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They’re real and they’re…well, presumably spectacular

Deep fried Mars bar. I always wondered if that was for real, but if the Scotsman is highlighting it as their Scottish Fact of the Week, then I guess it’s legit. They turned twenty last year.

Okay, I’m a fraud. I have been following the news. Oh, not American politics, which still makes me want to punch kittens. I’ve been watching, with an increasing sphincter-clench, the Far East hotting up fast. Wasn’t there a time when threatening to bomb the US mainland was an unequivocal act of war? But China has no intention of shutting Pyongyang up.

Meanwhile, they — China — are beefing up their drone arsenal, just as we have been telling everybody we’ll send our drones where we like and shoot whom we please. (Nice precedent, guys. Really, as an aside, we’d better litigate an individual right to shoot at drones before we don’t know whose drone that is over Mr McGregor’s barn).

Oh, skip all that and just read this one, an overview of how tetchy it is between Japan and China at the moment. All it takes is a slip of the finger in the danger zone and I smell history coming at us, fast.

So — fuck it! — candy bars it is. Near as I can figure it, a Mars Bar is what we ‘Muricans would call a Milky Way. Because — again I say, fuck it! — when you’ve got World War Yang coming at you, a 1,200 calorie snack doesn’t seem that big a problem.

Comments


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: March 26, 2013, 11:54 pm

Mars bars have almonds. Milky way is dark chocolate.

And North Korea as always been belligerent and their propaganda bombastic and bellicose. We’ll never know until artillery shells start falling on Seoul.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: March 26, 2013, 11:57 pm

…and what you really want are the Milky Way, Snickers, Mars ice cream bars.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 27, 2013, 12:06 am

Mars ice cream bars are very acceptable, I admit 🙂


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 27, 2013, 12:25 am

Had em at the Texas State Fair… excellent! Better than the deep fried bacon and that was pretty darn good!

I do not know thez ‘Politics’ thing of which you speak.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: March 27, 2013, 12:31 am

I quit being surprised after my first encounter with deep fried ice cream….


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: March 27, 2013, 12:38 am

If threatening to bomb anybody’s mainland is an unequivocal act of war, then the U.S. govt is in a heap of trouble.

As for drones overhead, hitting one with a firearm would be pretty tricky. That’s why I have a hand-held Class IV laser. I figure it’ll seriously mess with its ability to capture images even if it doesn’t permanently damage the sensor array.


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: March 27, 2013, 12:57 am

I’d say I was safe, down here in the southeast Pacific, but China and the Philippines are locking horns over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Some other countries claiming ownership, also. I can’t wait for the great Chinese land grab.

BTW: The Philippines has renamed the South China Sea to the West Philippines Sea. I’d call that a case of poking a sleeping bear in the eye, but what do I know.

So I would like to say that I would have a front row seat to the NORK/US/CHINA fireworks – pass the popcorn – but I fear that my popcorn will itself be a little too crispy to eat. 🙁


Comment from EZnSF
Time: March 27, 2013, 1:39 am

Fried candy isn’t standard food porn. It’s German food porn.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: March 27, 2013, 1:53 am

No Mars Bars in the US?…thought for sure I used to see commercials for it all the time on ‘murkin TV.

…I have yet to try a deep fried one though…sounds interesting…


Comment from GregO
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:07 am

What about deep-fried triangular flapjacks? It all sounds delicious though!


Comment from p2
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:07 am

if you can deep fry a Mars bar, surely you can deep fry an Aero? you reckon all those little bubbles inside would just ‘splode into massive quantities of deep fried chocolaty goodness?? or even better, with Easter staring us in the face, deep fry a proper Cadbury Creme Egg. (not the poorexcuse for a knockoff we have to settle for here in the colonies…..) Could you hard boil one???


Comment from Mitchell
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:15 am

I dunno, I’m getting the vibe that N. Korea might be trying “The Mouse that Roared” gambit. I wouldn’t put it past them.


Comment from Oh Hell
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:17 am

If it will fit in the pot, it can be deep fried…..


Comment from AliceH
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:30 am

In the U.S., the sequence is:
1. Three Musketeers (chocolate covered fluffy stuff)
2. Milky Way (chocolate covered fluffy stuff with layer of caramel)
3. Mars Bar (chocolate covered fluffy stuff with layer of caramel and nuts)

In the U.K… don’t know what the equivalent of 3Musk is, but a milky way is some white chocolate monstrosity, and a Mars Bar is the same as a (U.S.) Milky Way.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: March 27, 2013, 3:56 am

Yeah the fight over the Senkaku islands has been going on a long time but recently oil was discovered in the area and China has gone ballistic trying to get them.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: March 27, 2013, 4:07 am

I think I will pass on the deep fried Mars Bar. I like my chocolate a lot closer to room temperature, unless I am drinking it. That said, the deep fried bacon is probably pretty close to carnivore divinity. Closest thing would be the smoked Bacon Explosion [the smell of the making of which will make those whose religion bans pork ritually unclean for a 3 block radius.].

Moving back to matters geopolitical; if you want to get your knickers in a knot, ponder this.

