Nashville Restaurants and Food
Fair Food
TennesseeState Fairgrounds
Nashville
Ah, the State Fair, home to so many gastro-distressing fried goodies. You can practically hear the grease dripping across town. We love a fair and the State Fair is always fun, despite the obvious shortcomings. Okay, so this isn’t a great state fair. We’ve been to some of the big ones and the Tennessee State Fair definitely needs help. But when it’s 72 degrees and sunny, who can argue? You get plenty of animals, lots of useless stuff hawked by vendors, and a variety of gut busting food to choose from. What could be better?
We started the gastronomic portion of our trip by scanning the vendors, looking for something interesting. Well, sad to say the food portion of the state fair has not improved. It’s still dominated by a bunch of stands selling the obligatory fair items: sausage and peppers, hot dogs, corn dogs, funnel cakes and soft serve ice cream. You do get a few odd variations here and there, like the stand selling pot roast sandwiches or the fried Twinkie.
It seems like the best food at a fair usually comes from a local group specializing in one particular item. In Iowa it’s the Pork Producers Association Tenderloin. It’s pretty much all they do and they know how to do it right. Wisconsin has one of the best fair food selections, with dozens of local restaurants setting up shop, with dozens more community groups selling everything from fried cheese curds to cheese brats. They also have a killer beer garden, needless to say, with dozens of choices on tap.
We scoured the Tennessee State Fair looking for local folks or something interesting. We did find a local Taqueria, but there were not open yet (even though it was 12:30pm). I always have to eat at least one food item on a stick, thus the corn dog in the photo. Kinda weird: you ask for mustard and they spread it all over the corn dog. It was a bit soggy from having sat for a while.
Which brings us to our real find of the fair: Mary Floyd and her Wings and Things stand. She stood out because she didn’t have any raunchy looking food sitting under heat lamps. She makes everything fresh to order. We ordered up cheese fries and barbecue wings and sat back to wait.
Then we noticed the carnies were lining up at Mary’s humble stand. Then a cart full of State Fair employees showed up. We asked and sure enough, all of the workers know Mary and eat at Wings and Things regularly. True to her word, the cheese fries came out hot and crispy. She fries the wings, dips them in the sauce and then broils them for a nice char. All of our food was expertly cooked and
certainly the best we have 
had at the fair. Mary is from Jackson, Tennessee and also comes out for flea market weekends and other state fairground events. Check out the 100 on her health score. It really does pay to look around.
Veggie Eater: The pressure to eat our way through Nashville is becoming overwhelming. Eric informed me upon our arrival to the fair that we had to eat interesting things. I informed him that I was sticking to my original plan, which was bad fair food. Lucky for us, we found the best of bad fair food at the fair. I have a passion for cheesy fries and that is where I gravitated. Let me first digress by stating that last year I had some of the worst bad fair food ever; I was suckered in by a photo of cheesy fries and what I received was barely edible. I was so hungry last year, I ate them
anyway. In any case, the stars were aligned in my favor this year and the fair food gods smiled upon me. The fries were crispy and the oil was fresh. Plenty of that fake nacho cheese stuff. Great people watching spot; managed to knock out birthday gifts for the nieces and nephews at the Peruvian place next door while chowing down on my fries. What was the most fun, though, was to see the obvious pride the owner had for her food and that the fair employees literally flocked to her spot and had only glowing things to say about her food.
Meat Eater: They need better food vendors at the state fair, but as long as Mary is in business we know we have at least one good place to eat.
Nashville
Ah, the State Fair, home to so many gastro-distressing fried goodies. You can practically hear the grease dripping across town. We love a fair and the State Fair is always fun, despite the obvious shortcomings. Okay, so this isn’t a great state fair. We’ve been to some of the big ones and the Tennessee State Fair definitely needs help. But when it’s 72 degrees and sunny, who can argue? You get plenty of animals, lots of useless stuff hawked by vendors, and a variety of gut busting food to choose from. What could be better?
