“But I’m going to be there for two weeks,” I reminded her. “And I have two dogs.”
“We have a dog, too. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
And it was fine—from the minute I walked in the door of her colonial-style home and stepped into the Arctic air-conditioning.
I unpacked my gear in her guest room, changed into a fresh T-shirt and continued on my pie quest without delay. I drove the ten miles from Meg’s, across the state’s capital to the east side of town, passing the modest, medium-size high-rises of a burgeoning downtown dominated by the shimmering gold dome of the state capital building. Eventually, I crossed a big set of railroad tracks and arrived on the “other” side of town, where pie was waiting.
The fairgrounds came into view, first recognizable by the looming grandstand, an old brick monstrosity of a stadium. Starting six blocks from the entrance, private homes offered parking on their front lawns. People held up “Park Here” signs, waving them to lure cars—and money. The Iowa State Fair started long before people drove cars to the grounds, and enterprises springing up from the annual event, like front-lawn parking lots, have evolved more than the fair itself.
From the minute I set foot onto the fairgrounds, I was filled with a giddiness I hadn’t expected. First of all, I hate crowds. I prefer solitude with occasional but controlled social gatherings. Secondly, I am not a big junk-food eater. But once I showed my all-access judges’ wristband at the ticket booth, I had crossed some kind of line, entering a Magical Kingdom of the Midwest, where everything I thought I hated became some kind of psychedelic feel-good drug—and highly addictive.
I had been to the Iowa State Fair when I was about ten. Our family piled in the station wagon and came to see the Osmonds in concert. I don’t remember anything about it. So I was essentially a state-fair virgin.
A green-and-yellow John Deere combine caught my eye. You couldn’t miss the thing. It was as big as a two-story house and cost about as much. I walked over and stared up at it, its long arms outstretched as if about to harvest corn, its rubber wheels taller than me. Another machine, with a red “corn head” implement that harvests a dozen rows of corn at a time, was so huge each of its twelve torpedo-shaped blades in the front was bigger than a human. The way the blades lined up made the thing look like a menacing, civilization-destroying claw. There was a whole field filled with similar sci-fi-esque machinery, making the place look more like a movie set for Transformers than a state-fair exhibit. Visitors were welcome to climb all over them. So I did. On top of a combine, I met a farmer named Tim, who explained how the corn goes into the hopper and gets husked and processed all with this one $250,000 machine.
I was sidetracked further by food. I had learned the hard way at the National Pie Championships that it’s best to eat a solid meal that includes protein before tasting all that pie. Not that fast food from a state fair constitutes a solid meal, but when I saw people walking around with their various meals on a stick—pork chops, roasted corn, ice cream bars, fried Twinkies—I was reminded that I needed to eat. I randomly picked one of the hundreds of food stalls and placed my order. Never have I eaten such a delicious corn dog—on a stick!—in my life. The corn bread was so thick it actually resembled, well, corn bread. And the hot dog inside was plump, salty and smoky.
The fair and all its vibrant primary colors was a bustle of activity—namely, farm girls strutting around in denim cutoffs and cowboy boots, families pushing baby strollers, and farmers, like Tim, in their baggy jeans and work boots. A general air of excitement was luring me deeper into its grasp, like a vortex of Americana.
But I was on a schedule. I had my first pie-judging event and I needed to get to my post.
Inside the cavernous metal warehouse structure that is the Elwell Family Food Center, I walked past the aisles of refrigerated and well-lit display cases that would eventually be filled with the winning food items for the public to view. I breezed past the curtained-off sections that served as a secure staging area for the pies, pickles, banana bread, meatballs, jams and other foods that were waiting to be judged. The section was heavily guarded by fair employees. I also caught a glance of the judging area, three separate areas divided by blue velvet curtains, where rows of chairs lined up to face the long tables where judges sat.
I finally found “Arlette’s Corner,” marked as such by a sign taped above a desk to the cinder-block wall. And there was Arlette herself, an elegant, tall, smiling, grey-haired woman in a denim jumper with sophisticated spectacles resting low on the bridge of her nose. After a warm “hello,” she got straight down to business.
