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Neighborhood report

Seduced by a funnel cake? Don't feel guilty

State Fair concessionaires appeal to one of our most primal urges with alluring sights and especially smells.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published February 10, 2006

Forget about roller coasters. A stroll along the State Fair food strip is enough to send anyone on a sensory tilt-a-whirl of flashing lights, mouth-watering aromas and impulsive cravings for anything deep-fried on a stick.

But how does one decide between a fried Oreo and a skewered pork butt?

Amid the chaos of color and calories, more than 200 experienced food vendors use every trick in the trade to pluck fairgoers out of the midway and into their lines.

"This is the world's largest junk food smorgasbord, and that's what brings people to the fair," said Fred Brown, director of operations. "It's a competitive business."

Theresa McGrath's meatball-on-a-stick stand is "The Best Around." But the name of the Fort Myers business is just the beginning of her marketing tactics. Next is color.

"You want something that's going to be seen from a far distance. You want something that's going to stand out over everybody else," McGrath said.

Red. Yellow. Green. It'll make people stop in their tracks and buy her food. But what will they eat? It's all in the signs.

With 35 years of business experience, McGrath knows what America eats, and its appetites are varied. Up North, red potatoes and steak chips draw the crowds. In Miami, it's pizza. Tampa residents are meat lovers. As for the funnel cake vs. elephant ears debate, opinions vary.

"It's different tastes over the country. You work your signage toward that," McGrath said. She switches the signs on the sides of her trailer for every city she visits.

Colors and words alone won't make mouths water. Something else is in the air.

"The seasonings we use on our steak and stuff, usually the smell, the garlic and the oregano, it gets in the air," McGrath said.

Dena O'Brien agrees. The hypnotic zest of onions and peppers lingers in the air at least three stands away from hers. The smell draws the crowds, and the freshly cooked plump Polish sausages on display keep them interested.

"We call it "flash,' " O'Brien said of the presentation.

Flash doesn't even begin to describe Brooklyn vendor Ana Gaudino's Italian sausage operation.

Apart from the flags, red and green banners, and jumbo tent restaurant, 8-foot standups of Italian sausages tower above a hay farm scene she landscaped herself along the outskirts of her stand. Fake chickens, cows and pigs graze on the hay. Less is more has never been her style.

"It's never enough," Gaudino said.

In 1980, 35 tents with simple signs sold food to 75,000 people at the state fair. Now, $100,000 to $300,000 concession trailers bring in $4-million worth of food sold to half a million people.

"If you eat the same food at home, it's not going to taste the same," McGrath said. "It's the sounds, it's the smells that make the food so much better here, I think."

[Last modified February 9, 2006, 09:24:12]