Even though you won’t see the Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair in the Michelin Guides anytime soon, that doesn’t mean people won’t come from all over Pennsylvania to eat – and it definitely doesn’t mean you won’t find good food.
George Scott of Scott’s Roasting said he has been serving up pork sandwiches at the fair for 19 years, and that some regulars come from far out of town once a year to get their Scott’s Roasted barbeque pork sandwich.
“We’ve always appreciated the people who have supported us,” George Scott said. “We’re glad people have made us a fair tradition.”
Scott’s Roasting only uses hogs from its own farm in Bellefonte. George Scott, who runs the stand with his wife Brenda, said that at any given time the farm is raising about 1,000 pigs on more than 480 acres of land.
The Scott’s used to just make a living by selling their hogs directly to people, either live or butchered, but after the economy went sour, they had to find a new source of revenue. This came from the roasting stand, which started out as a simple tent, and eventually evolved into two roasting stands and a whole-hog sausage stand.
George Scott, a second-generation farmer but first-generation roaster, said his roast pork is made after 3 to 4 pigs are roasted over a 16 to 18 hour period. His son Jason and Jason’s wife Amanda, however, have started their own branch of the Scott’s pork empire, this time with a sausage stand, which began 3 years ago.
Amanda Scott said the idea of sausage stand came from customers asking about Scott’s Roasting possibly making sausage. She said she and her husband knew that because the fair has such a high number of sausage stands, they couldn’t do the traditional link Italian sausage.
“We decided that making it loose sausage instead of link was a unique way to do the sausage to stand out among the other sausages here,” she said.
Scott’s sausage is unlinked, ground whole hog sausage, meaning it is made up of the bacon, ham, loin, tenderloins and shoulder of the pig. Like the roasted pork recipe, the sausage recipe is a family recipe.
Another stand, a stand that hasn’t been at the fair as long but still has long lines, serves up a variety of dishes from a part of the country much farther south – Cajun Country.
Rhonda Johnson, owner of Big Drew’s Cajun Express, started serving Cajun chicken on a stick 11 years ago, and now consistently sees one of the longest lines at the fair, possibly because it actually has two lines customers must stand in consecutively.
Johnson said because the demand is so high for her chicken on a stick, and the amount of time it takes to make them, she has to have one line for the orders, after which the customers go to another line equal in length as she makes a batch of chicken. Then the process starts over again.
The recipe for the chicken on a stick is a traditional Cajun recipe Johnson knows, as she grew up in Lake Charles, La., in the heart of Cajun Country. She batters the chicken breasts in her Cajun seasoning then deep fries them on a long stick. Johnson said the business got so big she had to open a second stand directly next to her original stand, where she is able to serve more Louisiana specialties including grilled catfish, chicken and sausage gumbo and brew fries.
Greg Yearick helps operate the second stand, Yearick says he primarily comes because the people at the fair are fun people to be around.
Some fair institutions have been around so long at the fair, they have been bought by people who themselves came to the fair as children. One such institution is Wiser Fries, more commonly known as Wolfie’s Fries because of the unchanged painting of a wolf on the outside of the stand.
Richard Wiser bought 12 years ago bought the stand from the previous owner, who operated it for 18 years prior.
“I bought it because they always had long lines,” Wiser said. “When I bought it [Wolfie] said to me to not change the recipe or I’d fall flat on my face.”
Wiser has only changed the recipe for the famous French fries slightly, but has changed locations more than once to accommodate for new buildings built on the fair grounds.
Wiser also said in the past couple years, as the fair has gotten bigger and more food purveyors have flooded the market, sales have gone down at the Grange Fair. Wiser did say that sales at other fairs in Pennsylvania, such as the Huntington County Fair and the Juniata County Fair, have gotten better, even though those fairs have not grown any larger.
Some stand at the fair have lines so long that the workers can’t even tell how many items they sell in a day, such as the Monkey Bread stand, which has been at the fair for 22 years.
Brittiney Queen, who has worked at the stand for eight years, said the line can be so long it will run the length of five stands down the road.
Monkey Bread is a sweet, sticky, cinnamon-like pastry made with an icing over top of it. Queen said she cannot give away the recipe for the famous pastry.
“We make it, bake it, and flip it out the window,” Queen says.
