An idea for New Bedford’s next big food invention
Less than a week apart, the New Bedford Food Truck & Craft Beer Festival has ended and West Springfield’s Big E has expanded, expecting to tempt over a million hungry guests.
Every year at Big E, someone comes up with some silly, crazy, surprisingly tasty food innovation. Someone once replaced the hamburger buns with two Krispy Kreme donuts and created the Donut Burger. It’s nothing compared to fried butter, a heart attack on a plate – or Twix-stuffed Twinkie wrapped in moist, fried bacon.
Do we have a love-hate relationship with our arteries?
Last year COVID canceled everything, so unusually larger crowds are expected in 2021. It’s the year of the Dilly Dilly Dog, a hot dog on a stick covered with a hallowed dill pickle, dipped in a tasty moist paste and floated in clean bubbling oil until golden brown. Someone will most likely get rich for inventing a corn dog stuffed with pickles.
Let’s create our own local improvisation, but instead of using the cult classic corn dog, we decorate our centuries-old clam cakes? Think of a clam fritter with a ground hot dog. Crisp, light, golden on the outside, perfectly soft on the inside. Aromatic vapor rises from the first delicious bite.
This has the potential to revolutionize the term “surf and turf”. I would have liked to have had the Shawmut Diner again, where I would experiment with different pastas and variations of the recipe. This little glory could become the masterpiece of local street food. We will work to find a flawless name.
Can you see it becoming the front door donut to historic New Bedford, especially in the summer, with tourists disembarking from the ferry?
It beats the fried watermelon, that’s for sure.