Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Of Bacon And Walking Tacos [Food At The Florida State Fair]

Posted Feb 11, 2009 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 11, 2009 at 12:50 PM

The past few days, numerous co-workers have pegged me to ask if I’ve been to the Florida State Fair.

Not yet, I’ve told them.

They then go on to regale me with stories of fried cookies and bacon dipped in chocolate. That’s like trying to describe a sunset over Grand Canyon. Something always gets lost in the translation.

So on Tuesday, I joined my friend Tony “Fatso” Siciliano - who writes the On The Grill column for the Tampa Tribune and hosts a radio show of the same name on 970 WFLA on Saturdays - to spend lunch at the fair to check out the grub.

It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with the joys of eating things on a stick. I know full well the pleasure that comes from eating food you should never eat outside of a fair setting. I consider those moments to be intrinsically part of the American experience.

On Tuesday, Tony and I essentially had the fairgrounds to ourselves. The options for self-destruction were almost too much to handle.

“Giant” Pepsi balls? Sounds sticky. And painful.

Some items are more aptly named than others. I only wish that I could have found a tray labeled “Low Self Esteem.”

I won’t say that I regretted some of the decisions I made on Tuesday. But in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to unleash Tony with a bag of carrots on the giraffe feeding tent.

One thing I was very impressed with: the Walking Taco.

I like to think I lead an unsheltered life, but I had never heard of such an item before Tony introduced me to this lovely woman:

When we finally found the chocolate-dipped bacon stand, we were not disappointed by the freak show quality of the hysteria surrounding the item.

As you’ll see in this video, one woman walked up and helped herself to the tray Tony and I were eating from.

For more photos, click on this gallery I shot on Tuesday.