One way to start a stampede

May 17, 2022 1:34 PM

The Calgary Stampede has released its lineup of midway food for 2022. From Bad-Breath Lemonade ("ice-cold lemonade with a smooth, delicious garlic and caramelized onion finish") to Kraft Dinner soft serve ("the familiar taste of macaroni and cheese combined with a creamy coolness of soft-serve ice cream), stunt foods are well-represented along with twists on old classics, such as Nanaimo bar mini donuts ("mini donuts topped with chocolate syrup, vanilla custard, shaved sweet coconut, and a choice of coconut crème").
posted by mandolin conspiracy (40 comments total)

Those unagi tacos looks pretty good, IMO.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:35 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

The two you reference sound repulsive to me. Will check out the tacos.

EDIT: might try that donught
posted by Windopaene at 1:51 PM on May 17, 2022

THE TACOS WERE FULL OF EELS!!!

(much like my hovercraft)
posted by Windopaene at 1:57 PM on May 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

You might want to take a look at the linked-to article: there are nine different implementations of class donut.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:59 PM on May 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

I've made ice-cream sammiches out of homemade round waffle cookies (from a strupwafel recipe) that I then chocolate dipped.

They were popular. I wouldn't say that a thin waffle cookie iron is useful as so much practical to those of us that are waffle adjascent.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 2:09 PM on May 17, 2022

I would try any one of those foods. Nothing sounds terrible!
(I won't, but I would!)

If I could magically happen across stunt foods once per month (like if there was a food truck that came to my neighbourhood), I would enjoy that. Maybe once every two months in case I enjoy it too much.
posted by Acari at 2:16 PM on May 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Since it's a free thread...

Here in Seattle, a radio station I listen to has ads for Dairy Queen. I don't think there are any Dairy Queen's in Seattle, but I digress.

So they are advertising their new "Summer Blizzard Lineup" or some such nonsense. And one is the new, "Oreo Dirt Pie"...

I cannot think that this is not a popular search term on PornHub. Ugh
posted by Windopaene at 2:18 PM on May 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

the problem with the Calgary Stampede is, well.. Calgary

go Oilers! Battle of Alberta is on
posted by elkevelvet at 2:20 PM on May 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

nine different implementations of class donut

Mmm. Donut implementations.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:21 PM on May 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

I would try one of these sandwiches served on a pickle bun, but I'm going to need to locate some normal lemonade, without a cotton candy bomb or garlic or rubber ducky and boba pearls, to go with it.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:26 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

...SQUAD!
posted by howfar at 2:33 PM on May 17, 2022

Most of these look sort of interesting, in that "just how drunk were you?" sort of way, but damn if I wouldn't do questionable things to try a bowl of that Samosa Poutine.
posted by xedrik at 2:34 PM on May 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

Samosa poutine is genuinely a pretty great cross-pollination. It feels so blindingly obvious I'm amazed I've never made it while intoxicated.
posted by howfar at 2:37 PM on May 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

Do each of the options come with a side salad, or is that extra? This somewhat important detail is missing from the menu listing.
posted by Wordshore at 2:40 PM on May 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

The macaroni and cheese in soft-serve form is intriguing. And by "intriguing" I mean "hop in my car and drive 23 hours to Calgary" level of obsession right now .
posted by Floydd at 3:15 PM on May 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

The Kraft Dinner Soft Serve looks disgusting yet comically Canadian.
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:16 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Kraft Dinner Soft Serve looks disgusting yet comically Canadian.

"Are you ready for the second course?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:51 PM on May 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Makes me wish the local fried apple pie slice place was still in operation.

I realize that makes it sound like a place that fried pies. No, it's better than that. They battered apple slices, deep-fried them, then served them with whipped cream, cinnamon, caramel sauce or ice cream for an extra charge. Best way to eat an apple.
posted by fiercekitten at 4:00 PM on May 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

the problem with the Calgary Stampede is, well.. Calgary

go Oilers! Battle of Alberta is on
posted by elkevelvet

booooo 🔥
posted by some chick at 4:11 PM on May 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

i gained five pounds just looking at the menu page

thanks a lot
posted by pyramid termite at 4:22 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I had some vanilla ice cream this afternoon that I wanted to garnish with a bit of chocolate sauce and some peanuts. The only peanuts in the house were already garnished with sea salt and black pepper.

Salt and sweet is a classic combo, but I am not sure vanilla ice cream with pepper is going to be a big hit. Not bad, exactly, but damn peculiar.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:27 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm stuck on the samosas on a stick. Did they come up with 44 new menu items... and then completely run out of steam? Was the menu a result of a Chopped-style Mystery Basket challenge and the only two remaining items were leftover samosas... and a stick? Why not sliders on a stick? Mini-arancini on a stick? California rolls on a stick? Scotch eggs on a stick? Oysters strung on a length of twine?
posted by Rora at 5:22 PM on May 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

Doesn’t matter the dish, it’s all going to end up puked over the streets of downtown Calgary.
posted by senor biggles at 5:23 PM on May 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

I would be dancing around like Templeton, singing The Fair is a Veritable Smorgasbord-Orgasbord-Orgasbord.
But.
posted by bartleby at 5:24 PM on May 17, 2022 [8 favorites]

go Oilers! Battle of Alberta is on
posted by elkevelvet

booooo 🔥
posted by some chick

PS: FanFare - Special Event: 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs 🏒 - Second Round
PPS: Go 🔥! #13🏒 #88 🍞 #19 🦟
posted by Superilla at 5:26 PM on May 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is a refreshing tonic to all those posts over the years about food at the Minnesota State Fair.

