04 September 2010

fryer

Not long before I left Gone West City, I ended up at dinner after Sunday night church with a bunch of people from the K.'s church (but notably, none of the K.s. I can explain how that happened, but it is a long and tedious story involving bicycles and jeeps and leaving the house at 6:10 for a 6:00 service, and it is unimportant to the story at hand).

The church people and I went to a wings place. I ordered vegetarian wings, which horrified some people, and there were trivial pursuit cards on the table, so we spent the meal quizzing one another on random facts from the 1980s and before (the cards were old).

After we ate yummy chicken or soy protein wings, someone ordered a plate of fried oreos and twinkies.

This is like a bad joke, right? Everyone mocks fried oreos and twinkies. They are both unhealthy in the first place, and full of preservatives, and then you fry them? Well, oreos are delicious, I think, but I despise twinkies. They taste like chemicals. This is county fair food, and it just hurls itself at potential mockery. I myself made fun of them as the order came out.

And then I ate my words, and a lot of fried junk food, because fried oreos and twinkies are utterly delicious. Somehow the breading and frying utterly transforms them. The twinkies lose their chemical taste as the filling melts into the cake. The oreo chocolate melts into the breading and the filling seeps into the chocolate.

I should have been able to predict this. Soon after I moved to Gone West City, I went with N. and S. to a party thrown by S.'s friend. N. and I, neither of whom knew anyone else at the party, ended up spending the evening grilling double-stuf oreo after double-stuf oreo on the grill. Steaming hot oreos, with the filling all melted, are addicting. I should have expected that they would be just as addicting fried.

So now when I read about the ridiculous things that are fried at state fairs, I no longer scoff. The people frying them probably know something I don't know (yet).

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