Texas Monthly has a long history of lightly roasting the State Fair of Texas for its Big Tex Choice Awards nominees. The list of specialty fair food offered every year has felt like it got progressively more unhinged, making fried Oreos seem positively pedestrian. (Some might remember 2018’s cotton candy tacos or 2023’s Fruity Pebble pickles.) Now we have a clue as to why.
Until this year, no one at the State Fair of Texas was required to actually taste the entries until they got to the semifinalist stage. Of course, it may not surprise you that the wacky dishes on offer are mainly marketing efforts, designed to get curious people trying and sharing—and expressing outrage about—them. But it still feels like a shocking oversight.
When asked what prompted the change, the fair’s communications director, Taylor Pulfer, wrote in an email, “We’re always looking for ways to improve our process for the Big Tex Choice Awards competition. With ample planning we were able to execute the new process seamlessly for 2024. Our team felt that by having each entry item tasted, prior to selecting the semi-finalists, that we could evaluate the taste from the start of the competition and ultimately provide a more fair and equitable competition to our concessionaires.”
It certainly can be lucrative for the entrants: some Big Texas finalists (10 are selected every year) report making $200,000 in 24 days.
When the Big Tex Choice Awards started in 2005, it was an effort to increase temptations beyond corny dogs and candy apples—but the organization didn’t foresee how popular it would become.
“In twenty years, it has become this cultural phenomenon,” Pulfer says. The first year of the awards was the only one with a theme, which was “Elvis,” with submissions such as fried peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwiches. Over the years,“we’ve seen a lot,” Pulfer adds.
Fair vendors start by submitting a photo and a description of the dish. (Some even hire professional photographers.) Fair employees look for creativity and “fairgoer appeal,” which means motivating people to attend the fair and generating hype on social media.
Then, fair employees select their favorites to comprise a list of semifinalists, usually announced in June or July. In early August is when the 10 finalists are announced, recognition that comes with a photo in the Dallas Morning News and a Big Tex logo marking the booth on the fair map.
After years of fielding complaints that a few finalist and semifinalist items didn’t live up to the hype, both concessionaires and the State Fair considered the fairness of the competition. This year—finally—a panel of nine fair employees tasted all 65 entries before advancing them to the semifinals. Twenty-four semifinalists were chosen this year. Pulfer maintains that tastes are subjective, though, and organizing a blind tasting of 65 fair foods in six days is no small feat. “To be honest, we had the team in place this year to actually execute it,” she says.
And the change is already shaking things up at the fair, with some longtime finalist vendors getting shut out this year and some repeat entrants finally getting their chance to shine.
Rose and Tom Deschenes, who’ve submitted approximately 13 times in their 37-year run as vendors of the Bailey’s Deli and Catering booth, made it into the finals this year with their Hippie Chips—wavy potato chips topped with house-made blue cheese or ranch dressing, bacon bits, green onions, and sriracha.
“We used to always wonder . . . [if] we were eliminated because we didn’t submit anything fried,” Rose Deschenes says. They’re hiring several new employees in anticipation of the increased demand. “We’ve seen what the crowds can do,” Deschenes says. “The door will swing wide open.”
Another success story is Binh Tran, who under his booth called Pineapple Man, attempted to advance in the competition twenty times. This year, he finally made it with his Tropical Two-Step Punch, a drink of mango, passionfruit, and citrus fruits with the option to add Fireball or rum. Tran, a former hairstylist, called the day he was accepted as a vendor “the most beautiful moment in my life.”
But past winners aren’t feeling too salty. Abel “Fried Jesus” Gonzales—who’s racked up the most awards of all vendors, a total of five—didn’t advance with this deep-fried quesadilla submission this year. No matter—the man who brought us deep-fried butter is undeterred, and even encouraged to continuously improve his product. “The butter I’m selling now is one hundred times better than the butter I was selling the first year,” he says. Christi Erpillo of Fernie’s Funnel Cakes, which has been named a finalist a whopping eighteen times, says her booth’s most profitable year was when it did not make finals. (Even if dishes don’t advance into the semifinalist or finalist rounds, vendors still sell them during the fair.)
Today, superlative awards will be handed out for Most Creative; Best Taste: Savory; and Best Taste: Sweet, as judged by a “celebrity” panel. (Fun fact: This is the first year a food critic—Leslie Brenner, formerly of the Dallas Morning News—has been a judge.)
It’s yet to be determined what the customer reaction will be to this change, if any. Will they opt for something new and fresh, or will they rest on their deep-fried laurels? Either way, we’re happy at least a few people are sampling the goods before unleashing them on the masses.