1) We have Buraq Hussein Obama as president. Guarantees from him are worth less than a Cypriot ATM card, and he has backed off from every “red line” he has drawn, at warp speed.

2) North Korea has been using Japan as part of their missile test range for years, firing over their populated areas.

3) What happens if the pudgy little dictator of the Norks drops a missile, with or without nuclear warhead, on Japan? In theory, we have a treaty commitment to defend Japan. But the decision will be made by the current occupant of the White House. Will he go to war over an American ally, when he has been less than supportive of every other American ally?

4) If he does not, how long will it take Japan to nuke up? [time span may be measured in turns of a wrench, and they are right now in the process of changing Article 9 of their Constitution.]

5) Similarly, how long before South Korea and Taiwan do the same in that case? And they are not that far away if they want to.

6) A Japan preoccupied with a hostile North Korea, is more likely to make concessions to China to not have a two front war. Which may be why China is not pulling on the Nork’s leash.

7) Then there is the matter of what happens if Obama does defend Japan, with the military he has been gutting for 5 years?

I think I shall make a bacon explosion, before any other explosions come along.

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: March 27, 2013, 5:06 am

Subotai,

You would wax poetic about bacon explosions and then withhold the recipe to our infidelic ecstasy?

I want to exude bacon drippings from my pores!

Well, actually that would be disgusting, but I’m in the mood to abuse my literary license privileges.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: March 27, 2013, 8:48 am

Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: March 27, 2013, 5:06 am

It is now 0239 hrs local and I am about to crash for the night. However, I promise that tomorrow I will come back to this thread with the bacon explosion recipe.

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2013, 10:43 am

There are no nuts in a British Mars bar. That is all.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:05 pm

The taxonomy of candy bars is a strange and wondrous thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_%28chocolate_bar%29

And in another forum (devoted to discussions of English syntax and usage–but who can keep humans from going OT?) I learned that you cannot duplicate in the US the taste of UK chocolate, because what the cows eat is different. Just sayin’


Comment from Deborah
Time: March 27, 2013, 2:13 pm

Husband used work for a candy and tobacco distributor. Fresh candy is amazing (Cherry Mash=fainting). Fresh cigarettes are incredible. Back in the day when I smoked, I used to dream about how good a cigarette would taste, pulled off the line before it got to packaging.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: March 27, 2013, 4:57 pm

I don’t know how Obama would react to a really serious provocation or even an ouright act of war either. On the one hand, he’s a pusillanimous weakling, locked in the permanent pre-emptive cringe adopted by all those who hate Western culture. On the other hand, he’s a petulant little child who takes any challenge to his untrammeled authority as a personal insult, so he might go spastic and completely drop the hammer on an adversary. Either way, he’s not up to the task.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: March 27, 2013, 6:38 pm

To Feynmangroupie and other interested parties

As promised:

BACON EXPLOSION

2 pounds thick cut bacon [cure of choice]
2 pounds mild Italian sausage or other ground sausage of choice
1 jar of your favorite barbeque sauce
1 jar of your favorite barbeque dry rub

1.) The first thing you need to do is weave a tight bacon mat with the sliced bacon. At least 5” x 5”. I tend to go for 8” x 8”.
2.) Fry the remaining bacon to taste, and cut or crumble into pieces.
3.) Sprinkle the bacon mat with your favorite BBQ rub. I have my own which is a curry tinged variant of Alton Brown’s; everyone has their own tastes though.
4.) Make an even layer of the ground sausage of choice from edge to edge of the bacon mat.
5.) Spread the fried bacon over the top of the sausage, evenly.
6.) Drizzle your favorite BBQ sauce over the fried bacon. I tend to prefer a KC style sauce, YMMV.
7.) Now comes the active part. You have to make a pinwheel roll with this. I will quote from the BBQ Addicts site, because this is the best written explanation I have seen. Once you do it the first time, it will be easy. “Very carefully separate the front edge of the sausage layer from the bacon weave and begin rolling backwards. You want to include all layers EXCEPT the bacon weave in your roll. Try and keep the sausage as tight as possible and be sure to release any air pockets that may have formed. Once the sausage is fully rolled up, pinch together the seams and ends to seal all of the bacon goodness inside. … To complete the construction process, roll the sausage forward completely wrapping it in the bacon weave. Make sure it sits with the seam facing downward to help keep it all sealed up.”
8.) Sprinkle the outside with more dry rub.
9.) Now to the smoker. If you have a fancy smoker/grill smoke it in hickory at 225 degrees till an internal thermometer reads 165 degrees. If you are like me and don’t have a fancy smoker, I use a Weber Kettle Grill, although any BBQ that can close tight and be regulated will do. Soak chunks of hickory wood in water for a couple of hours before cooking. Build a fire of charcoal briquettes or chunks in a pile on one side of the smoker. When the coals are ready, add the soaked wood on top of them. You know your own smoker, so you can adjust amounts and draft to get an intense smoke. Place the Bacon Explosion on the grill, NOT DIRECTLY OVER THE COALS BUT TO ONE SIDE. The goal is slow, indirect cooking with a lot of smoke. Adjust your smoker so that it is a slow fire and cover. Go for 1 hour for each inch of thickness of the roll. Add coals and more soaked hickory as your particular smoker requires to keep it going.
10.) Of course, all smokers emit smoke. All of your neighbors are going to know what you are cooking, and be envious. If their religion bars them from consumption of or exposure to pork; they will be ritually unclean and require purification. This possibly could have military applications.
11.) When it is cooked, brush a glaze of your BBQ sauce over the roll and let it set up for a few minutes under foil.
12.) Slice into rounds. ½” may be as thick as you want to avoid overkill. Serve as an entrée, or as a sandwich.

