Imageless, Short Road Update
Did you ever notice how people go off to college and instantly become huge fans of the Food Network? I never got it until it happened to me – you’re eating a bowl of $1 Safeway Penne covered in $2 Safeway Select Four Cheese pasta sauce, and all you want to do is turn on the TV and watch other people getting paid to fly to exotic places and eat totally delicious food. It makes your $3 dinner taste all the more bitter, but it gives you hope for the future.
“The food I’m eating right now is not very good.” You think. “But I’ll make up for it by one day going to the place in Minneapolis where the burger patties are all filled with cheese.”
My weekend trip to Scotland, which, as you read this, I am smack in the middle of, is the direct implementation of this fantasy. You see, it had never been a particular dream of mine to travel to Scotland (save for perhaps in elementary school when I went by my middle name, Scott, but those days are over – call me when they establish the Democratic Republic of Trumania), until I learned, several months ago, of the Scottish affinity for deep frying things. Deep fried Mars Bars, deep fried doner kebab, deep fried pineapple rings, and, last but not least, deep fried pizza.
This penchant for deep frying anything edible has made Scotland late night talk show joke fodder in recent years, which I think is wholly unfair. Firstly, up until this deep frying craze began, Scotland’s best known food was haggis, which is made of sheep’s lungs, heart, and liver minced with onion and oatmeal, heavily seasoned, and then simmered inside a sheep's stomach. When your jumping off point is inedible bits of animal jammed inside another inedible bit of animal, anything is an improvement.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t be laughing at the Scottish for pioneering new and innovative things to deep fry. We should be laughing at ourselves for not thinking of it first. I mean, come on, America! We used to be pioneers in the fields and industry until we outsourced all of that to Japan and India – don’t tell me we’re going to let go of first place in the field of finding ways to become morbidly obese too!
Deep fried Coke was a good first step and the KFC Double Down was a stroke of genius, but until we emulate Scotland’s willingness to grab the first thing within reach and throw it into the fryer, we’re not going to win this thing. Sure, sometimes they swing for the fences and it doesn’t work out, but Thomas Edison failed one hell of a lot of times before he invented the lightbulb (which, incidentally, the Scottish have tried to deep fry).
Hey, wait, has anybody tried deep fried whiskey yet? America! Get on it!
For the health conscious among you, I plan to keep my fried food consumption in check the same way I managed to lose weight while working at Mike’s Drive In two summers ago – moderation, portion control, and being a 19 year old male (the last one might be a little bit hard now, but I’m up to the challenge). Edinburgh is a remarkably hilly city built on a lot of big mounds of volcanic rock, and I intend to earn my ludicrous meals by walking absolutely everyfuckingwhere.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If you don’t hear back from me on Wednesday, either my healthy eating plans failed and I had a coronary, or I decided I never wanted to leave. Take your pick.
Truman Capps would deep fry this blog if he could.
“The food I’m eating right now is not very good.” You think. “But I’ll make up for it by one day going to the place in Minneapolis where the burger patties are all filled with cheese.”
My weekend trip to Scotland, which, as you read this, I am smack in the middle of, is the direct implementation of this fantasy. You see, it had never been a particular dream of mine to travel to Scotland (save for perhaps in elementary school when I went by my middle name, Scott, but those days are over – call me when they establish the Democratic Republic of Trumania), until I learned, several months ago, of the Scottish affinity for deep frying things. Deep fried Mars Bars, deep fried doner kebab, deep fried pineapple rings, and, last but not least, deep fried pizza.
This penchant for deep frying anything edible has made Scotland late night talk show joke fodder in recent years, which I think is wholly unfair. Firstly, up until this deep frying craze began, Scotland’s best known food was haggis, which is made of sheep’s lungs, heart, and liver minced with onion and oatmeal, heavily seasoned, and then simmered inside a sheep's stomach. When your jumping off point is inedible bits of animal jammed inside another inedible bit of animal, anything is an improvement.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t be laughing at the Scottish for pioneering new and innovative things to deep fry. We should be laughing at ourselves for not thinking of it first. I mean, come on, America! We used to be pioneers in the fields and industry until we outsourced all of that to Japan and India – don’t tell me we’re going to let go of first place in the field of finding ways to become morbidly obese too!
Deep fried Coke was a good first step and the KFC Double Down was a stroke of genius, but until we emulate Scotland’s willingness to grab the first thing within reach and throw it into the fryer, we’re not going to win this thing. Sure, sometimes they swing for the fences and it doesn’t work out, but Thomas Edison failed one hell of a lot of times before he invented the lightbulb (which, incidentally, the Scottish have tried to deep fry).
Hey, wait, has anybody tried deep fried whiskey yet? America! Get on it!
For the health conscious among you, I plan to keep my fried food consumption in check the same way I managed to lose weight while working at Mike’s Drive In two summers ago – moderation, portion control, and being a 19 year old male (the last one might be a little bit hard now, but I’m up to the challenge). Edinburgh is a remarkably hilly city built on a lot of big mounds of volcanic rock, and I intend to earn my ludicrous meals by walking absolutely everyfuckingwhere.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If you don’t hear back from me on Wednesday, either my healthy eating plans failed and I had a coronary, or I decided I never wanted to leave. Take your pick.
Truman Capps would deep fry this blog if he could.