OK. Now I’ve seen everything. A local fast food place that I frequent for their tasty, grilled chicken-on-a-pita sandwich and the occasional order of fries has a new item on the menu: FRIED TWINKIES!
Who thought this up?! Twinkies may be the only food that isn’t biodegradable and whose nutritional value is only slightly higher than the wrapper it comes in, but this is just wrong.
About every five years I buy a Twinkies 2-pack at the gas station, known for their healthful cuisine, as I remember and celebrate my youth. (This would be the same youth in which I indulged a similar gastronomic delicacy: school glue.) Admittedly, the chemically colored “cake” and processed cream filling are a yummy treat.
But I am an adult now, and while I may not be able to pronounce all the ingredients on the Twinkies label, I do know that I can probably do better by snacking on fruits and vegetables.
The irony of it all hit me when I saw the sign. Whew, no transfats! Thank goodness. I wonder how many people reversed out of the drive-thru in a huff before this “healthy” sign appeared? We are nothing if we are not politically correct.
Aw, what the heck. Gimme a fried Twinkie and a diet Coke.
Through The Eyes Of A Quilter 
last summer working at our churches food tent at the local fair, we faced the fried twinkie and fried snicker booth. The rules were only one vendor for each delicacy, so they had to do something with their funnel cake batter. Whew I didnt’ try. I stuck to our home made pies (with lard in the flakey crust, of course)
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I can’t stop laughing. This reminds my of FAIR (as in State or County) food. Enjoy~
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The ONLY thing I never wolfed down (I’ll eat almost anything) is a Twinkie! Thanks goodness it never appealed to me, but fried? maybe it might be OK? LOL There’s just something ucky about that squisky unknown stuff in the middle. *8-(
I agree – pretty horrendous, calling it “food”!
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Ami, The NC state fair has had fried Twinkies for a few years and I think also fried candy bars- to each his own!!!
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Guess y’all wouldn’t be interested in fried M&Ms then, huh?
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They’ve been serving fried Twinkies and Snickers at the Ohio State Fair for a number of years. I haven’t tried either one. Yet. So, how was it?? :-)
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I had a Fried Twinkie at the Rockingham County Fair last summer. It was YUMMY!
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Like everything else here in the South, FRIED is better.
Glad you Michiganders are getting with the program (and “they” wonder why the obesity rate here is WAY above the national average ….)
:-)
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Tell me where in the Flint area I can find one. I will be married 40 years on Sunday and that sounds like more fun than eating a dead chicken in Frankenmuth, MI
Ruth
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I don’t know if we are going this weekend or in the next couple of days, but we will take pictures.
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LOL! Love the comment about the dead chicken at Frankenmuth!
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Like the previous commenters (is that a word?), I’m from the South, and fried is the only way we go – unless you’re smoking some ‘cue, usually a whole pig. We, too, have had fried Twinkies and cucumbers and Snickers and 3 Musketeers, along with fried dough at our state fair for years. I haven’t tried the former, but the dough is yummy!!
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I wondered if Zern’s Flea Market, in Gilbertsville, PA, was the only place to have this amazing (?) delicacy. Now I know. There’s just nothing original any more!
Being Philadelphia born and bred, Twinkies were not part of my gastronomical (?) vocabulary. I mean, why “do” Twinkies (or, for that matter, Little Debbies) when you have all those unpronounceable contents wrapped up in refined sugar and bleached flour, with a hometown label of “TastyCake”? Wonder when they’ll start deep-frying Butterscotch Krimpets? Now that would be something to try!. Or Whoopie Pies…up in Lancaster County!?
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HelenMarie – you brought visions of Stephanie Plum – star of the Plum novels. She talks about TastyCake and Butterscotch Krimpet treats all the time and I’ve always been curious about them.
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The “humping dogs” had me laughing so hard I had to stop reading and recover before I could go any further. I’ve read every single Plum book over and over,laughing all the way through.
