Agreed. DH's family has, uh, how shall I say this...bland tastes. We can be in the most exciting city with a million food choices and we'll end up at Chili's or Applebee's and then I want to shoot myself. However, both of these chains have bars, so it could be worse...Can you imagine an Applebee's WITHOUT liquor to wash down the generic? :::shudders:::

just saw the fried coke(as in cocacola) demonstrated on the today show. still wondering about it?? :eek:

I've never heard of fried mac and cheese. I can't picture it at all (granted, I haven't seen the commercials).

I have had a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was actually quite tasty.

So, train them... or at least train your DH. It can be done. When I met my DH, he took his steak medium well and wouldn't touch spicy food. Why? His mother takes her steak medium well and won't touch spicy food, and when he was growing up, she made him eat the way she ate. She likes to say, "If it has any flavor, spit it out, it's bad for you." :rolleyes: Within a few years, I'd trained DH to eat medium rare steak and Indian curries hot enough to take paint off your car (the way I like 'em).

Anyway, back on topic: I am sure that the string bean fries, at least, will quietly disappear off the menu when no one orders them. Barf. At least they're not serving spaghetti on toast (a British dietary staple).

i am a huge mac and cheese fan so i actually went to fridays for lunch today to give them a try. they aren't bad at all!! they're basically fried bites with mac and cheese in the middle. and the string bean fries are pretty good too - my coworkers actually liked them a lot.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS. I'm meeting my family this coming up weekend in Atlanta, and my sister has already given us her "list" of places to eat--PF Changs and the Cheesecake Factory. :rolleyes: WTF? I can eat that stuff anywhere! Granted, they live in one of the worst cities on the planet, so maybe it's exciting.

I think it is just the next step in a progressive move to make food that the average person finds "tasty"- addictive in a sense. And it will only get worse.

A few years ago I made a major shift in my eating habits and for a few months I ate only fresh fruits and vegetables, plus some meats that I had prepared from scratch. No butter, no fried food, no salt etc.

Since then, if I eat a burger at McDonald's, I am overwhelmed by the taste of grease and salt- something I had never noticed before.

People eating these kinds of diets get desensitized to the taste- but get a real high off the fats and sugars. But eventually you get used to it, and things have to go a step further.

Hence fried mac and cheese.

But the ultimate evil is lazy people who will let someone else cook their food for them for a profit. Any time in life you let someone else do something for you with profit as a motive, you are insane to think that your best interests will be their first priority.

I still eat burgers and things like that- but what I do not do is eat at places like TGI Fridays. I just can't do it anymore. I literally get ill.

On the other hand, I have relatives with small children who eat nothing but fast food and refuse anything else. It is surreal to sit down to an amazing homemade 12 hours-in-the-making Thanksgiving dinner made by my mother (who is an incredible cook), and then watch a relative sneak out to get Taco Bell for her children who won't touch it. One of these children at age 12 weighed more than I did in college.

Eating patterns, healthy or otherwise, are addictive in many subtle ways.

I can ask that because I know that I may as well just tape the darn things to my waist, rather than eat them! Have you ever tried deep fried Reuben bites? Or hot dogs? Yummy! (unfortunately!)

Also, my ex - who has THE most limited palate in the world! - eats little but fried fish, french fries, and potato chips. I once asked his mother if he ate any vegetables, and with a completely straight face, she huffily said, "He eats french fries!" :rolleyes:

Um...I think you mean beans on toast. Which is really good. English baked beans on hot, buttered toast is a great cheapo filling meal. Sort of the equivalent of ramen for college students over here.

Honestly...I want to try the fried mac and cheese. I am a junk food junkie and it looks good to me. If I try it anytime soon, I'll report back and let ya'll know.

They're both British dietary staples.

http://www.scottishsport.co.uk/runni....htm#breakfast
http://www.recipezaar.com/180946
http://www.mrsbridgespantry.com/tearoom.htm (scroll down to British Favorites)

But I hate beans :p

Fried Pickles are very good, so are Fried Mushrooms. And my old job Bennigan's had GREAT fried broccoli balls

Fried pickles.....yuuuum. There is a resturant in Auburn that has the best fried pickles :)

Mrs. Bridge's Pantry cannot be used as a valid reference because a. it's in Connecticut and b. they serve crumpets with jam and clotted cream. That's blasphemy! Crumpets are to be eaten with butter and butter only! :P

Beans on toast is The dietary staple and spaghetti on toast is a variant. Most people will say, 'cor I really fancy beans on toast', not spaghetti. Even though it's the sauce that makes the meal worth it, which can be acquired from either baked beans or canned spaghetti.
Also, you can't really make beans on toast over here. The bread is too small so there are too many beans! Though I did make some the other week, after procuring a rare can of English baked-beany goodness.

I did try Fridays' 3 meat fondito (or however you say it.) THAT is one excellent skillet of cheesy meaty goodness.

/just saw the ads for the other New Appetizers...

And what precisely is wrong with Connecticut?? Connecticut is in New England, after all... ;)

I still hold to my position that they are both current dietary staples - whether beans on toast predated spaghetti on toast or not.

-- aephi alum, whose British mother never served her either one

ETA: There's a great little store called UK Gourmet that sells a number of food items that are hard to find outside the UK, including sweets, very good bangers, and many different varieties of cheese. It's in Connecticut too. :p