Double-Bacon Corn Dog: Iowa State Fair Food

No Comments | Written on August 13, 2012 at 6:22 pm, by Cheryl Brown

The Iowa State Fair — some say the country’s best — is in full swing. Until the fair closes next Sunday, August 19, I’ll be bringing you a daily first-hand account of the fascinating, often bizarre (but always fun) food items I found there on my recent visit:

The double-bacon corn dog has got to be this year’s over-the-top fried food item, so much so it even made the national news. The concept: a hot dog is wrapped in two slices of bacon, then dipped in its usual corn-dog batter and fried. Then it gets a second dip in a batter filled with bacon bits, and it’s fried again.

Sounds like a delicious hit of fried, salty, meaty goodness, right? I thought so, which makes it all the more disappointing that this bad boy didn’t live up to its potential.

Why? Because you can’t taste any bacon! It was completely indistinguishable from a regular, non-bacon corn dog.

Is it because the sweet-oily batter overpowers everything? Did they skimp on bacon overall? Or were the bacon strips not thick enough to make their presence known? I can’t say for sure where it went wrong; I only know that, overall, I’d have to give it a big F. (I’m not the only one who thought so: Despite the massive lines at the stand, lots of fair-goers I spoke with were equally disappointed.)

Oh, well. It sounded good in theory.