County Fair Legacy

It’s county fair season.  

I’ve loved the county fair since I went to my first one in Alta, Iowa as the tag-along little sister in the mid 1980’s. 

I’m developing a different appreciation for the fair as I use it as the deadline to teach my kids the skills on my punch list of life skills I think they need to know before they leave our home. I only have four more fairs with our oldest.  She still has to do a refinishing and citizenship project.  Our son’s fair 4-H career starts next year, but he’s in his second fair exhibiting bucket calves. I love watching them care for and learn through their livestock projects.

As a recovering 4-Her I realize the real wins for me were the lifelong friends and fabulous adventures I was able to have on a 10 acre parcel of ground in a town far enough away that I needed to stay from chores to chores every day.  I participated in competitions that weren’t a part of my rest-of-the-year life and were also the culmination of month’s long chores and training of animals. I got to exhibit refinishing projects that made me a discerning buyer of furniture. I dabbled in enough creative art projects (that my art teacher mom encouraged) to develop an appreciation for hand crafted items and the process of creating art. I tried my hand at sewing and baking projects. I got to choose my own market hogs and breeding and market sheep. I gained knowledge about agriculture, food production and consumerism from my projects. I also gained the confidence to try about anything once, because I learned that if I failed it wasn’t the end of the world.

Aside from my love of showing hogs at the fair, I lived for the educational presentation competitions.  It didn’t matter if it was a working or educational presentation, I loved participating and working with people to share knowledge about something. I did presentations on everything from cream cheese mints with a club mate and how to make homemade root beer with a friend from another club in my county to one on the beef industry in Iowa and projects like marbleizing paper and other crafts.  I should have figured out from how much I enjoyed working presentations that vocational education was a passion of mine, but there weren’t many female ag educators in the late 80’s and early 90’s to look to and I didn’t see how my love for my hog and sheep projects and agriculture were tied to what we called home economics at the time.

Of all the presentations that I did, my first one was the one that lives on in our family.  I was a nervous first year 4-Her, wanting to keep up with my older sibling’s success. Thankfully mom was willing and able to help get me organized early in the summer.  I thought long and hard about what I wanted to make in front of a crowd.  I was sure I wanted to do something cooking, because I would catch Julia Child and Chen Can Cook on our IPTV station and cooking seemed like the perfect thing to do.  I didn’t have a very deep set of recipes that I could make unassisted with consistent success, but I did have a good banana bread recipe that our family liked. 

I made that recipe two times a week in the month leading up to fair.  I still could eat banana bread by the time I exhibited that bread as a static exhibit and did my presentation.  I did very well the day of the presentation, and since I couldn’t exhibit as a first year Junior 4-her at the State Fair in August, the judge elected to send me to present at the Clay County Fair. 

My fair was the third week in July.  The Clay County Fair was the second week in September.  I continued to make banana bread at least weekly to keep my presentation up to practice.  The recipe made two loaves of bread.  As we got closer to the fair, I’m pretty sure the neighbors were getting as sick of banana bread as I was.  By the time I presented at Clay County I could barely stand the smell of banana bread and couldn’t get a bite past my mouth. 

I still remember presenting at the Clay County Fair.  It was the one event that I participated in that both of my grandmothers were able to be at.  I lost one of those grandmas not long after that presentation and I treasure the picture I have of both of them with me in an auditorium that smelled like autumn. Just behind us was my Godfather holding a loaf of banana bread that was baked in the toaster oven. He held it so you couldn't see it had a burned top from hitting the roof of the oven as it baked. 

I’m in my 40’s now and I usually pass when offered banana bread, but my husband and kids enjoy it so I make it from time to time.  It works well with frozen bananas or fresh ripe ones.  

Note: If you are going to freeze the bananas I would recommend mashing them before freezing and then freeze the baggie flat so it is easier to defrost in the microwave to use in the recipe.

The groceries... 

1 Cup Sugar 
2 Cup Flour 
1/2 teaspoon Salt 
1 teaspoon Baking Soda 
2 eggs 
3 Tablespoon Milk 
3 Mashed, very ripe bananas 
1/2 Cup Margarine, melty 
1/2 Cup chopped nuts, optional 

The Process... 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a large loaf pan.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and barely blend them together.

Bake for 1 hour or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Butter the crust when done and let sit for 10 minutes before running a knife around the edge of the pan to help loosen it before turning it out.