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Oh yeah and speaking of Snow White…she’s the subject of this year’s Iowa State Fair butter sculpture. Butter sculpting is an Iowan specialty, and actually quite revered, ast least at the State Fair, where the practice goes back more than a hundred years. A woman named Norma “Duffy” Lyon was the Rodin of butter for many years, hewing majestic figures from the blocks of fat for more than 40 years, only passing the churn to her apprentice, Sarah Pratt, in 2006. It is the sacred tradition of the fair to create a butter cow each year, but there is also an “optional” category and this year it’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Prince Charming. If you go to the second link above, there’s a slideshow of 100 years of butter which is quite awesome. Pratt’s previous subjects include Superman, Peanuts, and gymnast Shawn Johnson.

Despite the ritual worship of butter, Iowans are undergoing a “year of fitness” and the governor is encouraging them to dance and jig about. However, this year’s hot food at the fair is a double fried bacon-wrapped something…it will take much jigging and dancing to burn off that lard.

More on butter cows and such here.

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Above, Lyon sculpting her first cow in 1960.

Despite the worldwide renown of the butter sculpting, few photos of the Snow White piece can be found online…the dwarves can be seen at this personal blog.

1 COMMENT

  1. How does this article not have Todd Allen’s byline? (I was going to say this was his bread-and-butter, but that’s too close to a pun, isn’t it?)