Stuffing Myself With Foods on a Stick! Bacchanal at the Minnesota State Fair
My Yearly Bacchanal!
One thing you will discover if you know me long is that I LOVE the Minnesota State Fair. People kinda love it or hate it, and I’m firmly in the lover category. I go at least once every year (used to go 2 or 3 times, but ahem, admission price increases), and have a marathon session of walking around exclaiming over my favorite things while stuffing myself with foods on a stick.
The Minnesota State Fair is the largest state fair in the U.S. by average daily attendance. Often referred to as the “Great Minnesota Get-Together,” the fair is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, attracting more than 2 million guests annually. I prefer to be there with fewer than 2 million people, so I went on a Tuesday.
It was raining on our fair day this year, so we didn’t get to slide down the Giant Slide (wah). As you can see, the outdoors was at times a bit gray and gloomy. We had a ball anyway. And there were only 120,207 other people in attendance that day! Sweet!
Much to exclaim over
Just after we walked in, we passed right by Garrison Keillor. He was walking along with a young lady away from Heritage Square, where I suspect he had a speaking engagement. Something to exclaim over already!
I have made Bee into my fair-going buddy. She can take it or leave it, but claims to have fun going with me. I suspect (*know*) the craft building bores her. I have to inspect every single thing and prefer to do so with someone beside me I can pinch and say, “will you look at that!”
Yes, the Great Minnesota Get-Together is one of the places where I earn my tagline of wandering around exclaiming. In general I am an exclaimer, but there is so much to exclaim over at the fair.
I usually start out by visiting the horticulture building. (Actually, I usually start at the Dairy building and the butterheads, but came in a different entrance this year and actually forgot to go see the butterheads. Oh. Noooo. That would be the heads of the crowned Dairy Princess of Minnesota and 11 finalists. Carved, life-sized, in 90 pounds of butter. Each. Do not miss this Minnesota State Fair must-do!)
Hot for Horticulture
The Agriculture and Horticulture building is a wonder of Art Deco-era architecture. It’s an octagon; the center rotunda has intricate skylights and always a lovely flower display. There’s lots to see in the building, including an entire section on apples (the University of Minnesota has developed some incredible varieties, including the famous Honeycrisp). Try the apple cider, it’s delicious!
My favorites in this building:
- Crop art
- GIANT vegetables
- Flower shows
- Scarecrows
- The bees and honey section (not pictured in this post! Too many pictures! Aarugh)
Crop Art: Crazy Marvelous
Have you ever heard of crop art? Well, crop art is art created with seeds and it is FABULOUS. The Twin Cities was home to the late great Lillian Colton, a crop artist extraordinaire. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts exhibited her work in 2004.
I own one of her portraits, an Elvis. She made it for me when she was in her 90s. When I visited her home to pick it up, she gave me a tour of her work room and her seed storage area and we played a rousing game of Scrabble.
Her daughter, Linda Paulsen, is also an incredible crop artist and appears at the Minnesota State Fair every year demonstrating crop art creation. Lined with row upon row of seed corn and vintage seed sacks, the crops section is home to the crop art competition display, showcasing the yearly contest winners. There is always a line to see the art (while waiting, we ate my lefse from the food building).
I just love what people come up with. There’s a junior category. A senior category. There’s a lot of painting-type works but also some 3-D art and wearables, and there’s always a number of political statements and something featuring famous native son Prince. Mary Tyler Moore depictions are popular, too. The TV station in the Mary Tyler Moore Show was in downtown Minneapolis. She threw her hat on Nicollet Mall.
More info
For more info on crop art at the Minnesota State Fair, visit cropart.com. Want to learn more about Lillian Colton? Check out the book Seed Queen: The Story of Crop Art and the Amazing Lillian Colton, by Colleen Sheehy.
Giant Vegetables (and Watermelon)
Who doesn’t love exclaiming over giant vegetables? The winning pumpkin was 674.5 pounds! Whee! I don’t think those giant zucchinis would taste very good (or anything else after sitting in the hot, humid building for the 12 days of the fair). In case you didn’t know, the alien-looking veggies with the watermelons are kohlrabi. Very tasty, kinda like jicama.
Fabulous Flowers
There’s different displays every day of the Minnesota State Fair for the flower shows. We caught dahlia day. Which makes me very happy. I much prefer dahlias to gladiolas, another frequent star of the flower shows. Sorry, gladiolas. Dahlias rule!
Scarecrow Contest
Trump was a popular scarecrow this year. Hmmm. I like the pink hair one best.
