(Phiily? Kyoto? Texas? Mexican?) "Fried Ice Cream," from Philyototexico

[Barry Popik]

FRIED ICE CREAM--158,000 Google hits
FRENCH FRIED ICE CREAM--1,640 Google hits
FRIED FRENCH ICE CREAM--0 Google hits
MEXICAN FRIED ICE CREAM--685 Google hits
FRIED MEXICAN ICE CREAM--1,650 Google hits
...
"Fried ice cream" is not in Robb Walsh's "The Tex-Mex Cookbook"
(2004). "Mexican fried ice cream" is basically just a 1976 invention
by the Tex-Mex chain Chi-Chi's that everyone copied.
...
The "fried ice cream" dessert had been cited in Kyoto, Japan in the
1960s. New cites are below. I'd add them to the Wikipedia, but I don't
want to vandalize the thing with scholarship.
...
"Fried Ice cream" was cited in 1894 as a new Philadelphia dessert.
It's similar to Baked Alaska.
...
This food sounds like that AT&T commercial. I want fried ice cream
that's from Philadelphia, Kyoto, and Tex-Mex. Some place called
"Philyototexico."
...
I don't know if OED is interested, but it's nice to have entries for
both "fried ice cream" and "baked Alaska"...I was surprised that
"Fried Mexican" has more Google hits than "Mexican Fried"...You can
try this dessert at the Texas/Southwest Food Museum when you stop by.
...
...
...
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/fried_ice_cream_mexican_fried_ice_cream_or_fried_mexican_ice_cream/
...
Entry from November 27, 2007
Fried Ice Cream (Mexican Fried Ice Cream or Fried Mexican Ice Cream)
"Fried ice cream" is a popular dessert at Tex-Mex restaurants. It's
often called "Mexican Fried Ice Cream" or "Fried Mexican Ice Cream."
Fried ice cream is sometimes said to have been invented at the 1893
Chicago World's Fair, but news articles in April 1894 claimed it to be
a new Philadelphia invention.  Fried ice cream is often compared to
Baked Alaska, a similar dish of the same period.

Fried ice cream was seldom served after the 1890s until the 1960s. A
Loo Loo franchise of "French Fried Ice Cream" failed to catch on in
the 1950s. In the 1960s, the Karafune restaurant in the Gion dsitrict
of Kyoto, Japan, offered fried ice cream, cooked similar to deep-fried
tempura. Fried ice cream is still served in Asian restaurants today
(Thai and Chinese as well as Japanese restaurants).

Until the 1970s, fried ice cream had no connections at all to Mexico
or Tex-Mex cuisine. In September 1976, the national Tex-Mex chain
called Chi-Chi's (now defunct) offered "Mexican Fried Ice Cream" on
its menu. The Phoenix-based Garcia's restaurant chain also served
Mexican fired ice cream about this time. By the early 1980s, Mexican
fried ice cream was offered in Tex-Mex restaurants all over America.

In 1963, author Edna Ferber declared that "Texas fries everything but
ice cream." Times have changed!


Wikipedia: Fried ice cream
Fried ice cream is a dessert. There are Mexican/American and Asian variants.

At Mexican food chain restaurants in the United States (e.g. El Torito
or Chi-Chi's) and fairs and carnivals it is commonly made by taking a
scoop of ice cream frozen well below the temperature at which ice
cream is generally kept, possibly rolling it in egg, then rolling in
cornflakes or cookie crumbs—and briefly deep frying. The extremely low
temperature of the ice cream prevents it from melting while being
fried. It might be sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and a touch of
peppermint, though whipped cream may be used as well.

In Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the U.S fried ice cream has
also become a commonly served dessert. The recipe at such restaurants
usually uses tempura batter instead of cornflakes or cookie crumbs.
The most common flavors in Asian restaurants are green tea, vanilla
and red bean. Coconut may also be used.

Wikipedia: Chi-Chi's
Chi-Chi's was a popular Mexican restaurant chain from 1975 to 2004. It
went out of business in the United States following a 2003 Hepatitis A
outbreak that began at one of their locations outside of Pittsburgh,
PA. Chi-Chi's is still in operation in Belgium and Luxembourg.
Chi-Chi's also marketed a line of grocery foods (later purchased by
Hormel) with an emphasis on salsa.
(...)
Birthdays and celebrations
Besides the food, Chi-Chi's was also known for celebrating patrons'
birthdays with a special version of the Happy Birthday song (sung to
the tune of the chorus of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" ("Glory,
Glory, Halleluia").) Chi-Chi's version:

Happy, Happy, Happy birthday.
Happy, Happy, Happy birthday.
Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday,
To You, To You, To You. Ole!

If a guest dined at Chi-Chi's on their birthday they would be given a
sombrero to wear while the staff sang this song to them and presented
them with one serving of Mexican fried ice cream.

Chi-Chi's Mexican Fried Ice Cream
Fried ice cream is made in a variety of ways. Some of them actually
involve deep frying frozen solid ice cream. Other recipes just apply a
coating to give it a fried texture, as does this recipe. This recipe
is taken straight from a book called Top Secret Restaurant Recipes:
Creating Kitchen Clones from America's Favorite Restaurant Chains
written by Todd Wilbur.  If you like trying to imitate restaurant
recipes at home go buy his book.

