Step right up, step right up! Feast your ears on a true spectacle of food and amusement history! In this episode, stroll through the fairgrounds with Nicole and Julia to learn about the history of the carnival, snack on some traditional carnival foods, and discuss 20th century American dating norms. Strap on your ill-fitting, definitely-not-up-to-code safety belt and get ready for a bumpy, possibly bruise-inducing ride!

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to sources:

• Inside the Live Reptile Tent: The Twilight World of Carnival Midway, by Jeff Brouws and Bruce Caron
• “Circuses, Carnivals, and Fairs in America,” by Marcello Truzzi et al, Journal of Popular Culture 6(3), 1972

• “A Roundabout History of the Ferris Wheel,” by Defunctland

• “The Sticky-Sweet Story of Cotton Candy,” by Rebecca Rupp for National Geographic

• “Know Your Sweets: Funnel Cake,” by Sarah Baird for Serious Eats

• “Funnel Cake” entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, ed. Andrew F. Smith

• “Chicken Charlie, The Deep Fry King,” by Elina Shatkin for the Los Angeles Times

• “The History of Deep Frying Food at Fairs,” by Rebecca Strassberg for Thrillist

• Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New York by Kathy Peiss

• How Products are Made Volume 3, Krapp & Longe, editors[Gale:Detroit] 1994 (pages 276-277).

• Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 481)

• “Why is it a thing? Sweet potato, marshmallows,” by Lindsay Deutsch for USA TODAY Network

• “Why Do We Serve Marshmallows on Sweet Potatoes?,” by Michele Debczak for Mental Floss