This is America, the land our Founding Fathers built on certain unalienable rights—namely those of life, liberty and the pursuit of deep-frying everything we can possibly think of. Which includes, apparently, Kool-Aid.
An ABC News video shows a vendor at a county fair making the deep-fried balls of Kool-Aid. “Chicken” Charlie Boghosian starts by creating a thick, sherbet-like mix of the drink powder, flour and water. He then uses a ice-cream scooper to drop balls of the mix into the fryer. After a minute bobbing, he pulls them out, comparing them to doughnut holes. The cherry flavor really comes through, he says. At this point, one feels equally inspired to make comments about American-style ingenuity and American-style obesity.
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This isn’t the first time ole Chicken Charlie, named after the food trailers he trots around to California fairs, has gotten ink for his culinary experiments. One LA Weekly article calls him “the inventor of the deep-fried oreo” (though this seems like a controversial title, given that other people have laid claim to “beignets’ country cousins”). The same story details his previous deep-fried feats:
In 2007, he gave the world deep-fried Coca Cola, frog legs, and Elvis’ favorite peanut butter banana and honey sandwiches; in 2008, it was deep-fried White Castle burgers, spam, and pop tarts. This year, he did it again: a hot dog inside a hollowed-out zucchini boat, battered, deep-fried and served on a stick — a creation he affectionately calls the zucchini-weeni; and a classic s’more, deep-fried in pancake batter.
That, folks, is a man living his version of the American dream. Oh yeah.