If it quacks like a duck, it’s a corn dog

​When is a corn dog not a corn dog? When it’s a duck corn dog!

Chef Ken Baker’s Pachamama’s restaurant in Lawrence is currently offering, as a starter, a hoity-toity version of the lowbrow carny treat. The corn dog was reportedly introduced to the public by Carl and Neil Fletcher at the Texas State Fair in the 1930s, although there are other vendors who claim to have invented the delicacy — a hot dog dipped in cornmeal batter and deep-fried — including a man who sold “Pronto Pups” at the Minnesota State Fair in 1941.

Like everything once considered vulgar, corn dogs (like funnel cakes, which chef Alex Pope makes at The R Bar) are now part of the culinary chic. What was once adored primarily by small children has drifted from the carnival midway to better restaurants and cafes, although not every chef wants to be limited to a weiner. Pachama’s Baker uses pieces of duck meat — a bit too chewy, I might add — skewered and dipped in cornmeal batter, deep-fried and served with a satiny blueberry confit.

I promise you this: You won’t find it at the Kansas State Fair this year.