My road trip to the West Side Nut Club with Aiden
For almost 100 years, something magical has happened on Evansville’s West Side during the first full week of October. It’s so magical, in fact, that many former Evansville residents (Evansvillians? Evansvilleites? Lamascoans?) move heaven and earth to make pilgrimage to the Pocket City’s West Side in order to participate in this annual tradition.
Legend has it that the West Side Nut Club’s Fall Festival is the second-largest street festival, next to Mardi Gras. Apparently, that designation was assigned by the late Paul Harvey himself. And he didn’t have any statistics to back it up. And that was a long time ago. He passed away in 2009, after all. But we’ve managed to hold tight to that claim. And we hold onto it with gusto. In fact, it’s one of the first things I will say when I talk about the awesomeness of the Fall Festival.
“Oh, you haven’t heard of the Fall Festival? It’s only the second largest street festival in the US, right behind Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”
And I admit it. I kind of puff out my chest a little bit when I say this. Because it’s awesome. And even though I grew up on the East Side and the Fall Festival is technically a West Side thing, all of Evansville claims it as our own. Because you can say what you want about Evansville*, but Evansville does know how to throw a street party.
For a good cause
Let’s talk about the food. Because that’s why people come back again and again and again. It’s a half mile of booth after booth after booth. Each one is run by a local nonprofit. So you can get your amazing fair food and help local nonprofits at the same time. How much better does it get?
You have your basic deep fried fair-style food on a stick – cheesecake, cookie dough, corn dogs, butter. But there’s also the food that makes the Fall Festival so special and unique. Pronto pups+. Sausage burgers#. Chocolate Fudgex. Brain sandwiches.
Yup.
You read that right.
Brain sandwiches.
I come from the Land of Brain Eaters. And that’s no joke. Fried. Brain. Sandwiches. A few restaurants in the area serve brain sandwiches. Alton Brown even did a segment about the sandwich when he visited the Hilltop Inn. But the Fall Festival wouldn’t be the Fall Festival without brain sandwiches. They’re as ingrained in Fall Festival culture as the pet parade, sausage burgers, and pronto pups. There’s a booth that serves brain sandwiches every year and the line is usually around the block.
My dad said he used to eat them. And I think I remember being with him when he got one while I was a kid. But once he learned how much cholesterol was in a brain sandwich, he never ordered one again. That was back when it was cow brains. My understanding is that Mad Cow Disease led to the demise of beef brain sandwiches. Now it’s fried pig brain. And they seem to be just as popular.
I haven’t asked dad if he’s considered eating one now that they’ve changed to pork. I doubt he would. And no, I haven’t eaten one. I may come from Fried Brain Sandwich Land and brain eaters may be my people, but brain sandwiches sound pretty nasty to me.
I couldn’t miss the Fall Festival with Aiden
As I’ve mentioned before, we’re in the year of “lasts” with Aiden. Due to scheduling (read: football) conflicts since we moved to Greenwood, I recently realized that this was Aiden’s last shot to participate in Fall Festival amazingness. It’s likely he’ll be in college in north central Indiana. So it’s unlikely he’ll want to drive down to Evansville for an event that he really didn’t understand because he didn’t remember it. He had spent more than half of his life not going to the Fall Festival. He didn’t have any real memories of the Fall Festival.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
So as soon as Aiden was out of school on Friday, we loaded up the car and made our way down to Evansville. It was a relatively boring drive, thanks to Interstate 69. We made it to Evansville in record time and stopped by my parents’ house to say hello to my mom, dad, and aunt. Then we completed the final leg of our pilgrimage and arrived at the majestic half-mile.
I made sure he tried a pronto pup and a sausage burger, right off the bat.
The sausage burger “tastes like a bratwurst burger,” he said. And he’s not too far off, honestly. But there’s still something special about a sausage burger from the Chuck Wagon booth at the Fall Festival. I got mine with onions and mustard, no pickles. And it was oh-so good. Better than I remembered.I was half-tempted to buy myself a second one. I didn’t.
At Dad’s request, we picked up some fudge and divinity to bring home to him. It’s a family tradition, after all.
Then Aiden got a walking taco. And it was unlike any walking taco I’d ever seen.
The only kind of walking tacos I’ve ever seen are stuffed inside Fritos bags. I’ve never seen a waffle cone used for a walking taco. It was a little sweet. A little spicy. A whole lot genius.
After a few more snacks, some Ski, and a whole lot of walking, we decided it was time to return to the Todd Homestead and retire for the evening. We had a great time talking to mom and dad, updating them on everything that’s happening in our Greenwood lives.
It’s always great to return to the Fall Festival. It was sweet to be able to spend time with my parents. It was even sweeter when I can do that with my son.
Thank you, Fall Festival, for the memory. Maybe I’ll be able to do it again next year with Alyson.
Endnotes
* No, you really can’t. As a native of Evansville, I can say whatever I want about my hometown and its country bumpkin, almost backwards nature. But you? If you haven’t lived in Evansville and say something negative about the city I will love until the day I die? You’re going to have to fight me. You don’t get to talk trash about the One-Time Alleged Meth Capital of the Midwest (or the US. Or the world). I do. But you don’t.
Got it?
+ It’s like a corndog, but with a different batter – kind of like a funnel cake batter.
# You gotta get one from the Chuck Wagon booth. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. I’m sure it’s been there even longer than that. That’s another cool thing about the Fall Festival. These nonprofits come back year after year and the successful ones sell the same thing year after year. It’s like street fair comfort food.
x Dad has to get a batch of fudge from the booth run by St. Matthews Church because it’s the only fudge that he’s been able to find that tastes like the fudge his grandma used to make.
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