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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Doggone Good.

Posted by Kat Robinson on Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 8:33 AM

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There are a lot of food vendors at the Arkansas State Fair, but there's one you probably need to try -- not just because the food's good but because there's an undeniable history.

I'm talking about Superdog.

The bright corner-dweller a block from the Hall of Industry can be determined by the peal of its big shiny bell and by the ginormously long corndogs carried off by hungry Fairgoers in all directions. But this isn't your ordinary corndog dealer.

Superdog's been around since 1963... and has been coming to the Arkansas State Fair for nearly 40 years. And there's a reason for that... on the jump.

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Russell Groscurth started this particular corndog business back in the 1960s... and passed it along to his son Randy. The elder Groscurth created the Superdog back in 1954 with two weiners and a homemade batter that's now a family secret.

Superdog used to tour the Canadian circuit and the like with Conklin Shows... and that's how it ended up at the Arkansas State Fair. But several years ago Conklin and our Fair parted ways. The Groscurths decided to keep coming here because of the friendly folks. The Arkansas State Fair is the only Fair Superdog attends outside of the state of Florida.

And the product is good. Other stands may used pre-packaged corndog mix or even sell previously frozen corndogs, but not Superdog. The weiners are fresh and the coating (a batter I'd rank somewhere between a cornmeal pancake and a funnel cake) is sweet and thick. And it passed the approval of a rather tough critic, my daughter.

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