Sarah Brumble

We sampled the Sligo Slider Bites and tried the new tots. We dug through plates of peri-peri chicken, sucked down sparkling lemonade, and yes—oh, gods above and demons below, yes—we tried the Pickle Pie. And after a long, hot, sweaty day, we have returned to bring you the definitive guide to the official new foods and vendors of the 2026 Minnesota State Fair. As always, we’ve evaluated the new fair foods according to our peerless, pitiless Scarf!, Shrug, Skip system.

Every scrap of an acre TBR has cobbled together has been turned into artfully designed, sustainable, organic farm space. By Sarah Brumble Racket Aug 12, 2025 Excerpt: “We rip up people’s lawns to put gardens and farmland back in,” Townsend says. Thompson and Townsend founded the Black Radish, whose name alludes to the black flag sailed under by pirates, seven years ago in the Standish-Ericsson neighborhood. They were interested in contributing more to the world than their art alone allowed.

The Minnesota State Fair has an undeniable, supernatural power to grow on its visitors. The fair doesn’t so much grind down its haters as it takes an early kernel of joy and slowly adds to it layer by layer, year by year. The particulars of this strange growth, of course, depend on the depth and flavor of one’s curiosity.