Phagomania: I'd Fry That For A Dollar

We take a deep fried look at fried food from around the world to prove that while it isn’t just the Scots that do it, they perhaps do it best...

Feature by Lewis MacDonald | 04 Aug 2015

The Edinburgh festivals are synonymous with deep fried food – mix late nights, alcohol and Scotland together and how could it possibly be otherwise? Most of us know our love of fried things is the recipe for a self-prescribed exit from our fair planet, but we also know how bloody delicious deep-fried things are.

This month we look at some of the oddest and most excessive fried treats from around the globe, and we start in the cultural home of the fryer. Scotland has many battered wonders to offer but none more infamous than the deep-fried Mars bar. Two decades on from its humble beginnings in a Stonehaven chippy, the popularity of the fried chocolate bar has spread across the country and overseas. Often the victim of snobbery, the experience of the savoury outer crunch with the gooey sweet centre is an essential experience to tick off the bucket list – just don’t acquire the taste, or that list won’t get much else ticked off it.

The Scottish chippy has many other creations to offer but the one that riles and perplexes the most is the deep-fried pizza. Simply take the cheapest frozen pizza you can find and toss it in the fryer. And if you really want to up the ante, batter it first and it will affectionately be known by the locals as a pizza crunch. Why? Because it tastes the business, that's why.

The most absurd fried inventions hail from the USA with arguably the most mindblowing being fried ice cream, which is up there with a perfectly executed soufflé in our book. Frozen scoops are coated with cereal, cookie crumbs or batter and fried, creating a hot crispy shell around cool ice cream. This is also big in Japan, as is Curry Bread (karē pan) – dough filled with Japanese curry rolled in breadcrumbs and deep-fried, like a pasty but better. 

A similar item to the Curry Bread, but closer to home, is the Lihapiirakka, or Finnish Meat Doughnut. Traditionally a solid doughnut filled with minced meat and rice, a recent take moves things up a notch by housing a frankfurter, burger or… wait for it… kebab meat. We doughnut know what to make of that! Doughnut, get it? Eh?

Fried breads enjoy popularity around the world, and we reckon the best example could be the Belizean Fry Jack. Once tried there’s no going back – it has been described as a Yorkshire pudding, but better. Traditionally a breakfast item, hot oil gives the dough a delightful puff. Another interesting twist on tradition is German fried mash potato. It sounds bizarre until you remember croquettes, which these essentially are. One recipe incorporates pieces of fried bacon, which definitely deserves a mention; when combined with apple sauce, Germans refer to it as Himmel und Erde, or heaven and earth. Clearly much-loved then.

Finally, the completely bizarre and horrible element that no Phagomania article could ever be without – the delectable Cambodian deep fried tarantula. We managed to track down somebody who has eaten one of these delicacies. The legs are very crunchy with the only meat in the abdomen, which was “a bit gooey”. Overall it tasted mostly of “charred”. So there are your options – go off and fry, just don't send us your medical bills.

http://theskinny.co.uk/food/phagomania