“Here’s how it works,” she explained of the pie judging. “You’ll take a seat in one of the chairs at the judges’ table. I’ll come over and introduce everyone on the panel. I’ll pass the microphone down the line so each of the judges can say something about their background. We wheel in the pies on a table and each judge will get to view the whole pie first, then cut their own slice. There are pie servers and utensils on each table.”
“How many pies are in each category?” I asked.
“That depends,” she said. “People can enter the contest up to fifteen minutes before it starts. Okay, let’s get you over there. The chicken-pot-pie contest is about to start.”
Over the next eleven days of the fair I would be judging every one of the seventeen pie contests on the schedule. There would be a few days off, meaning on most days I would have more than one contest to judge.
I found a seat at the front table in Judging Area One and watched the flurry of activity around me. A white-haired woman wearing brand-new high-tech running shoes, a smocklike dress and an apron pushed a long table on wheels loaded with pies. Donna, identified by her name badge, maneuvered the table as if she was wheeling a gurney into the emergency room. She must have been in her late eighties, but she had the strength and speed of a thirty-year-old. Arlette’s assistant, Shari, laid out forks, pie servers, napkins, wet washcloths and pitchers of water (to cleanse the palate) in front of each of the six judges. She would later bring each of the pies over, one at time, for our scrutiny.
There were two significant differences from the judging format of the National Pie Championships. One was that each judge had a “writer,” someone to literally write down your scores, comments, do the math and turn in the judging sheets. I didn’t really see the point of this, especially compared to the brain-numbing addition of scores in the national contest’s more elaborate point system. But whatever. We were at least allowed to talk and share opinions so it made for some pleasant camaraderie up there in front of the audience. That was the other thing: we were judging in front of an audience. This means that the people whose pie you were judging could observe you as you nibbled, chewed, smacked and, sometimes, spit out their precious contender.
Patt, my writer, had worked at the state-fair food competitions for many years. She took her annual two-week vacation from an accounting firm just to be sitting at this table. She was teaching me the ways of the event. “There are lip readers in the audience,” she cautioned me, “so when you make your comments to me to write down, cover your mouth with your hand so they can’t see what you’re saying.”
Really? People take their pies that seriously? But if I thought that was slightly extreme, I was in for a bigger surprise when it came to the judges and their level of seriousness. When each judge had finished tasting the entire lineup, each of the contestants’ pies were sent to yet another table behind the blue drapes. The judges got up from their chairs, parted the curtains and disappeared in the back to deliberate on which pies should be placed first, second and third. This meant tasting each pie again—as if we hadn’t already tasted enough—and often resulted in as long as twenty additional minutes of heated discussion, debating the pros and cons—and the minutiae—of each and every pie. “This crust was soggy.” “That crust was too salty.” “This filling was too sweet.” “Too tart.” “Too runny.” “Too dense.” “Not State Fair ribbon worthy.” “Too h
ard for anyone to duplicate the recipe.” “This one should be first place.” “No, this one should be first and that one should be second.” And so it went, without regard to the time or keeping things on schedule.
None of the judges were pastry chefs or bakery owners, but many of them held food-science degrees from Iowa State University. And only a few of them were under the age of sixty-five. I’m not a patient person by nature. I also spent time working as a web producer in the lightning-speed Internet industry. So to stand behind the curtain, knowing there was an audience waiting for a winner to be announced, was an exercise in restraint.
After several days of these behind-the-curtain delays, I decided it was time to liven things up. We were deliberating the French Silk category. I agreed with the old biddies, this was a close race. The pies were all so good, the pudding so chocolaty, the cream so lightly whipped, I broke my two-bite-maximum rule and indulged until my brain was buzzing from the sugar. I literally felt high. The pie was so intensely delicious that each bite made my eyes roll back in my head with pleasure. Tasting the flavor and feeling the texture melting in my mouth was the pie equivalent of having an orgasm. I had never had such good sex—I mean, pie. While any one of these totems to the chocolate gods could have taken first place, there was one in particular that stood out to me. It was made by Lana Ross, from Indianola. If you have ever judged, or even watched the judging, at the Iowa State Fair, then you would know her name. She was a regular blue-ribbon winner year after year. And having tasted her French silk, I could see why.
