PERRY, Ga. — This year at the Georgia National Fair, 19 vendors are getting together for a "Fair Food Fight." It's really for bragging rights, but they're coming up with amazing creative concoctions for you to enjoy. You can bet the deep-fried cheeseburger will be a contender.
Terri Cox Hickey owns the Rocker's Roost Restaurant.
"We put it out and made it fun for our own team, so we made it a contest in our organization and we had a $100 cash prize," she said.
Tawny Glass got the bragging rights out of the crew.
"My brain started working. I was going to win that $100," she said with a smile.
She figured a deep-fried cheeseburger deserved a chance in the Fair Food Fight.
"I just figured it would be an old menu item with a new twist," she explained.
"We also had a chocolate Oreo funnel cake, a deep-fried pickle, but that wasn't quite new," Hickey rattled off.
All the condiments are stuffed inside.
"I didn't put onions in it because people might be allergic or they don't like them, so the pickle pops out, you've got your cheese -- it's delicious," Glass said.
It glides into the oven, and then, the magic happens. Once cooked, they dip it into the batter and pop it into the grease.
"We didn't want to taste cheeseburger, we wanted to taste the batter and the cheeseburger, so she played on the consistency on the batter," Hickey explained.
She batted a homerun.
"Once I tasted it, I thought, 'Why didn't we think of this sooner?'" Hickey exclaimed.
It's a toasty, warm, golden mound of goodness, a cheeseburger Jimmy Buffett would call "Paradise."
It's a good bet to get a lot of attention with a price tag of $10.
Friday judges crowned a savory and sweet winner in the Food Fight Challenge.
Measter Mike's won in the "savory" category with their Korean BBQ Fries.
Polar Bear Ice Cream won with their Southern Comfort Sundae.