Jordan Maddox
Audio By Carbonatix
On a good year — when the weather behaves, the economy is humming — Fried Jesus sells 20,000 fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in 24 days at the State Fair of Texas. In a meh year — like when the daily temps still push 90-plus degrees and inflation bites — it’s more like 15,000.
Abel Gonzales operates Vandalay Industries at the fair, which includes two booths, one with his trademark fried sandwiches and another called Cheap Eats. Twenty years ago, he earned the moniker “Fried Jesus” from longtime Dallas food writer Alice Laussade as he was surfing atop the wave of elevated fried food crashing over the State Fair of Texas.
Gonzales’ Fried PB, Jelly and Banana Sandwich won the first Big Tex Choice Award for Best Taste in 2005. That one sandwich created a whole new family business, and, even better, an entire movement of elevated fried food.
The PB&J Genesis
“The first year, my mom, dad and family made the PB&Js,” Gonzales says of the inception of this sandwich. They made everything by hand, using a simple butter knife to spread the ingredients.
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“My dad used to go to the store and buy everything, and they would get to work,” he says. “The first year, we thought we would sell maybe three to four thousand. We sold that many on the first day.”
Jordan Maddox
The family PB&J-making machine went into hyper mode. Extended family members were recruited; his younger nieces and nephews were in charge of smashing the bananas for “The King,” which is made with peanut butter, bacon and bananas in honor of Elvis’ favorite snack.
As time went on, Gonzales says they had to streamline the production process. He hired an official production crew out of a commercial kitchen, but tried to stick to using better commercial ingredients as much as possible. “Purists will know I used to only use Peter Pan, but it became too hard to source in bulk,” Gonzales says.
“I miss my family all getting together and making PB&Js,” he says. “Especially this year since my dad passed away in January.”
How to Fry 500 PB&Js a Day
After sandwiches are made, they go straight to the freezer. “There is a whole system to carry products from our production kitchen to the trailer and then to the actual booth,” he says.
Gonzales and his team use pancake batter for the sandwich’s exterior coating (as opposed to funnel-cake batter, which some vendors use to deep fry things). Before being fried, the frozen sandwiches get a bath in this batter, which is made fresh throughout the day. Two large fryers are dedicated just to the PB&Js. The sandwiches come out of the fryer golden brown with a doughnut-like coating that is soft yet crispy. All while the sandwich inside holds its form well.
“On days like today — Columbus Day, when it’s packed — one person pretty much does nothing but fry sandwiches,” Gonzales told the Observer.
Once fried, his “cutters” quarter the fried sandwiches (triangles, never squares) and arrange them in a paper boat. They squeeze jelly on top and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
“I could go on and on, like when I started squeezing extra jelly on them, or the whole ‘What goes first, the jelly or the powdered sugar’ … but that’s for the book I’ll never get a chance to write,” he says.
Amid the hundreds of crazy deep-fried foods at the fair, it’s fascinating that so many stick to this simple, essential lunch-box staple. After four years of being the editor of the food section here, and as many tastings at the Big Tex Choice Awards as I have attended, this is the one thing I make a beeline for each year. It’s the purist’s staple at the State Fair of Texas.