½ cup vegetable oil
2 flour tortillas, 6 inch each
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tbs. sugar
¼ cup cornflake crumbs
2 large scoops vanilla ice cream
whipped cream in a can
2 maraschino cherries with stems
optional toppings: honey, chocolate syrup, strawberries (...)

Food Timeline
Fried ice cream
While recipes for fried, coated dairy products are ancient, food
historians tell us the concept of encasing fozen ice cream in a hot
edible shell dates back (at least) to the 19th century. Think baked
Alaska.

Fried ice cream does not appear in Mexican cookbooks, posssibly
meaning it is not a "traditional" Mexican recipe. Most likely? It is a
contemporary ethnic interpretation of Baked Alaska, a popular upscale
hot/cold ice cream dessert developed in the last quarter of the 19th
century. This dessert employed meringue as the insulating agent
between hot and cold. References to fried ice cream begin to appear in
the second half of the 20th century. The insulating agent is
(All-American) corn flakes. Perhaps this dish is TexMex?

Helen Brown's West Coast Cook Book [1952] contains a recipe for fried
cream which discusses the concept of hot cream coated in cracker
crumbs.

"Fried cream.
Gourmets who visit San Francisco enthuse about this dessert, which is
to be found at a few of the best hotels and restaurants. It's not
ovent served at home, apparentlyy becuase most cooks don't dare risk
it, but it's really very simplet ot make. It turns up in a San Diego
cook book, under then name of "Bonfire Entre." It was called that
becuase the fried cream was cut in sticklike pieces and stacked up on
individual plates like miniature and roofless log cabins. A couple of
lumps of sugar, brandy-soaked, went into the center of each pile of
"logs," and matches graced the side of each plate."
---West Coast Cook Book, Helen Evans Brown [Cookbook Collectors
Library reprint edition] (p. 66)
[NOTE: Recipe follows this description. It includes Jamaica rum.]

Some Japanese-American restaurants offer a similar dessert...ice cream
tempura. Likewise, this is not a traditional Asian meal item. It is
the product of saavy restauranteurs adjust menus seeking to meet to
American expectations.

30 August 1870, Port Jervis (NY) Evening Gazette, pg. 1, col. 5:
Peaches old and withered, served in soup dishes, fried ice cream,
roast ice, boned eggs, some boned out of a barn, and many dainty
dishes too numerous to mention, it was overwhelming, the band were
unable to express their gratitude, they leaned upon their instruments
and wept.

8 April 1894, New York (NY) Times, pg. 18:
FRIED ICE CREAM.
It Sounds Queer, but It Tastes Very Good.
A Philadelphia firm makes a specialty of fried ice cream, which is
pronounced delicious by all who taste it. A small, solid cake of the
cream is enveloped in a thin sheet of pie crust, and then dipped in
boiling lard or butter long enough to cook the outside to a crisp.
Served immediately, the ice cream is found to be as solidly frozen as
when it was first prepared. The process of frying is so quickly
accomplished and the pastry is so good a protector that the heat has
no chance to reach the frozen cream.

Baked ice cream which has a meringue top is another caprice of cooks
that is toothsome, though this tampering with a delicacy that is
perfection when it is in its perfected, normal condition seems
unnecessary. Good ice cream is as good as can be.

21 April 1894, New Haven (CT) Evening Register, pg. 2:
Fried Ice Cream.
Fried ice cream has become very popular in Philadelphia. A small,
solid cake of ice cream, says the "Record," is enveloped in a thin
sheet of pie crust, and then dipped in boiling lard or butter long
enough to cook the outside covering to a crisp. If served immediately
the ice cream is found to be as solidly frozen as when it was first
prepared. The process of frying is so quickly accomplished and the
pastry is so good a protector that the heat has no chance to reach the
frozen cream. Another novelty is baked ice cream, which has a meringue
top.

30 April 1894, New Haven (CT) Evening Register, pg. 4 ad:
THE LATEST SOCIETY FAD.
FRIED ICE CREAM!
At FERRY'S Bakery and Cafe,
46 to 50 CHURCH STREET

9 February 1934, Port Arthur (TX) News, pg. 13, col. 5:
Mrs. Isabelle Raymond, 1012 Fifth, who made vacation money selling
fried ice cream and onions;...

19 September 1939, Portsmouth (NH) Herald, pg. 6, col. 4:
Fried ice cream became a reality at the Chicago World's Fair in the
Gay Nineties. It was dipped into thin batter. doused into hot fat that
cooked the batter before the cream melted.

3 June 1949, Dallas (TX) Morning News, "Ice Cream's No Trick to French
Fry," section 1, pg. 1:
PORTLAND, Ore., June 2 (AP)—French-fired ice cream is about to become
the latest in the novelty foods.

John J. Trullinger, director of the Oregon Frozen Food Locker
Association, told the Oregon Advertising Club it just goes to show
that most anything is possible.

