I can’t come to the Lorain County Fair and NOT have a Midway Oh-Boy — or so I’ve been told.
For Jim and Peggy Strang, whom I interviewed for a story for the Chronicle and who I bumped into several times yesterday at the fair, the Midway Oh-Boy is part of the love story. They came to the fair and ate Oh-Boys the night before they got married in 1974, and they’ve come back to celebrate their anniversary with Oh-Boys and the fair every year since. Today is their 35th anniversary.
So I knew the Oh-Boy was something I had to try.
And my boss, Chronicle-Telegram Editor Andy Young, who was out at the fair in the Chronicle tent this afternoon, nodded in approval when he saw me returning with a ball of foil the size of my hand.
“A Lorain County classic since at least the ’50s,” hes said.
My Midway Oh-Boy and fresh lemonade. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)
And while I know that Midway Oh-Boy is a restaurant (and I’m even friends with several people who work there), I really had no clue before today what “a Midway Oh-Boy” as a food item was.
I found out once I visited their booth underneath the grandstand — a double-decker burger with lettuce, sauce (seemed like just plain mayonnaise to me) and cheese.
I’ll admit I was tempted to get a single hamburger or cheeseburger. (I was in hurry, it was hot out, and I really wasn’t THAT hungry.
But I wanted to say I had a Midway Oh-Boy, and I wasn’t going to say I had a Midway Oh-Boy unless I had the real thing.
The first thing I learned about the Oh-Boy — it’s not easy to eat gracefully. It wasn’t long before I had mayo dripping down my face. Good thing I abandoned my post at the front of the CT tent and was hiding back in the radio trailer.
Chronicle-Telegram Editor Andy Young with his funnel cake. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)
The Oh-Boy was great — albeit, greasy — and had about three times as much mayo as it needed.
But getting my mouth around a fair classic? You can’t put a price tag or a calorie county on that.
I washed my Oh-Boy down with a fresh-squeezed, or at least freshly shaken, lemonade.
And my editor Andy? He came back from a walk around the fairgrounds with a funnel cake.
He dug right in but realized a little too late that he was used to sharing his funnel cake with several other people.
“I’m starting to feel sick,” he said, not even halfway through.
What fair food should I try next? Leave me a comment or contact me directly, and your suggestion could be my lunch!
Contact Rona Proudfoot at rproudfoot@chroniclet.com, (440) 371-0792 or stop by to see her at the fair. She’s based at the WEOL booth and will be wondering the fairgrounds in a bright gold Chroniclet.com T-shirt.
