When I watched the Simpsons episode where Moe opens up a generic middle american family restaurant in his bar, I thought the deep fryer jokes were just an over the top parody. I actually went to one of this type of family restaurant recently, and it floored me. They weren't too far off about everything on the menu being deep fried! Or the kids causing havoc. No crazy crap on the walls, though.
some of them do have crazy stuff on the walls...
or rather they did back when that very old episode of the simpsons was made
Fried food, mmm healthy! Anything cooked in 400-degree boiling vegetable oil has got to be safe. :)
Maybe canola oil or one of those supposedly healthier types... as long as it doesn't congeal into a white mass at room temperature.
What really floored me was the seafood platter. Fish, shrimp and scallops. Usually, fried shrimp are lightly breaded around the meat leaving the hard tail uncovered. These ones were completely encased in batter. It was also the first time I've seen deep fried scallops.
>>2
( ´ω`) <Is it that old? :(
Should have been Mad Man Moe's Pressure Cooker!
TGI Fridays and Applebees both have crazy crap on the walls. I love restaurants like that, they please my gut, but then I get the hershey squirts afterwords.
As someone who used to work in restaurants, I can say that in all likelihood the deep fryers are filled with plain old vegetable shortening, the kind that you can buy in the supermarket in a big can.
When restaurants buy it in bulk from a food service company, it comes in ten-pound bricks wrapped in bright blue plastic, stacked in cardboard boxes.
At room temperature, at first it does congeal to a brownish mass (because it has had stuff fried in it and is picking up bits of fried stuff), but as it is used day after day the oil begins to break down from the heat and oxidation (peanut oil lasts a lot longer, but restaurants are becoming afraid to use it because people allergic to peanuts could have a bad reaction to it and sue them). It will get darker and darker, turn black, and remain liquid at room temperature. When the managers decide it's starting to make the food taste funny (the "rancid grease" taste and smell comes from long-chain aldehydes that are the result of oxidation of the long-chain triglycerides in the oil) they will have the crew empty the fryer, clean it out, and put in fresh grease. (fun trivia fact: used deep fryer grease is sold to make soap and shampoo)
At least they aren't using lard. >.<;
>(fun trivia fact: used deep fryer grease is sold to make soap and shampoo)
(second fun fact: non-congealing fryer oil can also be used to fuel diesel engines with minimal modifications)
Cleaning around those fryers is a miserably disgusting job...
I recommend Messy Joe's.
>>9
My parents own fast food place and we never clean the fryers, we just pour water through it once and fill it with new oil.
>>11
Tell me the name and location of your parents' place so that I can avoid it, please?
>>11
Heh, that reminds me of stories I heard from a friend who worked at Dairy Queen. It was a real run-down location too, apparently the place was a tax write-off or something so it hadn't changed since the seventies. One time he told me to NEVER have a burger from Dairy Queen. He wouldn't say why.