Can you say deep fried? Expect big tastes at The Big Fresno Fair

Get your appetite ready and pull on your stretchy pants. The Big Fresno Fair is here.

This year, more than 80 food and drink vendors, including the return of the fried food king himself, Charlie “Chicken Charlie” Boghosian, will be at the fair to cook people’s favorites and unveil some new concoctions.

The fair runs Oct. 7-18 at the fairgrounds on Chance Avenue, between Butler Avenue and Kings Canyon Road.

It is the time of year to indulge in a little cotton candy, a corn dog and maybe a soft taco, bierock or cinnamon roll. And if you are an adventurous food eater, there is plenty to explore.

“Anything fried has my stamp of approval,” says Catherine Heaney, owner of Charcuterie in Visalia, a big fan of fair food.

Among the 20 new food items to debut at the fair will be: cinnamon roll sundaes, deep-fried butter, pink popcorn, sweet corn ice cream, Greek nachos, rosemary garlic corn dog and chocolate hazelnut pie.

Stacy Rianda, deputy manager of The Big Fresno Fair, says she is excited to have Chicken Charlie back after a four-year absence. The popular vendor had a schedule conflict the past several years and was eager to come back to Fresno.

“People want to see what he has come up with next,” Rianda says. “And for some reason, the weirder it is the better.”

Chicken Charlie is bringing five new dishes, including a deep-fried SlimFast bar, deep-fried peanut butter pickle, and deep-fried bacon-wrapped pickle. Not fried will be a shrimp pineapple bowl and a chicken pineapple bowl.

Gianni Messmer, owner of MKM Concessions, says his specialty popcorn isn’t weird, it’s just colorful. Messmer has created fruit-flavored popcorn. He takes batches of popcorn that have been individually flavored with cherry, raspberry, apple, banana, grape and mixes them all together.

“What you get is popcorn that tastes like cereal,” Messmer says. “People really like it.”

Messmer, who is a first timer at the Big Fresno Fair, also makes old-fashioned sweet-tasting pink popcorn.

“The taste will really take you back,” he says. “And it won’t be stale, like the kind you remember as a kid.”

And for those who may have wondered what deep-fried butter tastes like, Mary Beth Mize has the answer. Mize, an owner of Fat Fanny’s Funnel Cakes, will be frying some creamy deep-fried balls of butter.

She starts out with a tablespoon of butter, blends it with powdered sugar and then rolls it into a bite-sized ball and freezes it. When ready to cook, she adds cinnamon, dips the balls in batter and fries them to a nice golden brown.

“They actually taste a lot like a cinnamon roll,” she says. “Although it is a little messy.”

Mize is also dunking peanut butter cups and slices of strawberry shortcake in her deep fryer.

And don’t worry about getting lost trying to find the food vendors. The fair has an iPhone app detailing the food booths and you can download a map on the fair’s website, https://www.fresnofair.com/

The map includes vendors who sell healthy options and gluten-free foods.

This story was originally published October 6, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Can you say deep fried? Expect big tastes at The Big Fresno Fair."