“Ladies,” I declared to the group behind the curtain, interrupting them from their anal cavity inspections. (They were lifting the glass pie plates off the table to view the bottom crust. They were prodding the filling with their forks. They were taking five extra bites of each pie.) “I think this one should get first place.” I pointed to Lana’s pie which sat among the twenty other chocolate-cream sirens. No one looked up. So I continued.
“This is a pie I would like to rub all over my body.”
No response.
“And have a man lick it off.”
Still nothing. Apparently none of these women had ever thought of pie in this way. No one acknowledged my comment. They didn’t even bother to give me a disapproving glance.
The way to speed things along, I discovered, was simply to defer to the elders. There was an obvious hierarchy of judges. Since several of the judges had been around for as long as the fair itself—dating back to 1886—certain individuals had seniority and therefore their opinions were expected to hold more weight. So, with a disdainful sigh, I said, “Whatever you think, Eleanor.” And that settled it. Lana Ross’s French Silk Better-than-Sex pie took second place and a red ribbon. I made a note to ask Lana for the recipe.
The “Oh My, It’s Peach Pie” category was a decidedly easier and lighter affair to judge. For one thing, the sponsor, Neal Rhinehart of Marshalltown, Iowa, had set clear contest guidelines. Pies had to be made with a double crust—no crumble toppings, no whipped cream or meringue, just classic peach pie. Yum. He also hand-selected his own judges, inviting his friends and family members to take part, therefore if anyone had seniority on this panel, it was Neal.
I liked Neal, not just because he was a jovial, pie-loving guy, but because another one of his contest guidelines was that all pie would be given away afterward—to the audience. He had even brought his own paper plates and plastic forks. Now this was the spirit of pie. What was the point of having people watch you, as a judge, eat bite after bite of some very good pie (and some really bad pie) only to see the unfinished pies wheeled back to the holding area behind the blue iron curtain? It didn’t seem very Iowa-like. Pie is meant to be shared. I was going to have to talk to Arlette about this and lobby for some sweeping changes to the food competitions next year.
We chose the peach pie winners quickly. It was easy when you could immediately eliminate the pies that tried to pass off peach JELL-O as pie filling. I had set my own guidelines: if you used packaged pudding mix, you were disqualified from the running. Except for the categories sponsored by companies that made packaged pie crust, a “state fair worthy” pie should be made from scratch.
Working side by side with Neal, I cut slices as fast as I could, while he handed out the plates to the crowd swarming around the table. It was like National Pie Day in L.A. on a microscale, but no less fulfilling. Seeing the smiles of the people as they shoveled peach pie into their mouths would remain one of the highlights of the entire fair for me.
Taking a break from pie, I wandered around the fairgrounds and was reminded that pie was not the only thing being judged at the Iowa State Fair. I wandered over to the cattle barn. The wooden structure, stretching a city block long, was filled with a pungent, grassy scent, and the soothing sounds of cows mooing. (Not the dying cow mooing sound of grief I was capable of, but instead a calm, contented one.) The place was full of people, animal breath, hay and, yes, manure. As I strolled up and down the cow-filled aisles of the barn, watching where I stepped so I didn’t soil my new Converse sneakers, I noticed cots and bedrolls set up right inside the animal stalls. The dedication was incredible—the owners of the show cows slept in the barn with their livestock. I’ve never known a baker to sleep next to their pies, but then after witnessing the intensity of the pie judging, I wouldn’t be surprised if some did.
I talked with a man who was washing down his cow with a hose. “Are you getting him ready to show?” I asked.
“No, we just showed him. I’m washing off the hairspray,” he replied.
