Does eating fried food make you fat?

I've been going to the Texas State fair for over 40 years. I'm not sure if the food here is what made me fat, but it sure didn't make me skinny.

The State Fair has been cooking up award winning fried food for decades and I've always wanted to try my hand at capturing that famous fried food prize. So I've come up with some good suggestions for this year's fried fracas and I want y'all to vote for the one you think could win.

I was watching a cooking show about fudge! How about some Fried Fudge? Whoa! That just sounds too decadent. But I'll leave it up to the judges...

One of the biggest things in Texas is the gravy. Yep, Fried Gravy would be fun to eat. You could put it on top of anything else that is fried, like chicken fried steak, the national main dish of the Lone Star State.

I made Banana Pudding today and I think it would be a great idea for a new Texas fried food! There is no reason not to fry pudding. And you can use the vanilla wafers for the crust to fry it up in.

How to find the Dallas State Fair - Enter your current location in the box and submit:

Chicken Fried Steak and Gravy!

Everything gets fried in this state!

Even Chicken! Yes, we have chicken fried chicken as well as chicken fried steak. Another way to put it is deep fried food.

The Texas State Fair has an amazing history for the perfection of deep fried foods. The corny dog, which has now traveled all over the U. S. of A. was first fried in a deep vat of Texas oil.

Beside the traditional way of cooking in Texas, we also cover everything in gravy too! So it's a natural! We need to deep fry some gravy this year!

in 2009, the winner of the most creative fried food was, oh, you'll never guess, Fried Butter! The 2009 best taste winner was - Fernie's deep fried peaches and cream. Every Texan went crazy for these!

Other lovely fried appetizers at the fair were:

• Deep fried peanuts
• Stuffed wings on a stick (another favorite preparation method for Texas food)
• Texas Bar-B-Que Boomerangs
• Deep fried pizza
• Fried turkey on a stick
• Fried chocolate jalapeno
• Texas pig candy

2013 Favorites:

1. Awesome Deep Fried Nutella - Cream cheese and Nutella with phyllo dough.
2. Deep Fried Cuban Roll - pork shoulder, ham, cheese, pickles and secret sauce in a pastry dough. Served with mojo sauce.
3. Fernie's Deep Fried King Ranch Casserole - melted cheese fried in panko bread crumbs and served with tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, or queso.
4. Fried Thanksgiving Dinner - turkey and stuffing balls rolled in creamed corn, then rolled in seasoned cornmeal, and fried. Served with giblet gravy and cranberry sauce.
5. Golden Fried Millionaire Pie - cream cheese and pineapple and pecans wrapped in pie crust and fried. Topped with whipped cream, toasted coconut and candied pecans.
6. Spinach Dip Bites - spinach artichoke dip bites, coated with crispy tortilla chips and fried. Served with salsa.
7. Southern Style Chicken-Fried Meatloaf - Chicken-fried meatloaf slices. Served with garlic mashed potatoes, cream gravy and a glaze.
8. Texas Fried Fireball - pimento cheese, pickles, cayenne, and bacon balls, dipped in buttermilk, coated with a jalapeno batter and fried. Served with chipotle ranch dipping sauce.(Wow)

2014 Favorites:

• Chicken Fried Loaded Baked Potato - baked potato, butter, bacon, cheddar cheese - rolled into a ball, dipped in batter and fried!
• Deep Fried Breakfast for Dinner - scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, bacon, potatoes, ham, onion, cheddar cheese and gooey cinnamon roll bits stuffed into a flour tortilla burrito and fried.
• Deep Fried Blueberry Muffin - blueberry muffin, scone-style batter that is stuffed with cream cheese, blueberries and sweet morsels of white chocolate.
• Fried Texas - fresh pie dough filled with crunchy pecan pie, juicy peach cobbler, and creamy buttermilk pie, then topped with Blue Bell ice cream!

Oh, there's more! But you have to go to the Texas State Fair to really experience the true essence of fried Coke, Bubblegum, Funnel Cakes and Corny Dogs!

2015 Favorites

1. Fernie's Holy Moly Carrot Cake Roly
2. Smoky Bacon Margarita
3. Chicken Fried Lobster with Champagne Gravy
4. Cowboy Corn Crunch
5. Deep Fried Alligator's Egg Nest
6. Beer Battered Buffalo
7. Lone Star Pork Handlle
8. Pretzel Crusted Pollo Queso

Who knows what the will come up with in 2016 - maybe Deep Fried Brownies, candy bars, biscuits, alligator....

2016 Winners to be posted soon!

Contact me to send in your ideas. Maybe we'll have a prize drawing for the best idea! I will post them here on this web page.