Hmong corndogs, cheese curd lumpia: Minnesota State Fair expands menu with global fusions
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Any devoted Minnesota State Fair foodie has an opinion on the age-old feud between the corn dog and the Pronto Pup. But this year, there’s a new sausage-on-a-stick to contend with.
Holly Whittlef waited in line at the Union Hmong Kitchen stand at the fair to sample the new Hmong corndog.
“Such a nice twist on the classic,” Whittlef said. “It just offers you a little something different, which is great. Exactly what you’re looking for when you’re at the State Fair.”
It’s the latest from chef Yia Vang, who’s had the booth at the state fair for several years now. The Hmong pork sausage is seasoned with ginger, garlic, lemongrass and other flavors, then skewered on a stick, dunked in a cornmeal batter and deep fried. It’s served with Kua Txob sauce — which Whittlef’s friend Dustin Erikstrup gave a word of caution about.
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“The sauce is extremely spicy,” he said. “It’s not Minnesota spicy. It is spicy.”
Still, Erikstrup gave it a nine out of 10 — one of his favorite new foods of the fair, he said.
It’s one of many fair-food and international-food fusions on the menu this year, as chefs and the fair’s food staff look to expand options.
In the back of his buzzing booth, Vang said the new hit came from experimenting in the kitchen, with the classic corn dog in mind.
“It kind of started out as a joke at the restaurant,” Vang said. “We had some Hmong sausage there once, and we dipped it with some corn batter and we fried it up and we ate it. We’re like, ‘It’s actually kind of good.’ ”
Vang said that as iconic as the corn dog is to the fair, Hmong sausage is just as iconic for many Hmong families. The result is a dish that people with Hmong roots — and Minnesota roots — will recognize.
“We have a lot of Hmong kids working for us, too, and I think that’s just really cool for them to be able to see kind of that forging of two different cultures where, you know, they are 100 percent American and they are also 100 percent Hmong,” Vang said.
And in a nod to another Minnesota immigrant community, the sausage is made by Kramarczuk’s, an Eastern European deli in Minneapolis.
Across the fair, visitors can sample the cheese curd lumpia – another hit off this year’s new-foods list. The snack from Lumpia City combines Filipino pork sausage called longanisa with cheese curds, rolled in a lumpia wrapper and fried.
Fairgoer Jimmy Wong said he tried the lumpia last year, and had to come back for this new flavor.
“It’s very crispy,” Wong said after his first bite. “The flavors on here feel a little bit more, I guess, your Midwestern homey kind of flavor, with the cheese and the meats in there. Very good.”
The growing list of international and fusion foods isn’t a coincidence. Danielle Dullinger is the fair’s food and beverage manager. She said the fair wants to offer a wider selection of food, so international cuisines stand out in vendor applications.
“We are trying to be intentional in bringing in what people want and food that reflects the diversity of Minnesota and the country as a whole,” Dullinger said. “We feel like we’re pretty set on cheese curds.”
It’s the current arc of the long history of the fair’s food. Even the now-classic corn dogs and cheese curds weren’t always staples, she said.
“If you go way back, what the fair really was about was the dining halls, and people would come in their Sunday best and come and sit down and enjoy a full meal at a dining hall,” Dullinger said.
But now, the fair is more about walking around and sampling a range of snacks. Vendors want to make a splash with wacky flavor combinations, or twists on classics.
Dullinger said she also keeps an eye out for trendy, eye-catching foods that make the rounds on social media — which often popularize international dishes. Bright purple ube, a southeast Asian variety of yam, features in fair treats from dumplings to pies this year. Also debuting is tanghulu, a glossy and photogenic sugar-dipped fruit snack, which originated in China.
Dullinger said it also helps that more chefs from immigrant backgrounds are getting established in the state and bringing their ideas and talents to the fair.
“It’s also kudos to those vendors seeing what works for their operation, what they’re seeing as trends, or what they feel they can execute really well,” Dullinger said.
Chef Vang says it’s fun to have those chefs as collaborators, and as neighbors at the fair.
“I look at it as a tender moment, where it’s like, look at all these places that are driven by refugees, immigrants, and saying ‘hey, but at the end of the day, we’re still Minnesotans,’” Vang said.
