Sweet or savory breakfast on a stick: waffles are wrapped around stuffings, skewered and served inside a handy wrapper for carting around the fair.

The giant Blue Barn is ground zero for new food winners, like last year’s French Toast bites and this year’s Swedish meatball smorgas, bacon and cheese stuffed tots and the frole - a malt liquor spiked frozen lemonade. It’s the next step beyond frozé.

Upstairs in the Grandstand, on the east side, near the elevator is the Rainbow Ice Cream that’s peddling the Cloud Roll. Cotton Candy is wrapped around Superman ice cream that’s sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles.

Year after year: this is the place for beer lovers to stop and catch some refreshment. This year Ball Park is serving Bent Paddle’s Passionfruit Pils, Bent Brewstillery’s Raspberry Champow, Bauhaus The Sandlot Pink Lemonade Shandy, and Surly The Kloser IPA, all picked by The Growler as some of the best new beers at the fair.

The new building that replaced the pet pavilion is peddling the superlative pork belly wrapped in bacon on a stick that’s been a runaway hit. There’s also Mankato Brewing Cake’d Up Celebration Beer that is shockingly not awful.

The fair outpost of the popular Saint Paul bar is slinging some Rueben stuffed tots or “Irish tater kegs” that were the Pioneer Press food critic’s favorite dish and Lakes & Legends St. Apple Malted Ale, another favorite from The Growler’s beer experts. One more new beer for consideration here is the Castle Danger Orange Cream Malt Ale.