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Monday, March 15, 2010
Food at the rodeo: Pizza on a stick, death on a pale horse
We have a small army covering SXSW, so I spent Sunday at the rodeo finding out what to eat while you wait for the Dairy Milking Show and the livestock ribbons. The full story will run Tuesday night at austin360.com/food, but here’s a preview.
I wasn’t going to talk about the pig races, until they brought up the Oreos.
At the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo’s Swine Sprints, four little piglets rocket around a tiny NASCAR oval. They do it for the Oreo cookies waiting at the finish line, rooting them out like trans-fat truffles.
It’s one of the things you can watch for free with your $7 fairgrounds admission, it’s in a shaded tent with bleacher seats, and your kids will lose their minds over how cute the beagle-sized porkers are.
I went to the rodeo chasing after Oreos, too. The deep-fried kind. Ich bin ein swine? Maybe, but I wasn’t the only cookie chaser. “We came from Southwest Austin to see the monkey ride a dog,” Joe Dickie said. “And to eat deep-fried Oreos.”
Yes, there’s a cowboy-monkey show. But this is a story about what to eat at the rodeo.
First, it helps to know the way of the token. Machines all over the fairgrounds will change your folding money into currency from a land where a Bud Light tallboy equals six tinkly golden coins. One token equals one dollar. Bring cash and lots of it.
You’ll find the Oreos for five bucks a handful at a castle-looking thing called Creamalot, with powdered sugar on top and chocolate sauce on the side. In the fryer, the batter-coated cookies go from breaky to cakey, and without that shelf-stable Oreo crunch, it’s just a doughnut with a cupcake in the middle.
The novelty calories pile up in a hurry. A crisp funnel cake slathered with strawberries and soft-serve ice cream is $7 from the Sundae Cakes trailer. The riddle of the starchy crown — is it fries or chips? — calls out from the King’s Taters truck for $6. Dennis and Vickie Bragg of Michigan are rolling out $4 spears of batter-fried pineapple on a stick for the first time in their Donut Diner.
Sticks are in deep supply at the fairgrounds, functioning as handles for chocolate-dipped cheesecake, shrimp, fried chicken, corn dogs, sausage, mushrooms, marshmallows and more.
Over at the Swain Family pizza place, Ronnie Biggers walked away (eight tokens lighter) with pizza on a stick. Biggers was hard to miss, in part because he was wearing Longhorn-baiting Alabama red, but also because he has a verse from Revelations tattooed neatly across his left forearm, the one about a pale horse and death and all that.
He was visiting from Fort Hood in Killeen, where he’s an Army staff sergeant. He liked the pizza, sort of a calzone lollipop stuffed with “cheese, pepperoni and grease, lots of grease. But it’s good,” he said. And it’s good not to argue with the pizza critic of the Apocalypse.
Bonus:Here’s some information to help you navigate the rodeo:
Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo
7311 Decker Lane. 919-3000, www.rodeoaustin.com.
Hours: 11 a.m. to around 10:30 or 11 p.m. daily (whenever the concert and pro rodeo events end each night) through March 27, except for March 22-26, when the fairgrounds won’t open until 4 p.m.
Fairgrounds admission: $7. $4 for ages 3-12. Free for 2 and younger. Does not include pro rodeo and concert admission. Includes access to food, the carnival, shopping, youth livestock shows and exhibits, outdoor music and a few specialty shows such as pig races and yes, a cowboy monkey.
Pro rodeo and concert admission: $20-$37, includes admission to both (unless concert ticket sales exceed rodeo seating; then concert-only standing-room tickets will be sold). Fairground admission is included if you buy tickets in advance at www.rodeoaustin.com.
Parking: $6 per car.
Carnival rides and games: Prices vary, but even simple rides like a slide can cost $3. Wristbands allowing all-day free rides are $15 through Friday (March 19). After that, they’re $20 in advance at www.rodeoaustin.com or $25 at the fairgrounds.
Note: Bring cash. Vendors accept only tokens. The tokens are $1 each from bill-changing machines throughout the fairgrounds.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter. Clockwise from top left: Concessionaire Jimmy Swain with his family’s trademarked pizza on a stick. An order of deep-fried Oreos will cost you $5. Candy cigarettes inside the General Store. Dennis and Vickie Bragg from Michigan are testing their deep-fried pineapple-on-a-stick at their Donut Diner.)
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Kreuz, Frank, Parkside make Esquire’s ‘Where Men Eat’ list
If you can’t wait for the issue to hit newstands March 23, here’s what Esquire says about our local haunts:
• Frank: “The go-to dog from these “purveyors of artisan sausage” is a twist on the mythical jackalope - a local antelope, rabbit, and pork sausage smothered in huckleberry compote and applewood-smoked cheddar. There’s apparently veggie dogs, too, but we’ve never seen anyone order one.”
• Parkside: “Sixth Street is Austin’s nightlife nexus, and chef Shawn Cirkiel’s Parkside combines a second-floor lounge, a first-floor casual restaurant, and a steel-topped oyster bar where you can knock back a dozen or two bivalves, crab fritters, a fried-egg sandwich, marrow bones, and any of twenty beers - Bootlegger brown ale, made in town, is requisite here - or a specialty cocktail called the Dirty Tito.”
• Kreuz Market: “Slabs of smoked beef and pork arrive on brown butcher paper, and they don’t even bother with sides or barbecue sauce - sauce being an effete affectation that only distracts from the meat.”
(American-Statesman photo)