Craving Creative Activities
I loooooove the Creative Activities building so, so much. Crammed full of creativity in many forms, from knitting and crochet to quilts, woodcarving, beading, bedazzling and FOOD—pickles, jams and jellies, pies and cakes galore. All entered in contests hoping to win that coveted Minnesota State Fair blue ribbon!
There is so very much to exclaim over. I am so annoying in this building. There are hundreds of things on display and I want to see them all! I can only give you a sample of the wonders that are the creative activities. The lighting is terrible and everything is in glass cases that glare, but I’ve done my best to show you some of what I consider the top stuff!
Below is a Starry Night all in embroidery (!), a quilt and detail of another quilt (how I love to look at all the quilts. There are racks of ’em) and a miniature porch. The miniatures really fascinated us this year.
Food craft
Also in the Creative Activities building is all the FOOD. I love it so much. I’d love to win a blue ribbon for my pickles, or something. Is there anything more beautiful than your own root cellar stocked with jars of preserves you have made yourself? No, but if there were, it would be the case of prize-winning jellies at the Minnesota State Fair. So many beautiful colors, and jelly, my friends, represents many hours of hard labor. It is not easy to get it that clear and gorgeous!
The cake display had me spellbound. Loving everything sugar as I do, especially cake, this is no surprise. Soooo many cakes, oh my. I have more interest in the pies now, too, having begun my pie baking lessons. I doubt I could ever get a pie looking as good as the blue-ribbon winner pictured below. The decorated cookies were really spectacular; pictured is some kind of patriotic sugar cookie display. Love the depictions of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Harriet Tubman.
Art for the Artsy
And for all you culture snobs out there, the Minnesota State Fair has ART! A whole building dedicated to it, no less! In fact, it’s the largest juried art exhibition in Minnesota. Another building in which I must exhaust Bee and myself perusing absolutely all that is on the walls.
Sharing a few of my favorites from the amazing selection of 2018. Below, #1 is an oil, #2 mixed media. Tiny little accordion-folded magazines (!) make up the Van Gogh, and the sculpture is basswood and aluminum.
After Dark
It’s a must, of course, to visit the Mighty Midway after dark and see all the bright lights. The New York ride was my favorite thing on the midway this year. Dazzling.
The Big Wheel (not on the midway, but near machinery hill) is a new-ish State Fair icon and a neon spectacular. The ever-changing light show is quite mesmerizing. I can’t recommend riding it, though.
We did, for $5 a person. Bee and I couldn’t sit next to each other in the oversize car (not very romantic to be in there with 4 other people, anyway). We were on the “bad” side of the car for the views, and steel mesh on 3 sides and smeary plastic on the 4th obscured them, anyway. To top it off, the whole ride consisted of exactly 3 turns. Seriously underwhelmed. And there was no Ferris wheel on the midway!
Since I’m complaining, the Blue Ribbon Bargain Book was so NOT a bargain this year. I’d really like to see State Fair admission prices lower. And a vendor actually harassed us. I mean, someone there representing their company trying to sell stuff. Um, good tactic. Hope this is not symptomatic of our times. Will be in contact with the fair about the incident.
Foods on a Stick!
Eating one’s way around the Minnesota State Fair is a thing. We all have our faves and I can only say, here are some of mine. I always get the lefse in the Food Building; it is a nice palate cleanser from pretty much everything else, neither fried nor fatty. My faves, unsurprisingly, lean toward the sweet.
I love the Fudge Puppies: a Belgian waffle, on a stick, dipped in chocolate and covered in whipped cream and sprinkles. What’s not to like? I also love the cream puffs, in which you can have your whipped cream flavored vanilla or chocolate. I choose chocolate, of course. Bee ate half, in case you’re wondering.
The corn roast is classic Minnesota State Fair and always delicious. And neither fried nor fatty! The French fries are both, but yum. We had some other stuff too, like mini donuts, which we consumed forgetting to take a photo. Oops. Watch them make the mini donuts from the footstool provided.
Bit of trivia: How many ears of corn does the corn roast booth go through each day? A: 25,000 ears. Whew.
Classic Minnesota State Fair
Other things I love are the classic and vintage concessions buildings at the fair. My absolute favorite is Kones after dark, but Cheese on a Stick is so classic and wonderful as well. More of a daytime delight, and right next to the beautiful vintage Merry-go-Round.
A friend’s mother, who is right around 77, told me she rode that selfsame Merry-Go-Round when she was a kiddo. Apparently quite a lot. She mentioned something about riding for 2 hours.
Sky-riding Away
Another must-do for me is one of the sky rides. The Minnesota State Fairgrounds are huge (322 acres, to be exact). This is good, as you walk around getting some mild exercise after having consumed approximately one billion calories. (Do I exaggerate? Sadly, no.) Tired? Just want to have fun? Hop on one of the sky rides for either a one-way or a roundtrip.
