Fat, salt, goo and grease

Let the debate begin on what should really be in the CNE food hall of fame

- EDWARD KEENAN

Samara Bullbulia serves up a bowl of Primo Spaghetti at the CNE. Sure it's cheap and edible, but it's just spaghetti and jarred tomato sauce. Does it really belong in the Food Hall of Fame, Edward Keenan wonders.

Let’s start with a premise: A big part of the reason you make a hall of fame for anything is so that people have an excuse to argue about what should or shouldn’t be in it. The wailing of “how are you gonna include this, and not that” is the whole point.

Every year, people debate how and why Roger Maris (who held the Major League Baseball single-season home run record for 37 years) and Paul Henderson (who scored the most famous goal in Canadian hockey history) are not in their respective sports’ halls of fame. People shouted about Dolly Parton’s induction into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, including Parton herself. Getting worked up is the whole fun.

But come on, now. The Canadian National Exhibition made a food hall of fame and didn’t put cotton candy in it? What?

For those just catching up, in honour of the 70th anniversary of the Food building at the Ex, they’re hanging banners from the rafters commemorating the iconic foods of the fair’s history. Great idea. So let’s look at the five items they decided to include.