Finding local edible fare at the state fair

PALMER — When the Alaska State Fair opens Thursday, one of the first things visitors will see as they walk through the Red Gate is a field of corn. Well, more like a plot of corn the size of a big living room – but real corn with real ears, grown right here in Alaska dirt.

Don't expect to be eating any of it. Lucky or assiduous Alaska gardeners have been able to grow corn in limited amounts for years, and 2016 has been a pretty good summer for such experiments.

"We have half a row of corn in our field right now," said Vicky Bush of Bushes Bunches. "I think we're going to have decent ears just before the fair. But we probably won't have enough to share with our customers."

But that leaves more familiar vegetables at Bushes Bunches, the only fresh produce stand at the fair. Bush mentioned carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, squash, yellow and green zucchini, onions and four or five different kinds of potatoes, all Alaska-grown.

"Hopefully, we'll have beets," she added. "And we may have beans. But I doubt that we'll have any peas this year, which is too bad. They always sell out before the fair ends."

Speaking of the end of the fair, Bushes Bunches plans to continue its tradition of a last day closeout sale. Starting at 6 p.m. on Labor Day, Sept. 5, customers can go to the counter, buy a box and fill it with whatever it will hold. "It's always a madhouse," Bush said.

There should be a lot, even as the fair winds down. Julie Amgwert manages the big Bushes Bunches produce stand near the intersection of the Old Glenn Highway and Clark-Wolverine Road, a popular turnout for veteran fairgoers.

"The greens are going out of control," she said. "Everything's two or three weeks ahead of schedule. And zucchini is huge. We have zucchini up the wazoo."

The produce stand is selling it for $1 a zucchini, any size, which Amgwert allows is a whole lot like giving it away.

Back at the booth on the fairgrounds, the Bushes will also be serving ready-to-eat food, a stew, vegetarian vegetable soup, fresh-cut salads (like same-day fresh), fried peanut potatoes with bacon dip, raspberry pies, strawberry pies, rhubarb lemonade and – you betcha! – zucchini bread. The berries, veggies, spuds and stew meats are all Alaska products. Even the potato chips are Alaska Potato Chips, which are also served at Slippery Gulch on the Green Trail.

Look for Bushes Bunches on the Purple Trail, where you'll also find Vagabond Blues, serving vegetarian sandwiches, wraps and soups featuring Alaska-grown produce, and Talkeetna Spinach Bread. In previous years, sadly, the spinach has not been Alaska-grown; it bolts too fast. But they do offer a blueberry-rhubarb pie from local ingredients.

Alaska potatoes of the fried variety are advertised at Mr. Gyro on the Red Trail and the Patty Wagon on the Green Trail, with possibly some other vendors serving Alaska spuds without identifying them in the advertising.

There's plenty of Alaska seafood to be had, too. There's beer-battered halibut at The Boardwalk and deep-fried halibut chunks at Seafood Alaska, both on the Green Trail. Golden fried halibut at the Anchorage Scottish Rite Masons booth, grilled salmon quesadillas at Salmon Express, Prince William Sound oysters at Pristine Products and spicy reindeer Polish dogs at Indian Valley Meats, all on the Red Trail. There are Alaska scallops, shrimp, crab cakes and crab bisque at The Crab Shack, halibut tacos at Tres Amigos and beer battered, deep-fried halibut at Yukon Concessions, all on the Purple Trail. And there's open-pit salmon at Fish On! Camp Grill, on the Yellow Trail.

The ultimate in "locavoring" at the fair is The Red Beet on the Red Trail, operated by the same folks who run Bistro Red Beet in Wasilla. "Our schtick is to try to serve food from a menu that is 85 percent local and 85 percent organic," said owner and chef Sally Koppenberg. "It's just what we believe in."

Look for big melts made from reindeer sausage, smoked salmon and local vegetables and stuffed loaves. The salmon is soft-smoked without nitrates or preservatives, Koppenberg said. So is the soft-cured reindeer-pork sausage; the pork mixed with the reindeer or used for Italian sausage comes from Alaska farms in Southcentral and the Delta area.

Red Beet's breads also feature local wild grains and seeds, like dock, a kind of wild sorrel found in Alaska and beet bread made from Alaska-grown beets. The stuffed loaf is a quinoa bun stuffed with raw spicy broccoli sauerkraut salad. It's made with some "not horribly spicy" hot peppers, sweet peppers and Alaska honey.

Sauerkraut's something of a specialty back at the Bistro, with varieties that include artichoke and tumis, asparagus-raspberry, beet sauerkraut with onions and green peppers, spicy mandarin kraut "with a lot of onions in it," Alaska seaweed kraut, plain kraut and rhubarb sauerkraut "which is phenomenal," Koppenberg said.

Don't expect to find all of those at the fair, but you will encounter some distinctly Alaska beverages at Red Beet's stand. "We harvest wild chaga off birch trees, turn it into a lightly fermented drink and add chai spices and lemon," she said. "Usually it's served cold, but it can be served hot on dreary days. Very refreshing. And we'll have the beet-raspberry juice, really popular, a real smooth full pulp juice. People try it for the novelty, but they get addicted and come back for it."

They also have a variety of bakery snacks like cookies with cream cheese filling, pound cake, shortbread, brownies and a rhubarb-oat bar. "We're the only gluten-free booth at the fair," Koppenberg said. "Gluten-free gets a bad rap from some commercial producers. It can taste like cardboard. But our bakers take a lot of care and you can't tell the difference from the gluten products."

So there is local fare at our local fair. But you have to look for it. And it doesn't (yet) include corn. The sweet roasted corn at Friar Tuck's is all from out-of-state.

But we hear Friar Tuck's fried zucchini is definitely Alaska-grown.