On Being a Judge at the Fair

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On being a judge at the fair
To Judge or not to Judge Whether it is better to taste baked goods or just look at them
2005-11-02
Article Written by: Charles Griffin

My apologies to the Bard. Last year after viewing the baked goods prize-winners at the Volusia County Fair, I asked the lady, Kathy Wyatt, who was in charge of the displays, “How do you get to be a judge and taste all this stuff?”

Wyatt answered with a sign-up sheet. She’s always looking for volunteers to help out. Sure enough, a few days before this year’s fair I got a call from Wyatt reminding me of my offer to judge. Naturally, I shared that information here at What’s Happening Daytona, in case any of you kind browsers would like to try being a judge.

So, here’s the straight scoop on being a cookie judge (or of pie or cake or candy or gingerbread houses, among other things).

Number one priority: Bring two friends or relatives with you who are willing to share your judging tasks. Each category and item you judge must be done with two other people. If you are by yourself as I was Tuesday, November 1st, you have to attach yourself to a group and fill in when one of them gets tired of tasting.

That doesn’t mean you can’t taste the goodies, it means that you won’t be able to put your opinion on one of the three judging sheets for each item. In a two-hour period I switched groups three times. I tasted cakes, cookies, pies, candy and a bread – some officially and several unofficially. I also judged appearance and creativity of some rather interesting wedding cakes, gingerbread houses and a sugar mold panoramic egg. No one gets to taste those items, however, they are only for display.

In fact, I began to wonder if you couldn’t put anything—Styrofoam, cardboard, coffee cans and such—under all that frosting—or plaster. I swear, some of it looked like it was coated with stucco.

There are rules, however, and each judging clipboard had the rules listed for each category: How the items could be constructed, what to look for in appearance or design and what criteria to use in judging the items you could taste. Some of that is self-explanatory. Virtually everything edible had a blank for flavor. The judge assigns a value from zero to 20, generally, based on the most subjective of tests, “do I like it?”

As you might think, this led to discussion among judges. For instance a root beer-flavored candy was roundly disliked by younger judges and a hit with older judges. As you get older your taste buds lose sensitivity. What is too strong for a younger person (and some there were early teenagers doing judging) might be too flavorless for a retiree.

The judging began at Noon. Because of other commitments I couldn’t get to the fairgrounds before 3 p.m. People who had been judging earlier had already left and others came in after I did. There was a signup sheet and anyone who spent some time judging was given a set of free tickets to the fair.

Believe me, even though I would have denied the possibility before doing it, you can get tired of tasting sweets. Even taking little-bitty pieces and clearing your mouth out with water after each taste, you rapidly get sugared out. According to Wyatt, that’s when you switch to judging the display items.

By the way, did you know that a gingerbread house must be on a platform of a specific size or that it must be footed (that is a block under each corner of the platform)? Did you know that a round sugar mold egg must be on a square platform at least 9 inches across?

If you expect that some judges will be opinionated, you are right. Overall everyone there was good-natured and hard-working, especially the ladies and gentlemen working with Wyatt on taking in entries and setting up the displays. And all those judge’s scores—they all had to be tabulated and prizes assigned to winners, no easy task.

After two hours, I was done even though the judging was still going on. I had a light dinner on the way home and never looked in the fridge for a dessert afterward. Today I drove past donut shops without the slightest urge to stop. Truly being a judge of sweets proves the old adage that you can have too much of a good thing.

If you want to try it next year, call Kathy Wyatt at 386-258-3356, She’ll put you on the list.

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On Being a Judge at the Fair