Tracking the Origin
of the Elephant Ear

Like vacations, a county fair is a little oasis of complete unreality. Where else would you pay 30 bucks for the opportunity to be whirled around by your feet until you vomit, or drop $89 to snag that elusive 35-cent stuffed animal.

And then, there’s the food.

Fair food is completely without equal anywhere. It exists in a little caloric microcosm of its own and is impossible to duplicate anywhere. Have you ever been to a nice restaurant and had them offer you a Funnel Cake with whipped cream and strawberries, washed down with a 65-ounce strawberry-kiwi-lemonade? I rest my case.

As I wandered through the fair, checking out the food booths and whatever else was there – I think there are other attractions, but you couldn’t prove it by me – I couldn’t help but wonder how some of these foods came about.

For example, as I was relaxing to the antics of One-Eyed Charlie and his All-Chipmunk Band on the main stage, I found myself contemplating exactly who might have come up the “Tortato” I was enjoying.

“Hey honey, check this out. I was out in my workshop, tossing around some ideas about what I could do with a potato I had sitting there. So I ended up spearing it to the end of my electric drill, and then spinning that little sucker against a razor blade until I had one long, skinny potato peel that’ll span a couple of football fields. I was thinking I could deep-fry it in grease, coat it with salt, toss it into a paper container, and sell it at the fair. I’ll make a mint!”

To discover the background of my all-time favorite fair food, however, required much more exhaustive research. Luckily, I found that the food historians at the Betsy Crooked Institute for Caloric Consternation had a record of the following conversation between Clyde and Henrietta Ear, dating back to 1927:

“You know Clyde, I’ve been thinking I should get me a little booth at the fair this year and sell some good home cooking. With all this new-fangled stuff on the market, people don’t eat the way they ‘oughtta. Why just the other day, Fergy’s Market had pre-sliced bread. How lazy are people gonna get, anyway?”

“Well what would you fix, Hen? Those grits you keep dishing up could kill a man, and besides, the road department bought up everything you made to fix the potholes down at Old Man Henderson’s place.”

“Actually, I had an idea for a real wholesome snack that everyone would love. I’m gonna take a big lump of sticky dough – probably about 8 or 10 pounds worth – and flatten it out with a couple of 2x4s. Then I’m gonna toss it into 35 gallons of pure reconstituted pig lard that’s been heating until its smokin’. I’ll let it fry until it’s absorbed a gallon or two of that lard, jest for flavor, then I’ll ring it out with a dishcloth, add a gallon bucket of sugar on top while the little darlin’s still a-sizzlen, then slap it onto a hunk of butcher paper and sell it. People gotta love nutritious cooken like that!”

“Actually, that sounds good, although it might be mistaken for some of that new ‘health food’ I’m hearing people talk about. What you gonna call it?”

“I invented it, so I’m naming it after myself. I’m gonna call it an ‘Ear.’

“That’s a stupid name. If you’re gonna give it a personal name, why not name it after your mother?”

“Call it a Mertyl Ear?”

“Na. I’m thinking more of that time last summer when I saw her at the beach. How about ‘Elephant Ear’?”

And so a marriage ended, but a true culinary legend was born.