Let’s Go to the Fair!

From food trucks to hot dog stands to county fair favorites, 'street food' has enjoyed a rich and storied history in American cuisine. However, street food has been around for thousands of years. In fact, street food is believed to have originated as far back as Ancient Rome.
— Homaro Cantu

If you've ever noticed, beauty pageants are a lot like county fairs. The farmers show the cows the same way. They walk their prized Jersey cow across a stage in front of an audience with judges, and maybe the cow even twirls around a couple of times. Then the winning cow gets a satin ribbon draped over it, which has the title and the year on it.
— Sherry Argov

The seasons don't matter to most of us anymore except as spectacles. In my county and in many places around this part of the nation, the fair that once marked the harvest now takes place in late August, while tourist dollars are still in heavy circulation. Why celebrate the harvest when you harvest every week with a shopping cart?
— Bill McKibben

I did something on the weekend I’ve never done before. I went to the Port Hope Fall Fair.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to fairs. The daughter and I used to go to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), Canada’s largest agricultural fair, at the end of every summer. And I even made some entries in the Roseneath Fair (brought home a few blue ribbons too). But I’ve never been to the Port Hope Fair, which is just the next town over.

And I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that I probably wouldn’t have gone this year except the stitchery guild I belong to was invited to put up a display. So a few of us went Friday night to set the display up, and then I volunteered to man the table from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The empty chair is where I was sitting. :-) The lady who was supposed to relieve me was also a rug hooker, but her relief never showed up so I stayed later so there could be two people at their display.

Fortunately, the next volunteer arrived early and I was sprung to enjoy the fair. I wandered around a bit and looked at some of the exhibits – jams and jellies and preserves – and there was a surprising number of entries by children, including this display of art:

And this was an agricultural fair, so let’s not forget the produce such as prize-winning pumpkins:

and corn (among many others):

There were even flowers to be judged:

Because there was a lot of construction around the buildings at the fairgrounds, they had the animals across the laneway in a different field. By the time I figured out where they were it was too late to see them. But I did hook up with my daughter and her family and we enjoyed a stroll around the midway:

The granddaughter didn’t want to go on the rides badly enough to stand in one of the insanely long lines, but she did play a couple of the games and was quite thrilled with the prizes she won.

All in all, it was a great way to mark the end of the summer.