Harold C. Howell and Kenneth Appleby, who plan to French-fry the ice
cream, said Thursday it was simple: Cut ice cream into bars, put a
cake dough around it, dip it quickly into very hot fat and there you
are.

16 August 1951, Cumberland (MD) Evening Times, pg. 24, col. 3:
LOO LOO FRENCH
FRIED ICE CREAM
Ice cream deep fried at 400 degrees temperature. Exclusive franchised
territory now available for Maryland and surrounding country.

25 March 1961, Nashua (NH) Telegraph, "Edson in Washington" by Peter
Edson, pg. 6, col. 5:
Of all the strange things you eat in Japan, from seaweed to fried ice
cream, the darndest is probably fried honey bees, in the comb.
(...)
About this fried ice cream. You get it in the tempura restaurants,
where they fry your food in sesame seed deep fat, right in front of
you, a bit at a time.

The scoop of frozen ice cream is brought in quick. It is dipped in
batter, which provides a kind of insulating layer. Then the whole
thing is plopped into the deep fat and fried like a doughnut for less
than a minute. You pick up this fried snowball with chopsticks and
nibble away at it.

11 October 1962, Dallas (TX) Morning News, section 5, pg. 12:
Bird's nest soup...moon cakes...Peking duck...fried ice cream...Rising
Sun sundaes...scorched egg plant...Duette Dew...long-life
noodles...Bao...Bhindi and sharks fin soup are a few of the delicacies
diners will sample in the Neiman-Marcus Zodiac Room during the Far
Eastern Fortnight, Oct. 14-27.

8 March 1964, Abilene (TX Reporter-News, "World's Fair Food Job For
Pint-Sized Dynamo," pg.34?, cols. 1-3:
NEW YORK—The man-sized job of planning the food for the World of Food
Pavilion at the next World's Fair is in the hands of a woman who fits
into a size 7 dress. Sylvia Schur, a veteran in the world of food, is
that woman.
(...)
Fried ice cream will not be as much a curiosity in 1964 as iced tea
was in 1904. French fried ice cream is but one of the foods Mrs. Schur
has developed for the fair. A ball of hard ice cream on a stick is
dipped into a batter and fried quickly for a crisp flaky coating.

22 May 1964, Bridgeport (TC) Telegram, pg. 22, col. 4:
Anthony Amoroso, owner of the Stratford Center restaurant is getting
ready to launch something that is described by those who have had it
as "fantastic." It is a Connecticut product, was shown on the Johnny
Carson TV show about three months ago and was pictured in Life
magazine. It is "French Fried Ice Cream" and is unbelievable until you
have had it.

21 July 1964, Uniontown (PA) Morning Herald, pg. 4, col. 3:
In Japan, tempura restaurants serve fried ice cream made by dipping
frozen scoops in batter and frying them quickly in deep fat.

6 July 1966, Oakland (CA) Tribune, pg. 15A, cols 6-7:
At the same interesting demonstration I met another guest who had
recently been to Japan where the rage at food stands is fried ice
cream. Below is the recipe she gave me. It would be fun for the party
and could start quite a trend among teenagers, too.

FRIED ICE CREAM
Make ice-cream balls with vanilla ice cream. Stick a chopstick in each
,wrap in an air-tight packet and put in the deep freezer. One way
would be to prepare a carton, line it with waxed paper, lay the
ice-cream balls with chopsticks in neat rows, and then put the whole
box in the freezer.

For serving, make the tempura batter, less the salt, given in the
"At-the-Table Cookbook" or follow a Japanese recipe you may have for
it, omitting the salt. When the ice cream is solidly frozen, dip the
balls one at a time in the batter and fry in 370 degree vegetable oil.
Serve with the chopstick stuck through a protective napkin.

1 December 1966, Pacific Stars & Stripes, pg. 11, col. 1:
One place not to miss in Kyoto is the rustic Karafune restaurant (in
the Gion district), which features tasty Japanese dishes—and fried ice
cream. Every time the novelty of the house is ordered, the chef
proudly announces for all to hear: "Fried ice cream-u!"

22 April 1967, Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press, "Fried Ice Cream Whips
Up Evening With The Geishas" by Jerry Hulse, pg. 63:
KYOTO, Japan (Special-TPNS)—Somehow I never figured I'd get around to
eating fried ice cream.

It's what they served for dessert the other night when we decided to
have tempura. That's bits of fish and lobster and shrimp deep fried in
boiling oils. There was also seaweed, bamboo shoots, ginger and ginko
nuts, h=jellyfish, shell ligament, eel and goby.

That sort of thing fried was delicious. But when the cook dipped a
scoop of vanilla ice cream into the batter and then into the boiling
oils, well—we thought maybe the best had gotten him. The whole thing
came out looking like a baseball—warm and crusty outside, cold inside.

We learned later the chef hadn't suddenly gone mad; he just enjoys
frying ice cream. Moreover, the customers enjoy these warmed over
snowballs.

The place is called Karafune and it's in the Kyoto Gion area, which in
turn is surrounded by more than 200 geisha houses strung along narrow
alleys with a thousand paper lanterns turned on outside.

(MORE ON WEBSITE--B.P.)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org