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Keeping?? Corny Tradition
“Say corny dogs!” shouts
Shonnery Pettit from behind her camera at the State
Fair of Texas in Dallas. For years, her family has trav
eled from Mesquite. Texas, to enjoy and pose with
a famous piece of culinary history’: Fletcher's Corny
Dogs, considered the original corn dog.
"I grew up coming to the fair to show cattle, and
every year I had to have a Fletcher's Corny Dog,” Pet
tit says. "My husband, Tom, is from Wisconsin, and I
introduced him to them. We’ve even brought his par
ents out here and said, ‘You've got to try this."’
When brothers Carl and Neil Fletcher invented
die batter-dipped, deep-fried hot dog in their Dallas
kitchen and sold it for the first time in 1942 at the State
Fair of Texas, they’ couldn’t have imagined its enduring
popularity. Today, descendents of the Fletcher brothers
sell nearly 500,000 corny dogs during the fair's 24-day
mn, scheduled Sept. 28 to Oct. 21 this year.
“We’ve had quite a love affair with the people that
visit the fair," says Skip Fletcher, 72, who, along with
his brother Bill, runs Fletcher’s Corny Dogs. "I think we
captured the public's imagination with something new.
different and good."
Ann Beddingfield. 65, of Frankston, Texas (pop.
1,209), has been coming to the state fair for 50 years,
and she says the first com dog she ate as a child was a
Fletcher’s.
“I’d never seen anything like it," Beddingfield says. It
was a special treat. We didn’t have hot dogs every day
like kids do now."
Fletcher’s Corny Dogs taste better than their competi
tors because they’ are so crispy, Beddingfield says. Skip
says each dog should have a “certain crunch” and is
cooked according to the original recipe. It's hand-dipped
in a commeal-based batter and cooked for three and a
half minutes in a 365-degree vat of peanut oil.
"At least once a day, I go to all six stands (at the fair) to
check the quality of the product.” he says. "Corny dogs
are simple, but they ain’t easy."
As a 7-year-old, Skip was the official taste tester for
his father, Neil, and Uncle Girl as they developed the
recipe in his mother’s Dallas kitchen. “It was tough to
achieve a balance where it would sray on the stick and
A new generation enjoys America’s original com dog.
still taste gtxxl,” he says, adding that the recipe evolved
over a three-month period.
Girl and Neil were “song and dance men,” says Skip,
and they had a popular tent show in Dallas for many
years. Eventually, they’ gave up performing for more
traditional jobs, but their independent spirits pushed
their experimentation in the kitchen and development
of the corny dog.
No one is sure how the duo decided on the name for
their product, but Skip and his wife, G.G., think it is a
play on the words “commeal" and ‘carnie,’’ named both
for the bitter and their fellow carnival workers.
Carl and Neil died within a year of each other in the
late 1980 s, and Skip and Bill took over the business.
Fletcher's Corny Dogs were sold only at the State
Fair until 1995, when die Fletchers opened a new’ stand
under the name Gimy Dog Pit at the Texas Motor
Speedway in Fort Worth.
Today, Fletcher's Corny Dogs are available only at
the fair, the speedway and a few Texas festivals, so fans
don’t mind waiting in lines that snake around the stand
to get their annual taste of culinary history for $3.50.
Some customers are so steadfast in their tradition that
they buy their corny dog from the same stand year after
year. In return, the Fletchers work hard to make their
customers happy.
“We take it seriously,” Skip say's. "We don’t want
anyone to get a bad dog.”
Kristen Tribe is a writer in Decatur, Texas.
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