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YEs, I always want a Tasty Cake after reading her books but have never had any. Too far WEst!! Linda in Mo
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The Stephanie Plum comments remind me that once I was reading one of her books in bed and laughing so hard that my hubby demanded to know what I was reading. When I read that part to him, he wanted to read the book after me. He hasn’t read the whole series (and the between the numbers books), but he has read quite a few! It’s good to have a hubby who can appreciate Stephanie Plum books! Thanks for the reminder! Happy quilting, Rosemarie
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Not only do we have a place here that sells fried twinkies but they also drizzle it with a lovely raspberry sauce! too gourmet!
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They serve those at 5/3 Ball Park in Grand Rapids….so they aren’t as new as you think…they have been around for several years…and they look disgusting. I don’t like Twinkies…I can’t imagine that deep frying them would be an improvement.
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O.K…. My friend talked me into trying one of these when I visited her in Detroit. We each took one bite and I would love to have a picture of what our faces looked like. Well, I know what hers looked like when she bit into her portion, and I imagine mine was much more extreme. I have never tasted anything so vile and the aftertaste was even WORSE! It stayed with me for days, no matter what I did – brushed my tongue, teeth, gargled with various substances. Even now I can bring back the sensation of something coating my mouth, similar to what drinking used motor oil would feel like, I think. “Disgusting yuckiness” doesn’t even begin to describe it. We even had ours drizzled with chocolate – what a WASTE of good chocolate! There is little that can’t be improved by chocolate, but fried Twinkies is one!
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A friend living south of Coos Bay, OR on the coast wrote:
“But those were “just” fried.. Down here we went 2 better, Battered, deep fried and covered with chocolate syrup.. Yum yum Good..
Thank goodness the place has a gone out of business..I did eat one but it was awful…”
I saw the Twinkies at the Oregon State Fair 3 years ago along with deep fried Snickers. (shudder)
Give me simple deep-friend ice cream any time. We all need to increase our calcium level and I”m sure this qualifies as a healthy way to consume it.
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Madison, Where are you?? You need to save your mother!!
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Yes, they have had them at the fair for years.
I want mine with raspberry sauce. YUMMY!
And I wanna know— did you try them, or are you one of the ones that reversed out of the drive-through???
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Ami,
The food network had a Dinners, Drive-ins, and Dives show featuring a dinner that served batter-dipped and deep fried hamburgers in the bun with all the topping.Seriously!
Maybe it is time to design a new line of fabrics called Crazzy Culinary Delights. LOL
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Allow me to climb up on my soapbox. Twinkies do not qualify to be called a food. As to fried twinkies, there should be a law against them.
There, glad I got that off my chest:-)
Mary
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In my book Deep Fried Twinkies sits next to margaine which has been scientifically proven to NEVER go bad no matter how many yeas you leave the opened container unrefrigerated! I wonder why it’s sold out of the refrigerated display? (Remember when it first hit the markets and the package came with one block of white stuff and a packet of yellow food coloring? It was my job to mix the coloring into the white good to make it “look” like butter!)
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At the Texas State Fair (Dallas) Fried Twinkies were “featured” years ago. Each year they try to out due the previous year with their “fried” item. My favorite, so far, was the Fried Coke (yes, soda pop) from 2007. It was awesome.
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I find a lot of “fair food” to be along the same lines of what many quilt show venues line up for “concessions”. The main concession, it turns out, is to our diets.
Fried Twinkies, fried Snickers bars, fried Oreos, mountains of curly fries, and even fried CAULIFLOWER grace the menus and leave people with the need to pack their own lunch when heading to a day long event. One of our quilt shows in Arizona forbids bringing food into the event and you are then forced to choose something from their on site menu and salad is never on it. Greasy burgers, mystery meat hot dogs, fried chicken, oily fries, and other artery choking treats will never compare to the carrots, bulgur salad, and spring water that you had to leave in the car.
For that reason, I haven’t visited that quilt show in over two years. And I let my guild membership lapse too.
The state fair is something I do every year but only for a few hours. I wouldn’t ever eat there and I don’t like the smell of stale cooking oil and cigarette smoke. Walking the midway from Twinkie to funnel cake to ashtray is the only exercise some people get.
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I think they had them a couple of years ago at the Fresno Fair. It’s no wonder obesity is rampant in modern times.
