RALEIGH, N.C. — OK, it’s actually good.
I’m as surprised as anyone — actually, probably more surprised — but yes, I’m talking about the rattlesnake corndog created and served by the Iowa-based Pioneer Wagon food stand at this year’s North Carolina State Fair.
Since the State Fair announced the more than 40 new foods being offered at this year’s 11-day event, I’ve had my taste buds curiously set on the exotic take on the classic fair food.
Naturally, my first question about it was: What in the actual heck is a rattlesnake corndog? But I had several other queries, too: Where does the vendor get the rattlesnake? How did they come up with such an idea? And, perhaps most important, does it taste good?
I thought I’d get my answers at Media Day last week, an annual pre-fair event in which local media get to sample and rank the new foods being offered at the fair. But the vendor wasn’t there, and my rattlesnake dreams (and nightmares) lived on.
Undeterred, and in the name of service journalism, I set out to the State Fairgrounds to give the corndog a try — and get some answers to my burning questions.
Here’s what I thought, and what I learned.
‘Only company in the country that does rattlesnake corndogs’
Hoping to beat the lunch rush, I arrived to the Pioneer Wagon stand, located near the State Fair Flyer’s Orville Terminus, around 10 a.m. Tuesday. There, I found Chris Taylor, the stand’s owner, who was ready to answer all of my questions and, of course, prepare for me a rattlesnake corndog, freshly hand-dipped and deep-fried.
Perhaps anticipating my line of questioning, Taylor made two key points early on.
“Yes, it is really rattlesnake,” he told me. “No, it does not taste like chicken.”
But, what actually is the rattlesnake corndog?
Taylor told me that it’s made of wild-caught, ground rattlesnake meat from the Texas desert that’s formed into a cased sausage, then dipped into corndog mix and fried. The fried product is then topped with “venom sauce,” or an avocado-green chile salsa. (I learned on a return trip to the stand that the snake meat is mixed with rabbit meat, in an undisclosed ratio, to form the sausage.)
The snake meat, Taylor said, is sourced from the West Texas desert and is processed in a facility approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And, of course, it’s served on a stick, “because fair food is meant to be on a stick,” Taylor said.
The final product is something meant to “taste like a well-seasoned bratwurst sausage,” he said.
And oh, was it seasoned.
I was surprised, from my very first bite, by the amount of flavor and spice packed into the sausage.
Any “gamey-ness” of the meat was eliminated by cooking it in Chardonnay wine and “a touch a jalapeno,” Taylor said. The fried outer layer of corndog batter added a slight sweetness, and the venom sauce added a much-appreciated freshness and zestiness.
For all of my pre-tasting nerves about trying it, it makes sense that the corndog was actually good.
Taylor and his family are fair pros, traveling exclusively to what he called “top-notch” state fairs in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and North Carolina. They’re known to have repeat customers at every fair — often forming long lines — who look forward to the unique, tasty, exotic offerings each year.
“People are intrigued with being able to eat something exotic, like rattlesnake,” he said. “And as far as I know, we’re the only company in the country that does rattlesnake corndogs, period.”
I also tried frozen banana pudding tacos
Of course, what’s a trip to the fair without dessert?
My tasty corndog left me wanting a sweet treat, so I headed to the nearby Chick-N-Que stand for another new food that wasn’t available at Media Day: the frozen banana pudding taco.
Let’s all take a moment to pause and be grateful that we live in a world where, yes, that is a real thing that you can eat.
Just as a corndog is a great fair food because it’s on a stick, the banana pudding taco is great because you can easily eat it while walking around the fair. That’s what I did, and I enjoyed every bite.
The treat is “frozen” because it uses banana pudding-flavored ice cream in place of the traditional pudding — though it was just as creamy and flavorful.
The taco shell is reminiscent of a Tex-Mex taco salad shell, crispy and just savory enough to balance the sweetness of the ice cream. Top it off with some whipped cream and a couple of vanilla wafers, and you’ve got a sweet treat that’s as tasty as it is Instagram-worthy.
You can find Chick-N-Que, a local vendor from Wendell, on the midway by the Kerr Scott Building.
More State Fair information and coverage
▪ You can find more information about the new foods being offered at this year’s NC State Fair at ncstatefair.org/2022/Attractions/New.htm.
▪ Find more of The News & Observer’s coverage of the fair at newsobserver.com/ncstatefair.
