The restaurant industry is often written off as a thankless career path, one marked by long hours, high temperatures and near-constant stress. Add in the sweltering heat and the bustling crowds of the Great New York State Fair, and some might consider it an opportunity worth passing on.

Not Joel Capolongo. For the co-owner of Strong Hearts Cafe, an all-vegan restaurant in Syracuse, each day at the fair is an opportunity to spark a connection with fairgoers through a relatively simple thing: sharing a meal. The event gives him the opportunity to connect with people who may have never visited the restaurant’s two permanent locations, Capolongo said.

“Our main mission is to show people that vegan food can be just as delicious as the food they’re already used to eating, while (being) just as convenient and affordable,” he said.

Sharing a meal is about more than passing plates. Rooted in culture and passed down through tradition, food can act as a gateway into beliefs, values and experiences differing from one’s own.

“The most rewarding part is having people come back up to our booth after trying our food for the first time to tell us how much they loved it,” Capolongo said.

While the majority of Strong Hearts customers are meat eaters, the owner said the positive feedback makes all of the long hours worth it.

As the Fair has expanded its audience reach in recent years, its emphasis on food and providing a variety of options has become more pronounced — gone are the days of options being only corn dogs and cotton candy.

With the addition of food-centered events such as the Taste NY Food Truck Competition and the Wegmans Demonstration Kitchen, the fair has become an even greater celebration of both the diversity of New York’s food industry and the farmers and chefs who contribute to it.

Toss ‘n’ Fire Pizza, located in North Syracuse, has a range of pizza toppings including “3 Little Pigs” and “Prosciutto ‘n’ Arugula.” Courtesy of Nick Sanford

Nick Sanford, owner of Toss ‘n’ Fire Pizza in North Syracuse, has participated in the food truck competition for the past four years. In an email, he said the fair is not only an opportunity to showcase some of his restaurant’s most unique and popular dishes, but also to build a more intimate connection with the central New York community.

“You get customers from all over the state who come to the fair,” Sanford said. “It’s a lot of fun to meet new people and interact with them.”

Despite the competitive nature of some of the fair’s food competitions, it also promotes a sense of camaraderie between fellow restaurant owners and chefs. It’s an experience for Shayne Cohen, a sous chef at The Mission in Syracuse, which is rooted in “a labor of love.”

“For many, many years, we were having this whole kind of paradigm of ‘We are all competition,’” Cohen said. “I don’t look at it that way. I look at every other restaurant, every other owner, every other chef as an opportunity to learn something new.”

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The beauty of cooking, he said, is that it can cultivate an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding. His cooking style at The Mission, a fusion of Mexican and Latin American dishes with an Asian twist, isn’t standard restaurant fare — and that’s exactly what he’s aiming for.

“When we take risks putting quote-unquote ‘odd’ things on the menu, I’m really hoping that it encourages people to say, ‘You know what, I want to try these things. I want to see what food can really be that isn’t mashed potatoes and steak.’”

Cohen will do his first culinary demonstration at the fair’s Wegmans Demonstration Kitchen on Friday. Preparing a pork tenderloin taco topped with fruit salsa and sesame oil is a curveball he hopes will become a grand slam.

“You just don’t expect to have flavors like that,” Cohen said. “I’m just trying to give people something they’re used to looking at but that doesn’t taste like what they think it’s going to.”

And with the demonstration’s “Student Day” theme, he said he thinks he’s playing to the right audience.

“You can’t go wrong with a taco,” he said, laughing. “Everyone and their grandmother loves a taco, so why not?”

Published on August 29, 2018 at 10:38 pm

Contact Kelsey: [email protected] | @writtenbykelsey