The Rodeo's Most Bizarre Culinary Creations

Baconade, shark on a stick and deep fried Snickers and Twinkies: the food fare at the stock show boasts some strange culinary creations. Curiously, the strangest on the food court this year all belong to Pierre’s Concessions, three stands with signs strung top to bottom with everything from Greek gyros to frog legs to rib-eyes.

“People are getting them. People are intrigued about it, it’s very hard to find,” says Cristina Crisan of the shark on a stick. Crisan and her husband Pierre own the concession stands and have been operating them in the Midwest since 1997. The shark, she says, comes from Ecuador.

The Crisan’s had three ethnic stands at a previous festival and were looking to add a menu item that no one else had. “Then I said, shark—no one has shark,” Crisan said. The family then began searching who sold the meat, and started buying filets that they cut into cubes, bread and deep fry. In San Angelo, she says, the item has been a hot seller. Some even ask if there is a fin and teeth attached when ordering.

With such a rare food choice on the menu, Crisan of course offers an equally obscure refreshment. While she came up with the shark on a stick idea, she credits her husband with coming up with baconade. She says it’s a man thing.

“Baconade is just lemonade with a bacon syrup in it,” Crisan explains. “When you’re drinking it, you feel just a lemonade taste, but after you’re done—after you swallow—you feel the bacon taste, so it’s like did I drink lemonade or did I just eat some bacon? It’s a funny feeling.”

Although her shark on a stick seems to be more popular, Crisan says she has been selling a good amount of baconade at the San Angelo fairgrounds. “I have people that come back—we do refills—so I have some that come back that have gotten baconade in the first place,” she said. “Girls, they’re not really interested. Kids try it.”

Of all the items she sells however, none will clog the arteries like the fried Snickers and Twinkies. The fried fare has been on the menu for at least 12 years now, she says, and she’ll go through boxes and boxes of each on a nightly basis.

“It’s doing well. It’s still as popular as it was in the first year. I don’t think people will ever get rid of this item,” Crisan said. When asked about the average calorie count, she continued, “Don’t even talk about calories when you talk about festivals, fairs—people don’t have to think that way. If we’re talking about calorie-wise, you’ll never come back here,” she laughed.  “We don’t even have to let them know.”

Crisan and her husband have been visiting the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo for nearly 20 years, she said. Even with the rarities on the menu, she says her most popular item is gyros, a Greek food of meat that comes in a pita with salad and a garlic dill sauce on top. The sauce, she says is homemade and has become so popular that her stepdaughter is now selling it online.

“We sell it also at some festivals but I haven’t brought it here yet,” Crisan said. “It’s going well. She also sells garlic chipotle sauce, which is the version of the garlic sauce that is spicy.”

The family is from Romania, but moved to America many years ago and opened a restaurant selling similar fare. At the same time they were running concessions at various festivals and the work became too broad.

“The festivals, it’s easier because if you don’t like one festival, you just pick it up and move to another place. You don’t need to be there,” Crisan said. “If there’s not enough people that come to your restaurant in that area, there’s nothing you can do about it.

“This is going well. People ask me all the time, ‘Why don’t you open up a restaurant selling gyros?’ We get this every place we go. That’s the fun of it. Go to the fair to get food that you can’t get anywhere else.”

Crisan didn’t mention plans of adding any other new and bizarre creations any time soon, but her baconade, shark on a stick and deep fried desserts will be available on the fairgrounds until March 2.