Dallas/Fort-Worth/Fried food.

Dallas and Fort-Worth are essentially brothers. They’re very close to one another, so much so that it’s difficult to tell where Dallas ends and Fort-Worth begins. The urban sprawl doesn’t seem to end. They do however, have two fairly different personalities. Dallas is possibly the older brother, interested in forging a career in big business, probably oil. Fort-Worth meanwhile has a part-time job that it doesn’t have much interest in. In it’s spare time it likes to dress up as a cowboy.

Now those of you lucky enough to have visited Disneyland in your youth may recall Frontierland, which was basically a mock-up of a Wild West movie set, complete with French-Texan accents (if you went to the Paris Disneyland), artificial cacti and saloons where you could buy a pair of Mickey Mouse ears.

Fort-Worth is pretty much like that, except the cacti are made of cacti, the cowboys are Texan-Texan and I would advise against going into any of the saloons enquiring about Mickey Mouse ears. Like Disneyland it’s obviously all done up for the tourists, but one has to admit that it is done pretty well. They’re pretty serious about their western cowboy heritage here and herd a bunch of Texan long-horned cattle through the historic part of town twice a day to prove it. Just like it was in the old days i’m sure.

You can also visit a western wear store to stock up on cowboy gear if you failed to do so in Nashville. I may have bought myself a cowboy hat. Boots are pretty pricey though. Once you look like one of the Magnificent Seven you can now walk on down the street to Billy Bob’s Texas Honky-tonk, ‘The largest Honky-tonk in the world’, whatever one of those is. On Fridays and Saturdays they have rodeos in the bull ring inside this enormous bar, along with a casino and a stage where famous country singers perform. Sadly i’d picked a Monday to go to Fort-Worth and so it was pretty empty which was a bit of a shame.

Older brother Dallas doesn’t have a whole lot going on to interest the tourist. I did make it my mission to visit a gun shop in Dallas but on finding the address I decided against going inside as the store was at the time, surrounded by police cars. Probably best not to stick my english nose in their business. Luckily for Dallas tourism, John. F. Kennedy was assassinated here back in the 60s and so this gave them an excuse to build a museum about him which is located on the 6th floor of what used to be the Texas School Book Depository. People who know stuff will know that this is the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shot at JFK. Conspiracy theorists will tell you that the shot was fired from the grassy knoll further down the street however.

The museum itself was all very interesting and does a fairly good job at looking at both sides of the story and various conspiracy theories. You also learn a fair bit about JFK and world history at the time so that’s a plus. On the grassy knoll you’ll meet some of the more hardcore conspiracy theorists who don’t work for the museum. They’ll talk to you for ages on why it was all a big CIA/Mafia/Cuban cover up and will show you various photos and newspaper articles to back it all up. The actual point where he was shot is marked on the road with a single ‘x’.

Whilst in Dallas I actually visited a British pub called ‘The Londoner’ that afternoon to watch England’s sensational nil nil draw with European powerhouse, Montenegro. I noticed that the Wembley crowd were wrapped up in coats, hats and scarves. I was outside in the beer garden in shorts and T-shirts. Man that was a hot, sunny day.

I also managed to notch up a hat trick in terms of visiting cities when something big was going down. Balloons in Albuquerque, Austin City Limits Festival in, well Austin and now, in Dallas, a celebration of all things from the Lone Star State, the Texas State Fair. I had underestimated the size of Texas State Fair somewhat. My expectations at first were that it would be a bit like Yorkley Village Fete that takes place yearly ‘up the rec’. On reaching the fair, which is so big that it has it’s own specially designed ‘Fair Park’ on the outskirts of Dallas, I realised that this was massive.

You’re welcomed into Fair Park by a 50ft cowboy statue thing. His name is Tex, of course. From there you can do all kinds of fair stuff. You can play the games and win a cuddly cow, take a ride on an enormous ferris wheel or go and see the livestock exhibited by various ranches from around Texas.  I got the feeling though, that, while this is all well, good and fun for all the family, a hefty (literally) percentage of visitors came to the fair with something else topping their agenda. That would be eating. Eating crap to be more specific.

The source of American obesity, i’m pretty sure, lies somewhere within the grounds of Fair Park, Dallas. Somewhere amongst the rows of fried food stands if you want to triangulate a position. I stood around for a while playing a game of ‘spot the thin person’. It was fairly challenging on account of there not being any.

Here are some of the fried foods that people were queuing up to eat. All of what follows, my friends, is real:

• Fried Chicken
• Fried Hamburgers
• Fried Hotdogs
• Fried Corndogs
• Fried Alligator
• Fried Turtle
• Fried Banana
• Fried Funnel Cake (Batter covered in sugar and cream, not really a cake to be fair)
• Fried Cheesecake
• Fried Mars Bar
• Fried Oreo
• Fried Pizza
• Fried Ice Cream
• Fried Coke
• Fried Beer
• Fried Margarita
• Fried Butter….

I opted for the fried ice cream and a Dallas cop very kindly treated me to a corn dog (they were invented at the fair don’t you know). Both were actually surprisingly tasty but I feel that ingesting such culinary delights has probably also shortened my lifespan significantly. Life is for living though. It’s also for eating if you’re from Texas.