Eat two or three of anything at a county fair -- two cotton candy cones, two turkey legs, two milkshakes, three cookies -- and you're bound to garner comment from your friends.
But chances are incredibly good you've never downed 1,350 Banana Chocolate Cream Donuts or 1,400 pounds of sweet cream cheese frosting. Fair goers, however, did, as an adventurously eat-happy group during the 2014 OC Fair. The Costa Mesa spectacular is technically over -- it closed on Sunday, Aug. 10 -- but it isn't truly over before the big, big, gargantuan numbers regarding how many people attended and what they dined on have been released.
Let the eye-popping and no-way-ing commence.
Always a popular place to start? Bacon. Bacon-A-Fair, the culinary wizards behind this year's Deep-Fried, Bacon-Wrapped Jack Daniels Churro, went through 20,000 pounds of bacon over the course of the extravaganza, which ran for 23 days. Yep, we meant all four zeroes in that number. 20,000 pounds of bacon, 23 days.
On the topic of that now known-far-and-wide churro, the booth also went through 99 1.75-liter bottles of Jack Daniels.
Elsewhere? The Pop Rocks Cherry Donut -- a donut, yes, crusted in Pop Rocks -- was ordered by 1,800 curious attendees over at Texas Donuts. Some, 3,300 feet of cinnamon rolls was coiled into edible buns at Old West Cinnamon Rolls. And the Orange County Wine Society poured 34,800 glasses of wine.
And those accolade-garnering Chile Relleno Burgers? Grantburgers reports selling 1,290 of 'em.
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It isn't all about the food at the fair, contrary to popular belief. Over 1,300,000 people attended, some 42 tons of canned food was donated on We Care Wednesdays, and over 10,000 ribbons were handed out in categories like baking, quilting, photography, and art. And for those plushies won on the midway? People hauled 435,000 of the soft prizes home.
It's a production that's as big and bright as a Ferris wheel, any which way you look at it, that OC Fair. But 20,000 pounds of bacon? We're going to have to let that one sink in.
Bacon buffs, you always astound with your commitment to anything that comes in contact with the superstar strip.