And by refreshing, I mean whatever the opposite of refreshing is.
posted by theory at 5:34 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

booooo

Oh geez. Posted this to start a food fight and got a hockey fight instead, eh?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:54 PM on May 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

How long have they been doing this? My family went to the Stampede somewhere around 1977, and I was totally unaware of any such unusual foods. I feel cheated.

We did see prince Charles on horseback in the Parade, though. My dad took Super 8 movies…
posted by jon1270 at 7:42 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

It look me a lot longer than it should have to realise this wasn't an elaborate wind-up, that these are real stands selling real food, and I'm very concerned for Canadians. Indeed North Americans generally. Are you OK?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:25 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I can't help but think the samosa poutine should have used paneer instead of curds, though I know that's kinda taking away the heart of the poutine.

But when I recreate it at home... I'm using paneer.

Also, those cotton candy noodles can go right to hell.
posted by rachaelfaith at 10:05 PM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Are you OK?
[looks up what Australians might call the equivalent of a State Fair, etc.]
Wait, are there not strange treats and stunt foods sold at Ag Shows?

You go to Royal Easter and there's a booth selling Milo & Cherry Ripe flavored ice cream? Ekka only happens once a year, so you might as well try the 'musk' flavored fairy floss?

The 'only at the Stampede' novelties are attractive in an "I already accepted that I was going to ruin my diet this trip, eating junk foods and ice cream. So I might as well try the batter-fried Golden Gaytime."
posted by bartleby at 12:17 AM on May 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

A lot of this is just perfectly reasonable fair food in slightly new flavors - bao, popcorn shrimp, octopus rangoon, etc.

A few things seem like really good ideas, like the honey habanero ice pops and the selection of mini donuts on a stick.

The pickle bun sandwiches seem like a bad idea grown out of a cocktail snack - like, I've seen small pickle-plus-meat hors d'oeuvres but a whole giant pickle plus salted sandwich meat is going to make you shrivel up into a little salty ball on the midway. Interesting that there are two versions.

There are also two sandwiches-with-insects. I've accepted that I will probably need to eat insect protein at some point in my life and that if I don't think about it too much it will be fine, but I am not at the How To Eat Fried Worms point of being able to look coolly at them on an open-faced sandwich.

If I ran the fair, you know what I would do? (I would also be fantastically wealthy, of course, so that I could fund this, or maybe this would be in utopia and it would just be a shared expense.) I would travel to Shanghai (in some wonderful post-pandemic future) and recruit various street food vendors into a fair food consortium and then you know what we would have? Jian bing with you tiao stands as far as the eye could see! The huge kind of shu mai! Sesame balls with and without red bean paste! All the bao! And anything else that looked good.

I really think that if you were properly capitalized you could make a lot of those into absolute fair food standards - jian bing wrapped around a you tiao (a vast thin fresh crepe with sauce and IMO ideally an egg wrapped around a savory fried bread) should be giant. And the really, really huge hollow sesame balls are totally a stunt food, particularly if you made some kind of sauce to dip them in.

It's 3:30 am, I am not feeling that great and yet I would absolutely eat a jian bing if I had one.
posted by Frowner at 1:35 AM on May 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I thought Kraft ice cream sounded familiar! Van Leeuwen collaborated with them last summer.

Eater copycat recipe
posted by (Over) Thinking at 4:05 AM on May 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

"just how drunk were you?"

Ah - I see you are a Stampede veteran! (As the majority of adults who attend without kids seem to treat it like a binge-drinking event)

Last time I went was in 2014, I think the rage for weird food was "scorpions on pizza" that year.
posted by rozcakj at 8:12 AM on May 18, 2022

What kind of monster puts pineapple on pizza?
posted by ryoshu at 9:23 AM on May 18, 2022

Last time I went was in 2014, I think the rage for weird food was "scorpions on pizza" that year.

I need clarity on whether they were live scorpions, or dead/cooked ones.

(I've heard things about Calgary so it seems unwise to make assumptions)
posted by Wordshore at 9:45 AM on May 18, 2022

I was at Stampede once, in the summer of 1994. Weirdest thing I ate that day (that I can recall) was a foot long corn dog. I DID get pretty squonked in the stands during the stage show, although NOT because I partook of the tequila the lady next to me kept offering out of her hip flask. And her politeness memory was on about an 8 second reset, like a particularly intelligent goldfish. "YOU WAN' SOME T'KEELA HON? S'WARM. HADDIT UNNER M'ARM, HERE."

The worst part really was the next day when I let a nice woman at the Alberta Boot Company convince my broke and hungover ass that what I really needed was $150 cowboy boots. I think I wore them maybe three times?
posted by hearthpig at 5:31 PM on May 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Mini-arancini on a stick?

I read that initially as "mini-arachnids on a stick" and went, what the hell, the scorpion pizza is old hat.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:44 PM on May 18, 2022

I am slightly puzzled that elote is on the exotic and new list, but no mention is made of the Arepa Boss booth.
What's the story there?
posted by bartleby at 2:11 AM on May 19, 2022

International Perogies
Chile Lime Popcorn Shrimp

Crispy fried popcorn shrimp, sautéed onions, sliced cucumbers and green onions glazed with sweet chili sauce and sriracha mayo. Topped off with a mist of lime juice and a side of sour cream, all on top of a bed of mini Perogies
posted by mikelieman at 8:25 PM on May 19, 2022 [1 favorite]