DES MOINES, IA — As the Iowa State Fair winds down Sunday, Democratic presidential candidates will fan out elsewhere to work the crowd in their hunt for support in the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses early next year. Their diets may improve as well.
The fair is known for many things, but a candidate who wants to win favor with Iowa voters is bound by tradition to eat something truly decadent and, typically, deep-fat-fried and served on a stick. Twenty of the 23 Democrats running for president stopped by the fair and to make their case to Iowa voters on the Des Moines Register Soapbox.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg must have an iron stomach, or an endless supply of antacid. Some candidates merely nibbled, but Buttigieg went hog-wild at the fair’s some 200 food stands.
The fair doesn’t have a presidential candidate gastronomical prize, but if it did, Buttigieg would’ve been the grand champion, hands down.
He started off with a root beer float and chomped away on a pork chop on a stick — he’d grilled it himself at the Iowa Pork Producers tent — as he made his stump speech on the Register’s Soapbox.
He wasn’t done eating, not by a long shot. He followed up with a Gizzmo, an Italian sausage, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese concoction that he later decided he shouldn’t be seen eating on camera, and then wolfed down a BLT Bacon Ball with nine slices of bacon.
The bottomless pit that must be Buttigieg’s stomach still had room for more.
For dessert, he had a deep-fried Oreo and washed it down with a bottle of chocolate milk. Later, he had a make-it-yourself Slushie. Of course, it was red, white and blue.
He was too full of fair food to go on any of the Midway rides, Eater reported, but he did sail down the giant green and yellow slide.
California Sen. Kamala Harris, New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who dropped out of the race late last week, flipped and ate pork chops, which were inserted on a stick for easy eating.
Entrepreneur, lawyer and philanthropist Andrew Yang of New York had a couple of turkey legs, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar had some fried cheese curds. Long-winded Joe Biden, the former vice president, was so busy talking and shaking hands that he barely had time to eat. He only got some ice cream.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a vegetarian, called a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich “a little slice of heaven” and ordered a second helping. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, had a veggie corndog and, accidentally fell off the vegan train when she had a non-vegan boat of fried avocado slices.
And then there’s the granddaddy of all fair foods, the corn dog. A weiner with a thick coating of cornmeal batter fried quickly in hot oil.
Bernie Sanders had one. So did New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren bought one and carried it around with her, but spared herself the indelicacy of eating it before fairgoers eager to snap a photo that might be embarrassing to her. Gabbard had a veggie corn dog as well.
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