Here's a menu of what foods not to miss at the Barnstable County Fair

Editor's note: This story was changed July 20 to correct the spelling of Poppie's Concessions.

FALMOUTH — If you are headed to the Barnstable County Fair, which opened Monday and runs through Sunday, bring your appetite and your wallet.

Prices are up 30-35% for many foods, but it's worth the splurge for fair favorites (fried Oreos or fried dough with maple cream and bacon) and several first-time vendors serving Middle Eastern, Italian and Brazilian cuisine.

"The fair organizers were great to work with. They are working very hard to welcome all kinds of people and to be sure many communities are represented," said Ali Alhusseini of South Windsor, Connecticut whose Villa of Lebanon was a first-time vendor at the fair.

Alhusseini, a Lebanese native who has a South Windsor restaurant of the same name, was serving gyro with workers slicing lamb, beef and chicken from meat slow-cooked on vertical rotisseries before being wrapped in homemade pita made with a half-dozen crispy, flaky layers or served on a plate of rice and salad. There is falafel with pickles for vegetarians.

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Gyros (pronounced yee-rohz in Arabic, gy-rohs ot) is healthier than some meats, he said because fat drips off while it cooks. (If you save calories here, you will use them elsewhere!)

"We have the only lamb at the fair and people seem to love it," he said of the $17 lamb combo.

Hunting for pork

Because Villa of Lebanon is halal, following the Quran's dietary rules, there is no pork. But you only have to stroll 100 yards across the dirt path to reach Porky's Pork Palace, where followers of the Keto diet plan will surely feel like royalty.

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Turkey legs smoked right at the palace trailer are $15 and, new for the fair is the BBQ Split ($20), the palace's take on a banana split: pulled pork and beef brisket are nestled between two St. Louis ribs and covered with garlic mashed potatoes and coleslaw.

Owner Vito Marotta of Marstons MIlls said Porky's has been a family business for 32 years and has had a couple of locations on Cape Cod in the past.

In the fair's food world, family is first. Nearly all of the food stands/trucks/trailers are staffed by families or longtime fair workers.

Fair classics

Raymond Hashem of West Bridgewater has run his Kids' Meals kitchen at the fair since 1976. His own kids have outgrown the annual gig, but Hashem now has nieces and nephews helping out at the stand that features steak with peppers and onions, sausage, chicken Caesar salad wraps and chicken fingers with fries.

"The most important thing is to have really good ingredients," Hashem said, listing a roster of local suppliers and also lamenting the 35% increase in supply cost that he has had to pass on, at least in part, to customers. Chicken fingers and fries went from $10 last year to $13 this year.

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Most food vendors take credit and debit cards now and there are two ATM machines if you need cash but it's probably easier just to bring some.

Fair is an annual rite

Some workers have made the fair part of their lives. George Tussi, 60, takes time off from his chef's job in Laconia, New Hampshire each summer to work the fair where he first started when he was 15 and working the kids' bounce house. For the past couple of decades, he has helped manage the three lemonade stands run by Tom Ferguson of Concessions Ltd.

In addition to made-to-order lemonade, those stands sell fried Oreos at five for $10.  The cookies are dipped in a sweet batter and then deep-fried in a basket until the crust is puffy and golden brown and the cookie inside has melted slightly.

The food fairway is a jumble of good stuff calling out to all of your senses. We recommend a stroll around to tease your appetite and make a plan. While cruising by, we stopped to see just how big the giant onion rings were (yes, one of them did fit on my wrist) and to explore stands that sold clam chowder, clam cakes and "VEGETABLES." The list of veggies at J&J's sounded fresh and nutritious until we discovered they were dipped in batter and deep-fried — a very tempting proposition.

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Nearby, Poppie's Concession was making fried dough ($9) as they have on the fair circuit since 1968. Victoria Orlandi of Western Massachusetts said workers have to watch the dough consistency in warm weather to make sure they don't have dough too quickly rising into a blob.

What we missed

In all honesty, we were too full to try the Italian rice balls (arancini) or hand-stuffed cannoli, although we did sample, from Chris Gines' Let the Dough Roll stand. It featured ice cream that came in a cone made of doughnut dough that was flattened, wrapped on a cone-shaped form and baked in a small rotisserie oven.

One more piece of advice: Hit the rides before you start eating in earnest and then take your food down to the main stage where you can sit on the grass and listen to the live music played daily. It's dinner and a show with everyone getting exactly what they want.

There will also be adult and youth agriculture and livestock exhibits, local artisans and vendors, main-stage events, a beer garden set up, a Mini FMX & BMX thrill show, circus acts and stilt-walking and juggling acts from Kevin Adair. There will be a petting zoo filled with chickens, goats and cows; and shows for poultry, rabbits and sheep.

Four foods to eat at the fair

Fried dough with maple cream and bacon

Middle Eastern style falafel on flaky pita with pickles

BBQ Split with pulled pork, St. Louis ribs, garlic mashed and coleslaw

Italian sausage with freshly fried onions and peppers

Did you find something you loved to eat at the fair. Share a note and photo if you have it on our free Facebook page, Good Stuff at Cape Cod Restaurants.

Barnstable County Fair at a glance

When: Gates open at 4 p.m. daily through Sunday, July 24

Where: Cape Cod Fairgrounds, 1220 Nathan Ellis Highway (Route 151), East Falmouth

Admission: $15 for adults (three-day pass for $36); $12 ($10 on Friday, July 22) for seniors and military (with valid military ID); $5 for ages 6–11 with paid adult; free for children 5 and under with paid adult. Wristband days, with unlimited carnival rides for $35, are Thursday (purchase between 4 and 9 p.m., ride until 11 p.m.); Friday (purchase noon to 8 p.m., ride until 11 p.m.), and Sunday (purchase noon to 7 p.m. and ride until 10 p.m.)

Information: https://capecodfairgrounds.com/events/barnstable-county-fair/

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Barnstable County Fair food and fun guide 2022