In addition to the friendly rivalries of home arts and 4H, fairs are increasingly seen as a venue for a new kind of community competition: "what else can we fry?" They don't give a ribbon for it yet, but I've seen so many photos from friends and bloggers of deep-fried oreos, bananas, Snickers, and Twinkies, it seems like they should start. Now, I am all for this kind of important culinary experimentation, and I can tell you that I have yet to meet a breaded and fried food I didn't like, but it's a little sad to see all those other awesome aspects of the fair overshadowed by giant vats of oil. Even though the Topsfield Fair didn't go in for real frying exotica, it was more food booths than anything else, and it was hard to find the buildings between them— I never did find the canning section!

I'm not really complaining, of course— I spent most of my time there deciding how best to spend the space in my stomach, and I was happy to find a few really great local and regional foods. Tiny, clean-tasting kernels of strawberry popcorn are a high-contrast treat in bright white and glowing ruby red. And what could say New England autumn better than a perfectly crisp apple under a layer of rich creamy caramel?

Unless it is fried clams? I certainly never saw these at fairs in California!

Fried dough is another regional treat— I know that different kinds of fried dough are popular all over the world, but I never saw these plain slabs of dense but puffy dough until I moved out here. They can be served with sugar and cinnamon, syrup or jam, and, for an even more regional treat, tomato sauce: a topping apparently favored primarily by residents of Connecticut. Some stands around Boston keep the tomato sauce handy to appease any Connecticutians that may be traveling abroad.