We started the gastronomic portion of our trip by scanning the vendors, looking for something interesting. Well, sad to say the food portion of the state fair has not improved. It’s still dominated by a bunch of stands selling the obligatory fair items: sausage and peppers, hot dogs, corn dogs, funnel cakes and soft serve ice cream. You do get a few odd variations here and there, like the stand selling pot roast sandwiches or the fried Twinkie.
It seems like the best food at a fair usually comes from a local group specializing in one particular item. In Iowa it’s the Pork Producers Association Tenderloin. It’s pretty much all they do and they know how to do it right. Wisconsin has one of the best fair food selections, with dozens of local restaurants setting up shop, with dozens more community groups selling everything from fried cheese curds to cheese brats. They also have a killer beer garden, needless to say, with dozens of choices on tap.We scoured the Tennessee State Fair looking for local folks or something interesting. We did find a local Taqueria, but there were not open yet (even though it was 12:30pm). I always have to eat at least one food item on a stick, thus the corn dog in the photo. Kinda weird: you ask for mustard and they spread it all over the corn dog. It was a bit soggy from having sat for a while.
Which brings us to our real find of the fair: Mary Floyd and her Wings and Things stand. She stood out because she didn’t have any raunchy looking food sitting under heat lamps. She makes everything fresh to order. We ordered up cheese fries and barbecue wings and sat back to wait.Then we noticed the carnies were lining up at Mary’s humble stand. Then a cart full of State Fair employees showed up. We asked and sure enough, all of the workers know Mary and eat at Wings and Things regularly. True to her word, the cheese fries came out hot and crispy. She fries the wings, dips them in the sauce and then broils them for a nice char. All of our food was expertly cooked and
certainly the best we have 
had at the fair. Mary is from Jackson, Tennessee and also comes out for flea market weekends and other state fairground events. Check out the 100 on her health score. It really does pay to look around.Veggie Eater: The pressure to eat our way through Nashville is becoming overwhelming. Eric informed me upon our arrival to the fair that we had to eat interesting things. I informed him that I was sticking to my original plan, which was bad fair food. Lucky for us, we found the best of bad fair food at the fair. I have a passion for cheesy fries and that is where I gravitated. Let me first digress by stating that last year I had some of the worst bad fair food ever; I was suckered in by a photo of cheesy fries and what I received was barely edible. I was so hungry last year, I ate them
anyway. In any case, the stars were aligned in my favor this year and the fair food gods smiled upon me. The fries were crispy and the oil was fresh. Plenty of that fake nacho cheese stuff. Great people watching spot; managed to knock out birthday gifts for the nieces and nephews at the Peruvian place next door while chowing down on my fries. What was the most fun, though, was to see the obvious pride the owner had for her food and that the fair employees literally flocked to her spot and had only glowing things to say about her food.Meat Eater: They need better food vendors at the state fair, but as long as Mary is in business we know we have at least one good place to eat.
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6 comments:
What? No frozenchocolatebananaonastick? No hot apple dumpling? No funnel cake? Grilled corn? What kind of fair is this? Those were all my must-haves at the Mid-South Fair when I lived in Memphis.
ps--okay, I paid more attention to the first picture this time. And I don't really blame you for not getting a funnel cake. They're not fun when it's breezy.
Lesley, rest assured there were plenty of funnel cakes and grilled corn and you're right the corn is a fair food staple and usually pretty good. We disapointed ourselves by eating too much and not leaving room for ice cream. I believe there was a pineapple whip out there with my name on it.
Mmmmmm.....
cheese fries.
Ms...cool wine prices entry in your blog. I think the best thing is not to know what any of the bottles cost in the store....ignorance is bliss. Once you see someone selling Yellow Tail for $20 a bottle it's hard to order anything off the wine list. Hey, Lesley...Katie and I enjoy your blog as well. The veggie insight is always interesting. I have to say your blog is the first food blog I've seen yet to discuss gas. Make sense, if you talk about what goes in...probably gotta consider what goes out.
OMG! I LOVE FAIR FOOD (and bar food, but that is another story)! I could just reach in and take bites of your food!
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