The Porcine Lollipop

Final edit 8-30-2006
Pork chop on a stick.
Imagine if you will, a perfectly prepared piece of porcine product poised precipitously on a dowel pin. An inch thick. Six ounces minimum. And as you make your way around the grounds of the Iowa State Fair, taking bite after delicious bite, this pork lollipop is on display, for all the hungry world to see.
The state fair - that celebration of harvest and the best produced from the land of (fill in your state here) - is all about food.
Some will argue it's about concerts, carnivals, competition and the like ... but it's about food.
I went to two state fairs this year: the Missouri State Fair (an annual tradition); and the Iowa State Fair, rumored to be THE fair.
What I missed at both was my favorite viewing activity (next to people watchng), team penning. You can Google for more detail but basically three riders have to cut a select number of specially-numbered cows from a herd in a timed event in an arena partially filled with family, penning afficianados like your humble narrator, and folks just looking to sit a bit and either eat or rest up a bit after eating. For as I said, the state fair is all about food. I found no penning this year, but I found food.
Both fairs had just about anything imaginable to eat on a stick. Corn dogs and apples are a given; but there were fried candy bars and Twinkie cakes on a stick, too. I sought, and found, at the Iowa State Fair, the legendary Pork on a Stick at the small Iowa Pork Producers trailer.
Just a small little trailer, nothing fancy, but for five dollars, out of the small serving window I was handed at approximately 9:35 a.m. the thing that man has sought since the beginning of time - hot, roasted meat on a stick. De-licious!
It was an "Iowa chop," which is the description for the cut of the pork chop, about an inch thick. It was firm meat, but not chewy, cooked well through and through, and I was clearly the envy of all I passed. A couple seated, licking their fingers from morning cinammon rolls and who knows what else, asked where I had discovered the Holy Grail of Porkdom.
Naturally, I pointed them, WITH the Pork on a Stick itself, in the right direction. One must share the wealth. I then saw the legendary Butter Cow - a full-sized sculpture of a cow in butter - and can only say, "Must be an Iowa thing."
I finished off my pork with a cup of fresh chopped fruit from another stand. It wasn't on a stick, but it was the only thing worthy of following the pork.
I had port at the Missouri State Fair, too. At the Missouri Pork Producers restaurant, where I strayed after years of supporting the Poultry Producers place for a chicken sandwich or turkey drumstick. It was a nice chop, with a side of fresh, chunky applesauce. It was good, very good, but it wasn't Pork on a Stick.
It's a flaw, Missouri. We need to fix it.

Fair fact: The Moniteau County Fair (California, Mo.) is the oldest continuously operating county fair in the USA.