The Brown County Chamber of Commerce announced the winners of the 2022 “Best of Brown County” awards earlier this year. The “Best of Brown County” was created to celebrate all that Brown County has to offer including food and drink destinations, live entertainment, and local historic sites. Over the next several weeks, Wade Linville (editor of The News Democrat, The Ripley Bee, and The Brown County Press) will be writing about his experience with each of the locations that earned a “Best of Brown County” award. This is part nine of Wade’s “Best of Brown County” Experience featuring Brown County’s 2022 best fair food, the pork tenderloin sandwich.
The 2022 Brown County Fair, also known as Ohio’s “Little State Fair”, is just around the corner, and people will once again be lining up at the booth of the Brown County Pork Producers to get their hands on the famous pork tenderloin sandwich.
It has been a tradition to enjoy a pork tenderloin sandwich at the Brown County Fair, but not just any pork tenderloin sandwich will do. It has to be the pork tenderloins served from the booth of the Brown County Pork Producers. Like myself, many Brown Countians share in this pork tenderloin sandwich tradition at the Brown County Fair, and that is why the pork tenderloin sandwich is the winner of the Brown County Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 “Best of Brown County” Fair Food Award.
Some of the tastiest foods are made simple, and making the Brown County Pork Producers’ pork tenderloin sandwich is a simple process. It’s covered in a flour/seasoning mix and then fried. After a quick frying it is placed on a bun, wrapped, and handed out to one of the hungry customers standing in what is typically a lengthy line.
During a busy Brown County Fair, the Brown County Pork Producers can go through as much as 10,000 pounds of pork tenderloins, which in past years of the fair has come from Kroger.
The fair favorite comfort food that has made its rise to fame by satisfying the cravings of countless fair-goers over the past four decades is prepared and served by the kids and advisors from non-profit organizations involved with the Junior Fair departments, such as 4-H Clubs.
For every pound of meat sold, the organization working at the time gets $1.25, and the other money goes to provide college scholarships for students.
One-hundred percent of the funds made go back to the Junior or Senior Fair (departments) in one way or another, and for scholarships.
“We would like to thank the endless amount of patrons that support the Brown County Pork Producers at the fair,” the Brown County Pork Producers announced after receiving the Best of Brown County Fair Food Award.
The pork tenderloin’s popularity spans well beyond Brown County, recently being mentioned on the Q102 radio station’s Jeff and Jenn Show.
“I don’t think there is anything that compares to it,” Richard Rosselot, of Fayetteville, said of the Brown County Pork Producers’ famous pork tenderloin sandwich.
Richard Rosselot’s wife, Lory, agreed.
“It’s the best food on the grounds,” she said.
For those who have never before tried the Brown County Pork Producers’ famous pork tenderloin sandwich and for those who have been craving it since last year’s fair ended, this year’s Brown County Fair runs Sept. 26 through Oct. 1.
I know I will be waiting in line to get mine.