I may be Chinese, but my people came from South China. We do BBQ.

Sweas and Uncle Badger, I am curious how the locals there would react to this phenomenon.

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2013, 7:33 pm

I can’t believe any carnivore on the planet wouldn’t adore that, given a chance to try it. But American style bacon is rare and hard to get here.

You can kind of see why. If you are used to big, thick slabs of chewy bacon that result in very little fat or shrinkage in cooking, American bacon has got to be, “ZOMG this stuff cooks away to nothing and leaves all this grease behind. Plus, it’s crunchy. What a rip!”

There’s one store where I can get Oscar Mayer, packaged in Spain. I always keep some in reserve.

British bagels are a bit like that, too — too light and bready. I suppose if you weren’t used to bagels, a real deli bagel would make you think, “gosh these things are heavy and chewy.”


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: March 27, 2013, 8:31 pm

Perhaps you could make it with panchetta? Pork belly is making a comback here it the states. In China, we had it with every meal.

Civilization RAWKS!

I’m pretty sure Japan could build, field, and deliver a 200 KT city killer right on Porky Jong Un’s doorstep in a day or so.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 27, 2013, 8:40 pm

That’s very interesting, Can’t Hark!

As for replicating UK chocolate in the USA – why would want to do it in either direction? Both versions seem to be stuffed with vegetable fat and God knows what!

It’s Lindt for me – just in case anyone anyone is buying Easter eggs 😉


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 27, 2013, 8:55 pm

Oh, and the bacon explosion sounds like distilled wonderfulness.

Pancetta has been suggested as a sub for US-style bacon and one of our supermarkets has recently started selling slabs of lard that might once have been somewhere near a piece of meat with malice aforethought. They are describing it as ‘US-style’.

Her Stoatliness has recently, with a gesture immeasurable self-sacrifice, actually volunteered to try some on our behalf.

I want you all to pause and share with me the true nobility and unequalled leadership qualities of this small mustelid, compared with whom, Churchill, Alexander the Great, Ramesses II and other ‘Right lads, Over the top! Follow me! Let the buggers have it!’ types, pale into insignificance as mere school prefects.

Of such stuff is She made. We are blessed.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: March 27, 2013, 9:08 pm

Every time I hear this about English bacon I find myself frowning and puzzling. Time to reread Arthur Ransome’s Swallows & Amazons series, most notably /Coot Club/ and /The Big Six/, because I seem to remember a scene in one of them where the MacFarlane twins cook the bacon very crispy because they like it that way–and get bawled out, admittedly, by the mate of the barge they have hitched a ride on, who avers it is inedible. But that surely suggests that /someone/ in the UK cooks bacon that way?


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: March 27, 2013, 9:17 pm

Subotai, the Bacon Explosion sounded spectacular and I went to another site to share the recipe with a few other bacon lovers. I was chagrined to find that someone there had already written about this lovely concoction but I’d missed seeing it!

For the record, the title Bacon Explosion is trademarked by BBQ Addicts and they offer a ready-to-each version for sale online.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2013, 10:37 pm

It’s not so much that they don’t like crispy bacon, Can’t hark. It’s that it’s a completely different kind of meat. Thicker, and not nearly so mottled with fat. Like Canadian bacon, but not round.

Here, shop for bacon in the UK.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: March 27, 2013, 10:58 pm

Hm. The streaky bacon looks familiar–but, of course, it’s hard to really compare from a picture of a package. It’s not that I don’t trust you and Uncle Badger–I do, unreservedly; it’s just that I’m trying to fit that scene into the same framework as your remarks.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2013, 11:10 pm

Streaky bacon is a little closer, but still thicker and chewier and doesn’t shrink much when you cook it. Pancetta is pretty close.

I have actually had to add fat to the skillet to cook British bacon, because no fat at all came off of the rashers I was cooking.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 27, 2013, 11:47 pm

That’s the difference, Can’t Hark. There is meat on our bacon 😉

To be truthful, that lack of fat can mean it’s a bit rubbery unless it is well cured and well cooked.

Wait! I have it! Let’s hold an International Bacon Conference!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: March 27, 2013, 11:51 pm

Hard to believe there isn’t already such an event, Uncle Badger!


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: March 28, 2013, 3:51 pm

A convert amongst the chosen ones:

http://www.beyondbubbie.com/pleasures-of-the-pink-flesh/


Comment from Davem123
Time: March 30, 2013, 4:26 am

I would expect that an International Bacon Conference would be considered a crime against islam by the UN, EU and all right-thinking people. I’m in!

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