Some Pigs Fly: Northwest Montana Fair, Kalispell – August 14, 2014

Each Labor Day weekend since moving into the Intermountain Area of Northern California, my wife and I have very nearly lived at the Intermountain Fair. We’re able to catch up with former residents and youth group/study members, as well as merging the rosters of people each of us knows and presumes the other does as well. (The repeated revelation comes after we’ve concluded lengthy conversations: “Who was that?” “Oh, I should have introduced you. I thought you knew them.”) Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

So, the idea of going to a similarly-sized fair while on vacation in Montana was attractive for several reasons, not the least of which was that we had no schedule of responsibilities, no exhibits being judged, and no chance of awkwardly running into people who know us better than we know them (an occupational hazard of schoolteachers, pastors and their wives, and especially chaplains). Of course, keeping track of the other fourteen people we were with (another story for another time) generated sufficient stress that we really didn’t miss all those other factors. But before I digress into the other post I’ll write (at Death Pastor’s Diversions) on the lessons of unity and diversity in family reunions….

Where pigs fly under the radar.

My first impressions of a fair are usually centered around the opportunities afforded for what a country fair used to accomplish for communities. While competitive, the benefits of entering agricultural products in the local fair included the opportunity to compare results and techniques, and to have the primary work of the community judged by a more objective standard (represented by judges brought in to compare the produce, livestock, and other handiwork against what they were seeing elsewhere).

Priced to fly, too.

So, my first thought? “Well, this is different.” And it is. Serving a much larger area and population, the Northwest Montana Fair has a surprisingly limited number of entries in the various craft, art, food, produce, and livestock categories than I’m used to seeing. And yet, the variety of livestock categories was amazing.

At our local fair the livestock auction provides major benefits for 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America) participants. Therefore, entries are almost entirely limited by profitability to steers, pigs, and lambs. Top awards total just twelve: Grand and Reserve Champions for each set of animals in both 4-H and FFA, with the ultimate Grand and Reserve Champions selected from among those (so, you could add those awards, given to animals already awarded in their divisions, bringing the total up to 18).

Before.

After.

At Kalispell, however, there are rabbits, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, goats, and…wait for it…both miniature and draft horses (in more breeds than I imagined there could be), among several other categories of competition. My perception of the families and individuals I met was that the plethora of awards was far more motivating, and that the standards of excellence were just as high. This led to another perception, of course, given my tendency to pun: “In a fair like ours, most of these kids would be shuffled in among the beef, swine, and sheep categories. But here, it’s clear that they put just as much effort into chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys…that you could say, for some of them, that their pigs do fly!”

And then we found the pig wings.

Others in line assured me they had been spreading to local farmer’s markets. Another added that there was a pizza parlor near his home in Arizona that now carried them. At the Northwest Montana Fair they’re served by the same folks who roast whole ears of corn in the husks, then shuck the greenery back to dip the whole of its hybrid gold and white goodness into a vat of butter before handing it to you on a single-ply paper plate. As a Newbie, I, of course, began to immediately roast my hand while pouring a stream of butter from the crease in the plate, dangerously near my trusty Pentax DSLR (that’s a camera). Once I received instruction in how to cradle the corn in the plate by folding it around the ear, I could turn my attentions to the many spices and sauces available for the corn and—yes, I’ll get back to them—pig wings.

Other diners were unavailable for comment.

Pig wings are the usually-disposed-of portion of the shank, slow-roasted and smoked until, cliché that it is, the meat is falling off the bone. In hopes of avoiding that cliché, I did try to simply slide the bone from within the core of the substantial portion of protein each provides. (You get two per order!) It almost worked. As it was, though, I had to give the bone a shake, and then, well…you know what happened next. And it fell from the bone without being overly lubricated. The slow roasting left almost no fat, and turned the connective tissue into just enough moist complement to the outer crust of the otherwise succulent meat. Not just an interesting marketing approach to using up the leftovers, nor a way to attract sales by clever labeling, this was delicious.

So, two pig wings for six dollars, and an immense ear of perfectly roasted corn, drenched in butter, with as much salt, pepper, cayenne, crushed red pepper, and several other less important (in my humble opinion) seasonings as you want to coat them in, as well as what others in the party assured me was a very good barbecue sauce, and you’ve got something at a “country” fair that feels like “fair food” and yet, especially important for me, involves neither a deep fryer nor batter-coating otherwise innocent indulgences. (Or, in the case of funnel-cakes, deep frying the batter itself, and offering it alamode!)

On such little wings, of course, pigs could never really fly. But (cliché alert) it’s easy to see why these pig wings fly off the shelves of the roaster. Now, if we can just get someone to bring them to the Intermountain Fair, we’d be in (yes, again, you’ve been warned) Hog Heaven.