- 11.23.2009
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51°F
Get ready for the 2009 N.C. State Fair! We just couldn't wait until the fair starts on Oct. 15 to begin reporting on its annual 10-days of statewide competitions, thrilling rides and everything fried on a stick.
In this blog, we'll touch base with some of you who are already baking up that blue ribbon cake or polishing the hooves on your champion steer. We'll also keep you up-to-date on what's going to be new and different about the fair this year.
Fun with pecans
As the food writer at The News & Observer, Andrea Weigl is asked to judge a lot of cooking contests. The State Fair is no different.
Today, Weigl judged the N.C. Pecan Association contest, which sought recipes for appetizer, main course or a dessert involving 1 cup of pecans. As you might imagine, she tasted a lot of sweet pecan desserts: Pecan Cupcakes with Apple Butter Cream Cheese Frosting, Harvest Honey Pecan Cakes, even Pecan Turtle Fudge Pie.
Andrea sent us the following dispatch from the judging room, explaining how things work:
"The judging is blind. The judges read the recipes but don't know who authored the recipe and entered the dish.
The judges were split into two groups. My group tasted 12 of the 24 entries. The other three judges tasted the other 12. Then each group collectively ranked our top four and tasted the other team's top four. Then each judge individually ranked their top four out of the top eight dishes.
I'm always surprised by what I learn about my palate during these contests: that cream cheese and grapes make a nice salad with brown sugar and pecans on top; that I can have a wildly different view on a pecan-glazed brie dish than another judge.
In the end, I believe sweetness fatigue contributed to my first choice, a wild rice strudel with pecans, which ultimately won the blue ribbon. Who would have guessed? The creator of that recipe turned out to be Felice Bogus, the competitive cook I wrote about last year as I followed her testing recipes for the State Fair's cooking contests.
