Culinary Magic at the County Fair

By Elisabeth Fondell

Magic is hard to find these days. Too busy to notice or too serious to care, our lives don’t make much space for it. But it is indeed alive in unlikely places near and far. We must only open our eyes.

Being back at the county fair immediately took me to my youth, evoking memories of funnel cakes, wristband day, the Zipper ride, mini donuts, the children’s barnyard petting zoo, cotton candy, and crowds of teenagers smoking fake, light-up cigarettes. Absent for more than a decade, my last visit to the fair was as a sophomore in high school riding the Ferris wheel with mild uncertainty, thinking I was perhaps too old for the childish rides at the fair.

Returning to the fair as a 30-year-old, I witnessed a different place. So much looked and smelled the same: the buildings, the grandstand, the 4-H tent selling barbeques and pie, the livestock. But for the first time, I noticed deeper layers. I saw the multi-colored tin siding and its stripes of candy red, arctic blue, olive green, and bright lemon that I never noticed as a kid. I noted the attractive font on the livestock signs. The vibrant grass against the crimson schoolhouse caught my eye along with the gold splashes of color on the fry bread food truck and the indigo and teal of the midway rides and mini donut signs.

The Lac Qui Parle County Fair is nowhere close in size to the great Minnesota State Fair. But for a fair in rural southwestern Minnesota, in a town of about 1,500 people, in one of the least populated counties in the state, it’s quite spectacular to see the crowds of people filling the midway. I saw all kinds of people: people I haven’t seen in years, old classmates with their children, country neighbors, friends, strangers.

As I looked out at this constant stream of people, I couldn’t help but see the big picture. Everybody was somebody, was part of something, was part of the story. Rather than differences, the focus was on the uniting force of something greater. In a time that feels constantly divided, where one can’t look left or right without opinions being disputed, this basic humanness was a tiny bit of magic.

The poet Denise Levertov says in her poem Beginners, “We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle. So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture, so much is in bud.” As I walked around the county fair, I couldn’t help but agree with her. We are still learning how to live side by side, engage in life together, understand differences, listen to reason, and compromise. What better place to start than the county fair while devouring a beef commercial and chocolate milkshake next to your fellow prairie dweller?

The fair gave me new hope. As the patrons of the fair chatted in line for spicy bacon-cheeseburger fried bread, wandered about with towering sticks of cotton candy, and toured the blue ribbon preserves in the home arts building, there was a tangible sense of community. No matter affiliation, political views, or socio-economic class, everybody was just somebody enjoying the culinary magic of the county fair.

As the poet, environmental activist, and farmer, Wendell Berry, says, “what we need is here.” It is here at the county fair, among the rides and the corndogs, among the preserved jellies and pickled cucumbers, among the sheep and the giant rabbits and jumbo chili dogs. It is here in this place that may seem common but is full of shared existence. It is here amidst the magic of the neon lights in the sky at dusk. It is here, and it is growing. So much is in bud.

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Beginners by Denise Levertov is from Selected Poems published by New Directions Books in 2002.