by Beth Heile

The Minnesota State Fair is underway right now, and as always, it is a delightful spectacle of agriculture, crafts, and food. For those reading this who are unfamiliar with US state fairs, nearly every state in the US holds a state fair once a year, and Minnesota's is the second largest in the country. State fairs each have their own specialties, but all feature various contests and competitions like butter sculptures (yes, really), largest fruit and veg, various awards for livestock, and contests for crafts like needlepoint, garment making, and quilts.

But the one piece every state fair has in common is FOOD: both food trucks to satisfy attendees and contests for all manner of baked goods. Minnesota State Fair holds 106 unique food-related competitions, including a cake decorating contest. This year the theme was "Game On!", featuring all board game designs. Many submissions focused on traditional mainstream classics like Monopoly, The Game of Life, and Scrabble, but there were definitely some modern strategy games in the mix as well.

Shout out to Greg Sorenson who took these photos and kindly gave permission to repost here on BGG. So please enjoy this photo journey of some of the cakes from the Game On! competition at the MN State Fair!

Group Pictures

The Operation cake in the middle of this photo won third place.





Individual Pictures by Game

Hungry Hungry Hippos
Fun fact: The hippos names are Happy Hippo (pink), Henry Hippo (orange), Homer Hippo (green), and Harry Hippo (yellow)


Hi Ho Cherry-O
Fun fact: The first version was called "Let's Pick Cherries" and was designer by elementary school teacher Lorraine Landfried from Door County, Wisconsin to help her students learn math skills


The Game of Life
Fun Fact: The Game of Life was Milton Bradley's first game and used a spinner (called a teetotum) to avoid dice and thus any connections to gambling



Monopoly
If you are wondering why there are different characters on the tops of these cakes instead of Mr. Monopoly (a.k.a. Milburn Pennybags), they are the mascots of the MN State Fair


Clue
Fun fact: Clue was designed by Anthony Pratt while he was holed up in his home in his Birmingham, UK during WWII air raids. The original name of Cluedo was a combination of "clue" and "ludo" which is Latin for "I play"



Candy Land
Fun fact: Eleanor Abbott invented Candy Land in 1948 while recovering from polio.


Don't Break the Ice
Fun fact: Don't Break the Ice was a Schaper game, invented in Minnesota

Jenga
Fun fact: Jenga was designed by Leslie Scott from Tanzania and the name is Swahili for “build”

Operation
Fun fact - the man you are operating on is called Cavity Sam.

Scrabble
Fun fact: The letter point values each Scrabble tile are based on how often those letters appeared on the front page of The New York Times

Ticket to Ride

Wavelength

Wingspan

Catan

Bohnanza


And winner of the Game On! contest was this stunning Agricola cake (photo credit: cake designer and blue ribbon winner @daftspunk5x5)


BONUS! Crop Art
Don't worry - art made from corn and other food products are a thing too! While the theme wasn't board games for this competition, two exhibits went in that direction all the same (again thanks to Greg Sorenson for the photos!).