Sunshine Revival/Challenge 2025 #3: Food
Jul. 9th, 2025 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sunshine_revival prompt has appeared. Let's see what's going on.
As a consequence of growing up where I did, with the people that I did, one of the major excitements of the summer was the annual trip to the county fair. There were a few different fairs that we could go to, depending on the circumstances, but the general idea was that we were trying to plan out our trip so that we could basically pay a single price at the gate and get unlimited rides and runs through the attractions that were there. So, one parent, grandparent, and/or older sibling would have a chunk of the younger ones and would accompany them on the rides and the rest, joining in where desired, staying nearby when not, and eventually ending up with various games and foods after the children had been run out thoroughly enough to actually be a little bit tired. The game that was played most was a game where you would put money on a color/pattern and then one of the players would throw a ball into a bin in the center, and if you matched the color the ball rested on, then you got a prize. It says something about my age that when I started playing, the game cost a dime to start with, and that if you wanted one of the jumbo prizes, you had to put down a quarter, and that by the end of that run of fairs, it was just a quarter to play, regardless, and the jumbo prizes required you to trade in a few of the smaller ones to get. The smaller prizes for that were things like large boxes of Mike and Ike and related candies, which is how I continued to reinforce to myself that I didn't actually like most of those options. So candy prizes were often shared with those who actually liked the flavors involved. (This was money provided by the grandparents to play the game, because they liked doing it and they liked having several other small ones around trying to figure out how to predict what the next toss would be.)
What was very common for my parents, however, was that when the kids had been run out sufficiently to have some time to eat a thing, Mom would get an "elephant ear," a fried batter cake that had been pounded down to resemble its namesake, and then coated with sugar and cinnamon to make a treat. It took me a good amount of time to recognize that I don't actually like a lot of things that have cinnamon as the primary flavor, but I was willing to work through the cinnamon part to get to the sugar and fried dough. (Same thing with churros, honestly.) It would be a lot later in life than that before I was introduced to the concept of the funnel cake, a fried batter entity created by dropping the batter through a funnel into the hot oil and drawing it around sufficiently until it created a cake. Turns out I like the texture of the funnel cake better than the elephant ear, and it's a bonus that funnel cakes don't usually come with the cinnamon sprinkled on. But I still remember all of the elephant ear fragments that the kids and Mom would take apart and eat at all of those county fairs, after a full day of spinning, swinging, and running through the obstacle courses that were there. (The most common one was called "Raiders," after a specific Harrison Ford movie, I don't believe that it actually had that movie's branding or elements on it, but I only trust my memory enough to know what was in the ride, and not what the outside attraction and mural splashes were.)
Different county fairs would provide different things to look at. As we got older, we started to joke that my grandfather, who had lived through most of the things on display, and liked to talk about them to people who were curious, would sit down to take a nap in one of the exhibit halls and might wake up find that he'd been judged and given a blue ribbon. The other county fair would almost always involve some ice cream being consumed, because there were some campaigns on about making sure that real milk got used in your various products, and because that made the ice cream relatively cheap to get plenty of. (I have visited the Pennsylvania State University campus, and they apparently have all the facilities they need on campus to make and sell ice cream to the student body from university animals and the like, and that's available specifically at student-affordable prices. That was also very good ice cream.) For the most part, though, fair food was generally the elephant ear or the funnel cake, and there aren't all that many places outside of there that you can get such things.
The other major summer trip that came to us was the one where we, and by we, I meant most if not all of the cousins, aunts, and uncles, would go to the near-ish (as in, in the same state) amusement park/water park combination entity. The general plan of the day, such as it was, was to arrive, spend the morning part of the day in the amusement park space, riding the various rides and roller coasters there, break for lunch, then spend the hot parts of the day in the water park part, where the idea was to stay as wet as possible for as much of the day as possible, because if you were already wet, the water wasn't cold. When you dried out, though, the water became cold again, at least until you were properly wet, and that wasn't any fun. After we'd run ourselves out at the water park and the air started to get cold, we'd return to the main park for any last rides that were desired, possibly play a midway game or two (the common one was the "Guess Your Age/Weight/Birthday" one, and they often had trouble getting Grandma's age properly) and then pack it up as the sun started to head down and drive back home, with most of the kids asleep in the back seats, having run their energy out.
