Fair Food: Python on a Stick, Fried Jellybeans and Monster Corn Dogs

No, python-on-a-stick doesn't taste like chicken.

Neither does yak or cooked scorpion, or a cricket lollipop for that matter.

"Let's just nip that in the bud right now — nothing tastes like chicken except chicken," said Rodney Wright, manager of Jungle George's, this year's novelty meat concessionaire at the .

"Everyone expects me to pull out a giant snake on a stick, I think. But it's just meat, like any other kind of meat. To me, it tastes like calamari, but better."

Fair patrons lined up at Jungle George's Friday afternoon to see what all the fuss is about. They've heard about the yak and llama burgers, the raccoon and larvae (eew), the deep-fried butter.

"Everyone makes a weird face when we talk about the insects," said worker Ben Heino, 19.

"Yeah, me personally, I'm not big on bugs — I like the deep-fried jelly beans," said worker Jimmy Smith.

"Mmm yeah, jelly beans," said Heino. "They're divine."

Martinez resident John Bright, 27, was on a burger binge on Friday. He had starved himself on Thursday to make more room in his stomach for fair meat, knowing he was going to put himself in a food coma on Friday. The county fair, he said, is all about the food, then trying not to throw up on the rides later.

Last year, he was obsessed with corn-dogs, and the year before that, it was all the frozen stuff. This time, it was burgers. Jungle George's was his second stop on Friday, right after Half-Pound Burger down the way.

He saw the word "lion" on the marquee and meandered over.

"I would sooo eat me some lion — that's like the king of all things," he said. "That's what drew me over here."

PETA has been giving Jungle George's and others a hard time, however, and they had to kick the lion meat off the menu. So, Bright settled for a yak burger.

He took a bite.

"This is the best burger I've had," he said, giving a bite to 24-year-old Laura Myers.

"Now I want the fried butter."

Wright said despite peoples' fears, the meat is all safe and tasty. It's cooked all the way through and without poison (these scorpions are bred without stingers or venom, for example).

"We don't want to kill off our customers —we'd like them to come back,"

The scorpions are the big sellers — especially with the kids — as are the ants.

"In pre-school, I used to eat ants," said 11-year-old Kristopher Moyer of San Jose.

"So I wanted the candy and it's ... it's kinda like crunchy sweet candy but then you hit these little meat parts."

His friend, 12-year-old Logan Collins, had planned to split it with him but then chickened out.

"It's meat in candy," he said. "It's weird."

Mike Delagrande of San Jose loved the fried jelly beans, which taste kind of like fried donuts with little gooey jelly surprises inside. Some are better than others — if you get a strong-tasting jelly bean, like cherry, your experience is better than if you get a more benign flavor. They're all good though.

"It's like candy ... but deep fried," Delagrande said. "I don't know how else to say it. Mmm. That's good, man."

As for the fried butter, Wright wouldn't explain how it's cooked lest he give away the secret recipe. But a good guess is that it's frozen and then dipped into the batter and cooked quickly so as not to melt the butter.

Heino said it tastes like warm biscuits.

Down the way at Monster Dogs, the half-pound "Monster" corn-dog is the biggest seller, as are giant bricks of curly fries.

At the Turlock fair awhile ago, they went through 700 pounds of curly fries in one day.

"We couldn't keep up with the orders," said cook Chris Bashaw, 26. "We were just going through box after box."

They have cheese sauce (the fake, good kind) and chili for toppers, of course.

"We thought (Juicy's) Outlaw Burger would give us a run, but so far, business has been good," he said. "People who want corn-dogs will come here no matter what else is offered."

Further back, Izzy's Bar-B-Que boasts its special sauce and tender, juicy meats. The best sellers there, according to cook Debera Hamlin, are the ribs, pulled pork sandwiches and the turkey legs.

"Ours is the best around," she said. "Yesterday, I sold a plate of ribs to a woman — she was probably about 60 — and then she came back about 15 minutes later and said, 'Im gonna have another plate,'" she said.

"So I said OK, and sold her another plate and she went over to that shaded area under that tree and ate them. She ate them both, bless her heart."

These are just a sampling of the food vendors at this year's fair. They are sprinkled throughout the grounds, but one of the main food areas is right in the middle, just past the rides but before the livestock and pig races in the back. That's where the concessionaires mentioned in this article are.

The fair goes until July 10. Check in with Patch for more coverage as the fair progresses.