United States | Iowa’s state fair

Of chops and choppers

A dozen candidates, some giant vegetables and a sculpture in butter

Aug 20th 2015|DES MOINES

BY THE time Hillary Clinton got to the John Deere Agriculture Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, the Best Tasting Tomato competition was well in the books. Skip Hitchcock of Muscatine had walked off with $75 cash for a ripe Jersey Boy that struck “a balance between acidity and sweetness”, according to a judge from Better Homes and Gardens. Dance 2 Xtreme, a company of youngsters from Lake City, was by then recovering from an energetic performance at the MidAmerican Energy Stage. Steve and Becky Gursky of Oskaloosa, having demonstrated the rudiments of gourd art in the Cultural Centre, could kick up their heels for the day.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Of chops and choppers”