The parking lot where we were to catch the bus back to our car (the fair has a great park and ride system) happened to be at one end of a sky ride. Trundling along in a cable car with my sweetie—over the neon lights of the State Fair after dark—saturated with sugar and resting my tired tootsies? Bliss.
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Minneapolis is a great place to have summer fun. Come visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with me, then have a picnic on the Mississippi River and watch spectacular fireworks from the Stone Arch Bridge.
Check out my Minnesota road trips for more summer fun: Minnesota Road Trip: Camping in Itasca State Park and Road Trip to Roseau.
Upcoming post: Road trip to the beautiful North Shore of Lake Superior. Stay tuned!
I have also written about a few urban adventures in New York City. I have Misadventures in the New York City Subway, I encounter Nice New Yorkers, I Eat and See stuff, and I visit Ancient Egypt at the Met.
Check out fabulous travel posts on The Weekly Postcard! Click link below:
WOW!!! What a cool article to read! This sounds like so much fun! And the crop art is truly fascinating! Adding one more adventure to our bucket-list! Thanks so much for sharing, Cynthia!
Thanks so much for reading! Crop art really is a-maizing (lol) if you see it in person I know you will love it. The MN State Fair truly is an adventure 😊
How I love your photos….
Thanks so much! You can see how much I love the Minnesota State Fair. I have about a million more photos. 😉
Love this post! Reminds me of my midwestern days. Shared it on our Facebook page as well. Thanks for bringing back great memories!
Thanks Zanne! Come back and visit us!
Food on a stick is the best kind of food. I’ve never heard of Crop Art. It looks so cool.
It’s true, and makes it so much easier to eat standing up! Crop art is a hidden treasure of Minnesota, for sure 😉
This looks like an amazing time!! I totally love the crop art!
Thanks, Elisa! It is so much fun, you have to come and visit 😀
Great post – love the idea of visiting a state fair. Being from the UK it’s the stuff of movies, but I find one of the best ways to experience a place is to experience it like a local. We have County Fair’s in the UK, but they normally only last a few days, and they show what’s best about the countryside. Food on a stick, what’s not to love,
Cheers,
Gary
Hi Gary, thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. I’m really curious about these UK county fairs, will have to do some research. Another person mentioned standing about in a wet field grumbling? Haha thanks again for reading 😉
Great post. Though I’m not big on state fairs, I love the art, flowers, vegetables and scarecrows. I especially like the crop art and the fact that the University of Minnesota developed Honey-crisp apples. Who knew?
Not only did they develop them, the Minnesota-grown ones really taste the best as they’re designed for our climate! Even if you’re not a fair person, this one really has something for everybody. Thanks for reading, Dorothy!
Looks like so much fun! Those vegetables are huge! And all those cakes and pies, ugh can you say heaven 😁 Looks like it was a lot of fun. I love fairs too! 🤗
Hey Paolo, thanks for stopping by. Heaven is definitely a multitude of pies and cakes. Curious to know more about fairs in Canada. 😉
the worst thing ever is that I read this post while hungry. I love roasted corn and the fair looks amazing! I have yet to venture to my own local fairs. Lived in Southern California all my life and haven’t been to any fairs. Can you believe that? The goal is that next year we go and take our girls. They’ll be tall enough to get on a lot of rides. #TheWeeklyPostcard
Hi Alice! Well yes, you must start making up for this right away! Your girls will love going on rides and eating fair food. You might even like it yourself 🙂 Thanks much for reading.
State Fairs are so fun! So much to see and do. I love that you take the time to explore all of the different categories. It seems like most people just hit the midway and big events. There is so much Americana in those fair entries! And the seed art is spectacular – where else will you find that? (Gotta say, partial to Fair-opoly myself.) Thanks for sharing with us on #TheWeeklyPostcard!
Thank you, Rob! Isn’t the seed art amazing? I had about a billion other pictures, but one has to narrow it down! There were even shoes made from seeds. I didn’t have room for the bees and honey section. There’s everything made out of honey and to do with bees. Sculptures out of beeswax. A display of dozens of colors of honey. Sigh. Always a pleasure to linkup with #TheWeeklyPostcard!
You do like things big in the States don’t you? Those pumpkins (squash) were huge! You could get a whole lot of pumpkin soup out of those bad boys. I loved the crop art too, I’d like to get a portrait of myself made out of seeds. But the cake stall could have me if it played it’s cards right. So much cake! We don’t really have state fairs in England, we just like to stand in a soggy field in the rain and drink warm beer, telling everyone what a great time we’re having but muttering to ourselves about the calamity of it all.
