6 Iowa County Fair Foods That Vanish the Rest of the Year
Spencer’s Clay County Fair wrapped up its nine-day run on September 20.
Many of the foods attendees ate that week won’t turn up at an Iowa restaurant or grocery store between now and next September.
These are the Iowa county fair foods that vanish the rest of the year.
1. Pigtail Sundae
Clay County Fair, Iowa’s largest county fair, named the Pigtail Sundae its best new food in 2021.
The recipe piles pulled pork over a cup of curly pigtail fries, then finishes with coleslaw.
No spoon required.
The Clay County Pork Producers Chop Shop built it, a county chapter of the Iowa Pork Producers Association that staffs the booth for nine days a year and nothing more.
You won’t find it on a menu anywhere else in the state.
2. Barnyard Burger
The Spencer Jaycees, a civic club in Spencer, Iowa, won Clay County Fair’s best-new-food award in 2018 with the Barnyard Burger.
It stacks a pork tenderloin patty, a chicken patty, and a third-pound beef patty, each with a layer of cheese.
Three meats, one bun.
Jalapeños, mushrooms, and sautéed onions are optional add-ons.
The Jaycees are a local civic club, not a restaurant.
They only fire up the griddle for fair week.
Block 23 on the fairgrounds is the only place to find it.
The Jaycees run no restaurant or storefront anywhere else.
3. Spam Curds
The Durens, a father-and-sons crew from Austin, Minnesota, brought Spam Curds to Iowa’s Clay County Fair in 2016.
The fair’s celebrity judges named it that year’s best new food on opening day.
Tim Duren and his sons dip bite-sized chunks of Spam in a homemade breading, then deep-fry them, in flavors like hickory smoke and jalapeño.
Crunchy, not canned.
They pack up the fryer once the fair ends and don’t sell Spam Curds anywhere else.
Why Iowa Fair Food Never Follows You Home
Iowa’s county fair food disappears every fall for a licensing reason, not a recipe secret.
The state’s Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing issues many fair vendors a single-event food license good for 14 days or fewer, tied to one event.
A vendor can buy an annual license instead, which covers a whole season of fairs, but that license still never comes with a fixed address.
That’s why a trailer like the Spam Curds vendor can work fairs in three states and never open a storefront in any of them.
4. Bryan’s Sirloin Tips
Bryan’s Sirloin Tips travels from Argos, Indiana, into the food lineup at Iowa’s Clay County Fair every September.
It won the fair’s best-new-food title in 2019.
The trailer grills marinated beef sirloin cut into bite-sized pieces, served on a stick or in a cup.
Eaten straight off the stick.
The same operation shows up at the Wisconsin State Fair and the Minnesota State Fair under a similar name, chasing the fair calendar from one state to the next.
It has no permanent address to chase it back to.
5. Schnitzel Strips
Taulelle Concessions rolled Schnitzel Strips into the 2024 lineup at Iowa’s Clay County Fair.
The dish took home that year’s food contest.
Taulelle cuts a half-pound of pork tenderloin into strips, then serves it with a schnitzel sauce made from mayonnaise, fresh lemon juice, garlic, and white pepper.
Nothing basic about it.
Taulelle is better known for Jurassic Corn Dogs at the Minnesota State Fair, and its trailer only stops in Spencer for the nine days Clay County Fair runs.
The rest of the year, it’s touring somewhere else.
6. Bison Cheesesteak Crunch
Fischer’s Sleepy Bison Grill drove up from Brown County, Minnesota, and walked away with the People’s Choice award at Iowa’s 2025 Clay County Fair.
Its Bison Cheesesteak Crunch piles bison meat, American cheese, chili cheese Fritos, and queso onto a hoagie bun.
Cheesy and gone in minutes.
The grill runs on the same fair-to-fair schedule as the fair’s other traveling vendors, with no brick-and-mortar location anywhere.
Whatever bison the grill has left when Clay County Fair closes goes wherever the next fair on the calendar is.
Spencer’s Yearly Food Contest
Iowa’s Clay County Fair runs a food contest every year.
That contest is why Spencer keeps turning up a food nobody had heard of the year before.
Local media personalities and past winners judge dozens of entries from that year’s vendors on opening day, crowning one best new food and one people’s choice pick.
A vendor gets one shot at the title before the next class of new foods rolls in.
That churn is deliberate.
New vendors show up every year hoping to be the one people talk about by next September.
Psst! How much do you know about Iowa fair food history? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Iowa Fair Food IQ
Answer nine questions on Iowa fair food history. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
The Iowa State Fair’s hot beef sundae, mashed potatoes and gravy topped with beef and a cherry tomato, first showed up in what year?
100 Fairs, 99 Counties
Iowa holds 100 county fairs across its 99 counties each year, since Pottawattamie County alone runs two.
Nearly all of them wrap up by early August, packed into the same few summer weeks.
Not Clay County's.
It runs in September instead, closing out the state's fair season rather than opening it.
Clay County Fair's count put its 2025 attendance at 316,242 people over nine days.
Fischer's Sleepy Bison Grill hitched up its trailer and rolled back toward Brown County, Minnesota.
The trip is just one more stop on a fair circuit that never runs through Iowa the rest of the year.
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