Something about this trip was that, because it was a relatively local entity, there was some kind of promotion that would offer a small amount of money off a ticket to the amusement park if you bought the product in question. For the longest time, it was related to loaves of bread, and therefore, because this trip was not just for the immediate family, but for the cousins and the grownups of those cousins, there was often a fistful of empty bread bags delivered to the ticket agents to make sure that everyone had their discounted tickets available to them. Eventually, the promotion shifted around from bread bags to soda cans, and for a long stretch of time, the soda cans in question were Dr. Pepper, which, rather than being something mainstream enough to receive an entire shared universe of advertising, was somewhat of a niche soda. Not so much that it wasn't available in large packs, but it wasn't as brand-recognizable as Pepsi, Coke, and their more flagship offerings. It's still a good soda. Because the cans were the ones that would produce the discounted tickets, there was a certain amount of hoarding them all, as well, to make sure that we had enough cans for everyone to get in. Surprisingly, this did not result in a lot of being able to drink the soda, just that there were always enough cans over time to get the discounts needed.
Summers have fewer memories of food and drink these days because joining the working world usually means that you're no longer getting quite as much time off to do such seemingly-epic trips. That, and I can't necessarily go at quite the speed I used to, and I still have the problem of being sufficiently away from the average height club that some rides just aren't designed for me, anyway. Oh, well. I still have the memories, and if I ever find myself in an amusement park, water park, or fairground, I know what kinds of things I'll be looking to find for that experience.
sunshine_revival prompt has appeared. Let's see what's going on. Yknow? Food was one of the things I associated most with summer fun. From the cotton-candy from the carnival to the carrotcake my mom would make. I'm sure others have their own snacks or drinks they like to relax with, so We're curious about yours!Summer foods for me tend to be associated with either fairs or specific road trips.
Challenge #3:
Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?
Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.
As a consequence of growing up where I did, with the people that I did, one of the major excitements of the summer was the annual trip to the county fair. There were a few different fairs that we could go to, depending on the circumstances, but the general idea was that we were trying to plan out our trip so that we could basically pay a single price at the gate and get unlimited rides and runs through the attractions that were there. So, one parent, grandparent, and/or older sibling would have a chunk of the younger ones and would accompany them on the rides and the rest, joining in where desired, staying nearby when not, and eventually ending up with various games and foods after the children had been run out thoroughly enough to actually be a little bit tired. The game that was played most was a game where you would put money on a color/pattern and then one of the players would throw a ball into a bin in the center, and if you matched the color the ball rested on, then you got a prize. It says something about my age that when I started playing, the game cost a dime to start with, and that if you wanted one of the jumbo prizes, you had to put down a quarter, and that by the end of that run of fairs, it was just a quarter to play, regardless, and the jumbo prizes required you to trade in a few of the smaller ones to get. The smaller prizes for that were things like large boxes of Mike and Ike and related candies, which is how I continued to reinforce to myself that I didn't actually like most of those options. So candy prizes were often shared with those who actually liked the flavors involved. (This was money provided by the grandparents to play the game, because they liked doing it and they liked having several other small ones around trying to figure out how to predict what the next toss would be.)
