Whether it’s fried chicken, french fries, or chips, fried food is always a crowd-pleaser and a go-to comfort food across multiple cultures. Anything can be fried and let me tell you, there are some who took that to a different level.
Here are some of the unique (and some ridiculous) fried foods we’ve come across!
1. Fried Fruits
In our culture, we have bananacue (barbecue but bananas!) and banana chips. Banana is a good fruit to fry especially with the sugar coating since that protects the banana from being soggy due to the heat of the oil. Another method to avoid getting an oily mushy fruit product is to coat the fruit with batter before frying. Some fruits that are prepared using this method are strawberries, pineapples, and even watermelons.
2. Deep-Fried Butter
Similar to most fried food, Deep-Fried Butter was first served at a State Fair in the US, more often specifically in Texas. State fairs usually showcase a lot of different types of fried food and many experiments to gain the award for Most Creative Food. For Deep-Fried Butter, some might liken the taste to french toast or waffles. Same with fruits, it’s usually prepared by frying a frozen cube or piece of butter also coated with batter.
3. Fried Drinks
Fried drinks are another Texas discovery and are prepared the same way as fried butter. Coke, beer, Kool-Aid, or any beverage of choice, is frozen first then coated with batter or dough before being deep-fried. Some say the texture and flavor are close to having a cola-flavored doughnut hole or munchkin.
4. Fried Flowers
A lot of fried flowers are cooked like tempura or kakiage. Squash or zucchini blossoms are common ingredients for deep-fried flowers. However, there’s a stall in Thailand that proves foraged flowers can also be a hit! Eaten like chips, the flavor is really mostly in the batter and the sauce. But they do bring a leafy taste (think kale or spinach chips!) with different depths of bitterness and sometimes even sweetness — especially for flowers that are rich in nectar!
5. Fried Insects
Most bugs are said to have a very nutty flavor when consumed. Fried silkworms are a common snack in some countries like South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand. These snacks can be prepared by boiling, frying, or even roasting. Some places also offer fried scorpions where they said it tastes like beef jerky but with a slight fishy taste. When eating poisonous insects it’s important to remove the stingers and poison is removed. So while you can eat a scorpion raw, cooking the scorpion well can remove poison.
These are just some of the different and creative fried foods found across the world. Would you try all of them? Do you know other weird fried food out there? Let us know through the comments section below!