Hello Paul, thanks for reading! What do you call this event in the soggy field muttering? It’s true, Americans do seem to be obsessed with the biggest this or that (!) Don’t think the giant pumpkins would make good soup, too stringy, I’d guess. All the giant veg get composted at the end of the fair. Lillian Colton used to take commissions for portraits. I’m sure she would have loved to do yours, and challenged you to a rousing game of Scrabble, as well 🙂
What a bonanza for the eyes and stomach! I would love looking at all the crafts and flowers on display. Those giant veggies are truly giant (and maybe just a little bit scary). Had a good laugh at all those Trump-inspired scarecrows. I wonder if they work? I would definitely have to have a roasted corn cob and some of that real lemonade. That would be enough for me! #theweeklypostcard
Thanks, Deborah! The giant vegetables are just a bit frightening. Hard to say if the scarecrows work but they sure were entertaining. Corn and lemonade, and that’s it? I don’t think we could let you get away with that!
Never thought of Minneapolis, but this looks like a great reason to go! #TheWeeklyPostcard
Thank you, Wendy! One of only many reasons to visit Minneapolis, I can assure you!
Oh wow, what a unique state fair!! Love that combination or food, horticulture and art! Thanks for linking up with #TheWeeklyPostcard!
Thanks much, Lorelei! It truly is unique. I’m with you—What could be better than food, horticulture and art combined?
Wow, they serve lefse 🙂 #theweeklypostcard
Yep, this is the land of lefse! It is so good and I love to get it at the fair!
I don’t like the potato ones, like the sweet, thick ones 🙂
I have not been to the Minnesota State Fair but it reminds me of the Texas State Fair which I used to go to every year. We actually used to get a day off of school to go. The food all looks delicious, too bad about the ferris wheel. We rarely got to ride the one at the State Fair of Texas because it was expensive (not sure how much). Thanks for sharing on #TheWeeklyPostcard
A day off school! That is fantastic! I think they should do that here 😉 I bet the Texas State Fair is unique and I’d love to see it sometime. Eating at the fair is one of my fave pastimes. Thanks for reading!
Wow, Cynthia, the food looks great. But my favorite would be the craft fair. I knit, and crochet, and… all the rest. The knitted/crocheted Elvis and the ox is something… I would never make something like that, but it’s interesting; just shows you can knit anything ;). But I’d have to say I love the quilts in your photos, and the embroidery… I am not much for crowds, but this is one fair I would enjoy. Thanks for sharing on #TheWeeklyPostcard.
You’d have to go on one of the slower days, like I did! If you’re a needleworker you would LOVE the Creative Activities building. There was so much amazing needlework, I couldn’t even begin to show it all. The huge Elvis and ox was something they actually made last year—I have a friend who is big into crochet and was involved in making the large figures (there are more!). The embroidery is especially beautiful but so hard to show well in a photo. Thanks as always for stopping by and commenting! 🙂
Wow! So much stuff to do and see at this fair! Crazy, you make want to fly over just for the sake of seeing the huge veggies! You could surely spend a week wandering around and not having it seen all!
Marta & Max | https://www.connectedhorizons.co.uk
Hi there, Marta and Max! It’s true, some people even go every day, there’s so much to see and do. Thanks so much for checking out my blog. Look forward to visiting yours!
I had so much fun reading this post about the MN State Fair! I can really picture the things you described. It’s worth the time waiting for your new post. Love it!
Thanks, Anon, I know it was quite a wait!
This looks like so much fun! A lot more variety than many of the fairs I’ve visited over the years. Ah, the classic trade-off: bad weather but less foot traffic, more difficult lighting for pics but easy, unobstructed access. I’ll take the thinner crowds, thanks. I particularly love the fact that you mention eating stuff you forgot to photograph. We do that all the time! LOL Btw, for my money, give me the Norwegian potato flatbread, the grilled corn, and the cream puffs (you can never go wrong there).
Hi there Mad Hats! Not only did I eat stuff I forgot to photograph, I started eating things THEN remembered to photograph them! That’s why the lefse is nibbled on and my corn has a big bite out of it! Haha! Like you, I’ll take thinner crowds over perfect weather any day, as otherwise things can get a bit claustrophobic. I didn’t even begin to touch on the variety of this fair; I didn’t have time to visit the animals, the machinery, the pop-up campers, or the recycled everything building. Maybe next year. Urbanites that you are, I know you’ll be waiting with bated breath 😉
Of course, we will!!! Btw, I know those cakes were from the contest, but did they allow for purchase of a slice aside from just looking at them? If not, I call foul on the cruelty of making you look at cake without getting to eat cake. 😀
You must call foul! All the cakes, pies and so forth are for display only! Sob.