What was very common for my parents, however, was that when the kids had been run out sufficiently to have some time to eat a thing, Mom would get an "elephant ear," a fried batter cake that had been pounded down to resemble its namesake, and then coated with sugar and cinnamon to make a treat. It took me a good amount of time to recognize that I don't actually like a lot of things that have cinnamon as the primary flavor, but I was willing to work through the cinnamon part to get to the sugar and fried dough. (Same thing with churros, honestly.) It would be a lot later in life than that before I was introduced to the concept of the funnel cake, a fried batter entity created by dropping the batter through a funnel into the hot oil and drawing it around sufficiently until it created a cake. Turns out I like the texture of the funnel cake better than the elephant ear, and it's a bonus that funnel cakes don't usually come with the cinnamon sprinkled on. But I still remember all of the elephant ear fragments that the kids and Mom would take apart and eat at all of those county fairs, after a full day of spinning, swinging, and running through the obstacle courses that were there. (The most common one was called "Raiders," after a specific Harrison Ford movie, I don't believe that it actually had that movie's branding or elements on it, but I only trust my memory enough to know what was in the ride, and not what the outside attraction and mural splashes were.)
Different county fairs would provide different things to look at. As we got older, we started to joke that my grandfather, who had lived through most of the things on display, and liked to talk about them to people who were curious, would sit down to take a nap in one of the exhibit halls and might wake up find that he'd been judged and given a blue ribbon. The other county fair would almost always involve some ice cream being consumed, because there were some campaigns on about making sure that real milk got used in your various products, and because that made the ice cream relatively cheap to get plenty of. (I have visited the Pennsylvania State University campus, and they apparently have all the facilities they need on campus to make and sell ice cream to the student body from university animals and the like, and that's available specifically at student-affordable prices. That was also very good ice cream.) For the most part, though, fair food was generally the elephant ear or the funnel cake, and there aren't all that many places outside of there that you can get such things.
The other major summer trip that came to us was the one where we, and by we, I meant most if not all of the cousins, aunts, and uncles, would go to the near-ish (as in, in the same state) amusement park/water park combination entity. The general plan of the day, such as it was, was to arrive, spend the morning part of the day in the amusement park space, riding the various rides and roller coasters there, break for lunch, then spend the hot parts of the day in the water park part, where the idea was to stay as wet as possible for as much of the day as possible, because if you were already wet, the water wasn't cold. When you dried out, though, the water became cold again, at least until you were properly wet, and that wasn't any fun. After we'd run ourselves out at the water park and the air started to get cold, we'd return to the main park for any last rides that were desired, possibly play a midway game or two (the common one was the "Guess Your Age/Weight/Birthday" one, and they often had trouble getting Grandma's age properly) and then pack it up as the sun started to head down and drive back home, with most of the kids asleep in the back seats, having run their energy out.
Something about this trip was that, because it was a relatively local entity, there was some kind of promotion that would offer a small amount of money off a ticket to the amusement park if you bought the product in question. For the longest time, it was related to loaves of bread, and therefore, because this trip was not just for the immediate family, but for the cousins and the grownups of those cousins, there was often a fistful of empty bread bags delivered to the ticket agents to make sure that everyone had their discounted tickets available to them. Eventually, the promotion shifted around from bread bags to soda cans, and for a long stretch of time, the soda cans in question were Dr. Pepper, which, rather than being something mainstream enough to receive an entire shared universe of advertising, was somewhat of a niche soda. Not so much that it wasn't available in large packs, but it wasn't as brand-recognizable as Pepsi, Coke, and their more flagship offerings. It's still a good soda. Because the cans were the ones that would produce the discounted tickets, there was a certain amount of hoarding them all, as well, to make sure that we had enough cans for everyone to get in. Surprisingly, this did not result in a lot of being able to drink the soda, just that there were always enough cans over time to get the discounts needed.
Summers have fewer memories of food and drink these days because joining the working world usually means that you're no longer getting quite as much time off to do such seemingly-epic trips. That, and I can't necessarily go at quite the speed I used to, and I still have the problem of being sufficiently away from the average height club that some rides just aren't designed for me, anyway. Oh, well. I still have the memories, and if I ever find myself in an amusement park, water park, or fairground, I know what kinds of things I'll be looking to find for that experience.