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These fried culinary (??!!) delights have been sold at the CA State Fair for years along with the candy bars, Oreos, pickles, vegetables, and the most recent addition, Fried Coca Cola. My son insists on trying all of them when we go..and sharing them with his 4 kids. Grandma has to turn a blind eye to keep from getting a whopping stomach ache and having all of her arteries seize up from all the fats. Is second-hand cholesterol as dangerous as second-hand smoke??
It is possible to walk and eat your way through the food vendors without ever getting anything with nutrients, but covering the 4 food groups of grease, sugar, artificial flavors and colors, and highly processed flours.
It is official that I have turned into an old f**t……
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Yes, here in the South, we will fry anything. The latest fried vegetable I have come across was fried green beans. My reaction was WHY? I did try one, it was pure grease, could not even taste the green bean. Maybe that is the thought behind the fried Twinkie, you can’t taste it!!
Robin in NC
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For those who consider this a delicacy, FYI: Borders carries a Hostess Twinkies cookbook. Saw it there today but didn’t check the contents as I’m not interested in cooking with Twinkies. But it appears there’s a market for it.
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Yep, the Texas State Fair has long offered fried “treats” of all sorts. The fried coke is pretty tasty but one can only take in so much grease and live to tell the tale. I tell people that when the settlers came to Texas they only had one cooking pan….it was a skillet! And they fried almost everything they cooked. We haven’t evolved an awful lot have we? Thank goodness for the Food Network….pass the salad please!
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There are whole Twinkie cookbooks! I had a fried Twinkie at the NC State Fair. It wasn’t particularly special. There is also a vendor with all kinds of fried candy bars. I can’t quite bring myself to try one. LOL
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The best place for fried Twinkies is downtown Las Vegas…there’s even a large billboard showing a video of a showgirl eating one. The casino also serves fried Oreos. It was featured on Food Network!
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Where have you been friend? Old fair food here in the midwest…you know farther west and south of you!
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It’s been noted above that “fried” foods are featured at the Texas State Fair, but it has not been said that they started a yearly contest about 4 years ago to find the “best” fried food entries for each year. The winners get to sell the “creations” during the State Fair that year. So without further ado, here are some of the latest entries into the “fried food” arena:
Chicken Fried Bacon [winner: best taste]
Fried Banana Split [winner: most creative]
Fried Guacamole Bites
Deep Fried S’mores
Fried Chocolate Truffles
Fried Grilled-Cheese Sandwich
Fried Snowballs
Texas Fried Jelly Bellys
Fire & Ice (fried pineapple creation)
Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Waffle Balls
These are just the finalist, so imagine what ALL 45 entries looked like. And, these are just the ones from 2008! Can’t wait to see what they come up with for the 2009 State Fair. Stay tuned and take a trip to Dallas in early October to see what all the fuss is about!
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I think they might be serving a Maalox Milkshake!!
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I lost my fried Twinkie virginity yesterday. It was so good, but it really sticks with you. I ate mine about 4 pm, went shopping, puttered around the house, and at 7 my husband cooked some fish. I then realized that I still had that fried food taste in my mouth and it now tasted more like fish.
The Twinkie tasted really wonderful, but I am sure I won’t have another one for a very, very long time. Unless I have a taste for fish.
Needless to say I didn’t have any dinner last night, but I could live off the fat of my thighs for years.
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I haven’t tried the fried Twinkies or Snicker bars but this year at the Florida State Fair they had chocolate dipped bacon! Now I love chocolate and bacon and just had to try it. It was OK. Would I ever have it again? I don’t think so…………..Can you imagine how many calories I must have consumed…
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Over 25 years ago I worked at the “Great America Park” in Santa Clara, California. Not only did they have “Fried Twinkes” but also “Fried Ice Cream Bars”. I didnt’t try either, but your discovery answers the old question…There is nothing new under the sun!
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I’ve always believed that a diet coke cancels out the calories in any food – fried Twinkies, huh?
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At an area (Wyoming) watering hole they have an item on the menu “Bucket of Grease If it can be coated with batter, we will fry it!” Next time I go I wil suggest Twinkies. Does beer cancel out calories?
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I have just had fried pickles for the first time and they were wonderful!
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This first appeared in my area at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival several years ago. This year the shocker (food-wise) was fried Oreos!
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