FRYEBURG — The most difficult part of being an attendant at the Fryeburg Fair's Agricultural Exhibition Center may well be the tempting smells of contest entries.

"You'd kind of like to try them all, but we can't," said Jean Curtis, who has worked at the center for 28 years.

On Friday, Curtis was helping collect a variety of dishes entered into the Fall Food Festival. The festival takes entries based on an ingredient that changes each year. The key ingredient this year: spinach. Past ones have included zucchini, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes.

"We try to keep it to a local vegetable, or a local product that is generated in Maine," attendant Louise McKenzie said.

The Agricultural Exhibition Center displays a number of contest entries throughout the fair, ranging from photography to giant vegetables. It also hosts baking competitions, including whoopie pies, and this year also saw contests for the best oatmeal cookies, two-crusted apple pies, blueberry desserts and no-bake cookies.

After the judges have taken a taste and determined the winners, the remaining food is sold by the sample to benefit area nursing homes.

"People get very involved," McKenzie said. "Yesterday we had apple pie, and we had 25. And you couldn't even get by the people here waiting."

The Friday contest is the only one that allows competitors to submit hot dishes, although careful timing is needed if they do since a dish cannot be heated or refrigerated once it is submitted. Recipes become the property of the fair and may be included in a cookbook sold to benefit the fair and other nonprofits. The festival is open to Maine and New Hampshire residents, and limited to amateurs.

"We used to have people that were a professional chef or cook," McKenzie said. "And that kind of made it hard for everyone else."

Entries are judged based on the originality of the recipe, the ease of preparation, flavor and appearance. Though a few onlookers expressed interest in lending their skills as a judge, that duty had already been taken by Steve Moulton, owner of Belly Stuffers restaurant in North Conway, N.H., and Jim Rozzell, a retired Conway Recreation Department worker.

Barbara Lawrence, an attendant at the center, said the building's superintendent offers judging positions to local residents and usually seeks a mix of people involved in the food industry and people who aren't.

Eight entries came in before the 1 p.m. deadline, including pizza, salad and pie.

Sue Alimi of Fryeburg submitted a spinach dip in a bread bowl. It was surrounded by bread cubes removed to make the bowl, as well as raw vegetables and strawberries, and won best original dish.

"I didn't practice it, because I've made a similar recipe before," Alimi said. "It did take a little time to put together because I wanted the presentation to be nice."

Norma King of Lovell submitted a spinach soup for the specialty category, which includes dishes that are low-fat or dietetic. King said she experimented with the recipe for two or three hours and used pureed potatoes as a cream substitute.

"It took quite awhile because there's no recipe for spinach soup, even on the computer," she said. "If I don't win, I'm already satisfied, because I had a blast at home creating something new."

Krista Novia of Chatham, N.H., came away with the best overall ribbon after submitting her first entry in the festival competition: fruity spinach salad. Novia said the salad consisted of chopped fruit, walnuts, spinach and a homemade strawberry vinaigrette.

"It's actually really easy," she confessed.

Competitors have the advantage of knowing what next year's Fall Food Festival ingredient is going to be well in advance. The fair has declared dried beans to be the 2010 component of choice. Gail Wood of Raymond, whose seven-layer salad won the best specialty prize, said she'll be testing dishes until that time.

"For the year, I'll be using my husband as a guinea pig," she said. "He's my best critic."

mlangeveld@sunjournal.com