Huh? There were two reasons for the use of this beauty product, I learned, and it depended on the breed and what characteristics were being judged. In one case, it was used to smooth down the cow’s hair to accentuate the bone structure and muscles. In the other, it kept the cow’s hair fluffed up and made the animal look fatter, impressing the judges. Kind of like how a top crust of a pie can make a pie look like it has more filling than it really does.
The cows got pedicures, too, their hooves filed to perfection and oiled to look extra shiny and healthy. Before the showing and after the post-show shower, the cows also got blow dried. These were some very pampered cows. Who knew?
For showtime, the cows were led from the cattle barn to the arena, where people filled the stands. A lot of people. Apparently cows were more popular than pie. Once inside the arena, the cattle—white cows, brown cows, black-and-white cows, horned cows—waited behind their equivalent of the blue velvet curtain until it was their turn in front of the judges. Judges were predominantly male, and many of them wore cowboy hats. Did they enjoy scrutinizing cows as much as I enjoyed tasting different pies? From their intense expressions, the cow officials took their jobs even more seriously than the pie ladies. And well they should as the prize money was in the quadruple digits.
Instead of sampling one bite at a time, the judging panel observed young people in white jeans and burgundy polo shirts take turns parading their bovine beauties past their table in the center of the arena. White jeans in a dirt and manure-filled stadium didn’t seem like a logical wardrobe choice, but it was obviously the mandated uniform. The judges, stone faced and silent, made notes on their clipboards.
Cow judging was not only more serious and more lucrative than pie, it was also much speedier. I stayed long enough to see prizes awarded to a few winners—ribbons presented by young women wearing strappy sundresses, flip-flops and rhinestone-encrusted tiaras. I found the whole thing fascinating, but I was still devoted to pie. And there was still plenty more to taste.
Back at the Elwell Family Food Center, it was time for the Apple Pie category. This contest was sponsored by the American Pie Council, the same organization that holds the National Pie Championships. Donna in her running shoes wheeled out yet another gurney—I mean, table—filled with pies, unloading only about twelve pies for this session. With my stomach swelling from the excess calorie intake, I began to look forward to the categories with fewer pies. (I was already
dreading the one later that had over three-hundred entries.) For the apple contest, pie makers had taken the classic apple pie and put their own decorative spin on it. One had a top crust made from cut-out stars covered in white sugar. Another had walnuts and a caramel drizzle on top of the crust. And another had an apple decoration made from red and green sugar.
Apple is the pie I am known for. It’s what I make most often, because apples are readily available. It’s a pie I can make without a recipe, and pretty much everyone loves apple pie, so I can take it anywhere and always have appreciative recipients. So for the apple pie judging, I heartily dug in, taking generous bites of each. I was not disappointed.
I continued nibbling on forkfuls of apples, sugar and cinnamon, searching for the nuances that might make one stand out above the rest. It was not always easy. Seeing as I have a bias against nutmeg—I find it overpowers every other flavor—those were the first to get ruled out. But I have nothing against butter, so when a few of them left that rich feeling on my tongue, I set them aside as ones to keep in the running. As always, another behind-the-curtain discussion and re-tasting ensued, but the decision came a little quicker. The winner had baked the pie to an ideal golden brown, did not oversweeten the apples, had cooked the apples until they were tender but still had some firmness and substance, and created a delicious flaky crust. (I found many of the state-fair pie crusts to be overly salty.)
It was my turn as a judge to announce the winner. I took the microphone and explained to the handful of people in the folding chairs, and some standing in the back, how we had come to our decision, how we liked the pie’s balance between delicate and hearty, fruity and buttery. I reached for the information card attached to the pie, turned it over to read the name, and when I looked up to see the winner I expected to see a grandmother, or a housewife, or a young college girl. But, no. The winner was a fourteen-year-old boy. By the way he came running up to the judges’ table to accept his ribbon, he was as surprised as anyone at his win. His hair was in a buzz cut and he had a mouthful of braces that reflected the fluorescent lights of the Food Center. Trying to hide my incredulousness, I asked him, “How did you learn to make such good pie?”
Making Piece Page 21
