State Fair Food at the Big E: Deep-Fried Shepherd's Pie

Fourth in a series about State Fair food as served at the 2012 Big E (New England's Great State Fair.)

We were tipped off to the existence of this food by a friend of Lynnafred's, and immediately went in search of it. Luckily, it seems like many of the strangest foods at The Big E are tightly grouped at the Food Court near the midway, and we found it at EB's Food For Fun, where it's rhymingly marketed as "Country Fry Shepherd's Pie."

As you can see, Country Fry Shepherd's Pie is served in the form of five rather average-sized "meatballs," breaded and fried and topped with brown gravy.

Inside, they're only a little scary, with cooked ground beef mixed with mashed potato binder and a few kernels of sweet corn sprinkled randomly throughout.  They aren't all that bad, crispy on the outside and soft and moist through the middle, and fairly well-seasoned. The only complaint we had about them was that the frying oil needed desperately to be changed - it was old and gross, and gave the food a vague aftertaste of oldness and grossness. I think EB's could do a little better with that, especially since they were getting $6.50 for it.

Oh, and one more pedantic little note: There wasn't any lamb or mutton in them, so they weren't Country Fry Shepherd's Pie, they were Country Fry Cottage Pies.  Listen up, America: Shepherd's Pie has lamb/mutton/sheep in it. Shepherd's Pie, get it? Shepherd? Sheep? See?? (OK, I'm done now.)

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