that has always confused me is the Corn Dog and the Pronto Pup. They look the same but I've never had a PP and have always wondered the difference. According to Wikipedia, the difference is this.
In addition to my Texas Tenderloin, I also had a double-sausage burger with pickle.
Mom had the funnel cake. Also a solid choice, but I passed on that for the Yoo Hoo milkshake. I also had some cherry cider.
Yes, apple is good, but if you like cherries and have never had cherry cider, you really should try it sometime. And this was locally made. Even better.
Oh, and I can't forget the mutton sandwich I got to bring home.
As for sweets, we also bought a couple of bags of French Waffles. No, these are nothing like regular waffles, and I don't know what is so French about them. They actually are made by dipping a shaped iron into batter and then dipping into hot oil to fry it. The cooked batter then slides off the iron and is heavily coated in powdered sugar. My grandmother used to make them when I was a kid.
But the ones we bought didn't look like that. My mom is a great bargain shopper and the lady selling these had two bags that had broken. So she gave us $2 off per bag. We aren't picky, and you have to break them to eat them anyway, so no problem for us.
After we had walked around a couple of times, eaten some good food and had some good drink, we were ready to roll. And this is what I felt like:
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