The Fair Scone -- After 75 Years, Sweet Treat Is Still A Draw At Puyallup Festival

It would be possible to do the Puyallup without the cotton candy, the corn dogs and the caramel corn. But it simply wouldn't be fair without the scones.

When gates open at the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup on Friday morning, not all visitors will be lured to the midway. Many will follow their noses to the nearest freshly baked scones - served warm, with honey butter and raspberry jam, a Northwest tradition for 75 years.

Mike Maher, general manager of Fisher Fair Scones Inc., is ready for you. He hired 220 persons to shape, bake and sell the scones. You can buy them in two permanent buildings and at three mobile wagons on the grounds.

Want the recipe? Maher has ordered about 500 pounds of honey, 6,000 pounds of butter, 15 tons of raspberry jam and 75,000 pounds of mix to make the 750,000 scones he's expecting to sell during the 17-day fair.

A few fairgoers remember that the first scones sold for a dime (they're 75 cents now), but not a great deal more about them has changed.

``The recipe is the same, and that's part of this unique Northwest tradition,'' says Maher, who enjoys hearing older customers tell about buying scones since they were children.

Fair scone fanciers can thank Dwight Paulhamus, 87, of Tacoma, for this tasteful tradition. He was 12 when his father, William Paulhamus, a founder of the Puyallup Fair, invited him along for a visit to the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.

``It was March 1915,'' Paulhamus recalls. ``We stayed at the Palace Hotel, and I'll never forget that view of the exposition grounds from Nob Hill. The next day, at the fair, we saw a very long line of people waiting to be served jam on hot biscuits by a tall man in a chef's uniform. The purpose of the booth was to interest people in buying Fisher's Blend Flour, made in Seattle.''

The Paulhamuses, especially Dwight, took a fancy to this sweet treat, and decided it would be an ideal addition to the Puyallup Fair fare. Back home, the father telephoned the Fisher family in Seattle and outlined his ideas for them to sell scones at the fair that September.

The senior Paulhamus, who grew the Puyallup Valley's first commercial raspberries on his 60-acre farm, was the owner of Puyallup and Sumner Canning Co. That company made Paul's Jams, products marketed nationally with a drawing of Mount Rainier and the slogan, ``grown in the valley of the mountain.'' He donated the jam for that first year of scone sales.

Dwight, an honorary director of the fair, is pleased that the scones have been such enduring favorites, and that they were developed more or less by accident from that flour promotion in San Francisco. But with opinions shaped by decades of fair going, he reflects, ``they're not as hot, not as good and not as big as they used to be. And they cost a lot more.''

The raspberry jam is still made from berries grown in the Puyallup Valley, but not as close to the fairgrounds. A large field of raspberries grew where the fair's main parking lot is now, Paulhamus says.

Although Fisher Fair Scones has many strong ties to Puyallup, the business is regional, selling about 1.2 million scones at 32 fairs and festivals in the Northwest this year. With offices in Kent, the company also markets gift packages of scone mix and raspberry jam.

Scones seem to fit in nearly everywhere here, from the flamboyance of fairgrounds to the civility of hotel high teas. They're popular sellers at many bakeries, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops.

Seattle Scone & Biscuit Co. is another local corporation meeting consumer demand, with a bakery in Redmond. Owner Sharon Petersen and her staff make plain scones, but specialize in flavored varieties - blueberry, hazelnut-currant, ginger-orange and the one that is facing a bit of buyer resistance, peanut butter-chocolate chip.

``When I can get customers to taste it at a demonstration they bliss out, but when I first offer it to them, you'd think I was trying to get them to eat a sauerkraut scone,'' Petersen says. The maligned peanut butter-chocolate chip variety will be given a break until next spring, replaced with cranberry-orange. She's also planning to introduce two savory varieties, cheddar and Italian (with parmesan cheese and herbs).

Petersen's company makes about 3,600 English creme scones a week. They're sold frozen to 19 supermarkets and eight restaurants and cafes, and to Horizon Air for continental breakfast service on flights from Seattle and Boise. The bakery (8571 154th Ave. N.E., in Redmond's Westpark business complex) is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, selling fresh scones and half-price bags of frozen scuttled scones, imperfect products that Petersen describes as ``homely scones with good personalities.''

You can make some terrific scones with terrific personalities in your own kitchen by following today's recipes. Try Sourdough Scones with currants and grated orange and lemon peels; Whole Wheat Date Walnut Scones, hearty treats for breakfast, brunch or tea, sweetened with apple juice concentrate; and Coffee-Hazelnut Scones, dark and delicious companions to a cup of espresso.

Scones are easy to prepare. They're best fresh and still a bit warm, but if you have any left, you can reheat them for five minutes in a preheated 400-degree oven. Or you can wrap them well and freeze for reheating later. They'll make a perfect breakfast before you drive to Puyallup to enjoy some fair scones.