Friday, June 17, 2011

Regional Delicacy


Funnel cake and corn dogs, most people can be assured these items will show up at their festivals. Not in my home town. Baltimore is a quirky burgh. I don’t ever remember seeing a corn dog at a festival as a child but I do remember, with extreme fondness, lemon sticks. The Greek festival, the Italian festival, the art festival, the church fundraiser festival, it does not matter, a festival is not complete without a lemon stick.


What is a lemon stick? It is a lemon with a peppermint stick in the middle. That’s it. The purpose it to suck lemon juice through the peppermint straw. Here’s how it goes:

  • At first you will be sucking, hard, with little results.
  • Next the lemon juice will start to flow through the peppermint straw, this is perfection.
  • Squeeze the lemon as needed for more juice.
  • There is a 50% chance tragedy will strike. Either the peppermint stick will break in half or just fall on the ground.
  • Get another peppermint straw (the second one was always gratis at festivals).
  • Continue sucking.
  • Lastly the peppermint will have melted in to the lemon. This too is perfection. Squeeze the center of the lemon and suck retrieve any remnants of the peppermint.
  • Wash hands.

You can be certain I will be serving these, not cake, on my birthday.


Lemon Sticks - Serves 4


4 large lemons

6 soft peppermint sticks


Cut 1/4 off of the stem side of the lemon. Using a chopstick make a hole in the center of the lemon. Put the peppermint stick in the hole in the center of the lemon. Serve.


Note: I could not find the peppermints locally; I purchased mine online, $3 for a 1 lb. bag.

2 comments:

  1. I've never heard of these before. Now I'm intrigued. I'll have to give it a try!

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  2. Lauren- so sorry for the delay in response I just got this. I hope you tried them and liked them.

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