The Peanut Butter Bacon Bison Burger — a 1/3-pound bison patty topped with pit-smoked bacon and creamy peanut butter, served on Texas toast — is among the new menu items at the 2014 Wisconsin State Fair. Credit: Wisconsin State Fair

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At the Wisconsin State Fair, everything is better with bacon.

The fair introduces 72 new foods this year — eight of them made with bacon. Welcome, bacon caramel corn; bacon-wrapped cheddar melt; bacon-wrapped cherrywood smoked pork belly (so, pork wrapped in pork); deep-fried maple bacon cookie dough; mac and cheese bacon burger quesadilla; maple bacon funnel cake; peanut butter bacon bison burger; and Tijuana bacon dog.

The fair opens July 31 and runs through Aug. 10 at Wisconsin State Fair Park, 640 S. 84th St., West Allis.

Sure, you go for the cream puffs, but don't pass up the other more curious foods. This year's new offerings — two more than last year —include more entrées, more desserts and more exotic meats, such as the Python Spring Roll.

Some of the new items are plainly confusing. Quench a dessert thirst with a Grannie Smith Carmel Apple Shake or a Lakefront Beer Ice Cream with Pretzel Toffee.

Is a Turkey Donut breakfast, lunch or dessert?

Waffles are huge this year, and they come with chicken in an item called a Bird Dog; with chicken in the Chicken-n-Waffle cone; or with a hot dog in the Waffle Dog.

In the on-a-stick category, the new menu items include Shepherd's Pie On-a-Stick, Siracha Chicken Bits On-a-Stick, Lug Nuts On-a-Stick, Pancake and Sausage On-a-Stick, Cajun Shark On-a-Stick, Fish & Chips On-a-Stick and Gator On-a-Stick.

Not feeling so, um, adventurous? There's always the All American Hot Dog Kabob.

All new fair foods are subject to change. For a complete list of new foods and vendors selling them, see the Wisconsin State Fair website.