My former student Eric Schumacher, now a pastor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sent me this news report about the invention of “deep-fried Coca-Cola.” Pastor Schumacher asks: “Dr. Moore, you’re from the Deep South, do you eat this?”
I am from the Deep South. And everything I ever ate growing up was indeed deep-fried. But, by the time I was uprooted from Dixie nine years ago, we had not yet pioneered this technology. That is not to say that I’m not for it. I guess you could call it “synergy.”
I was embarrassed about my homeland’s reputation for the fatty side of life, but only for a few seconds. Then I remembered an anecdote from, of all things, the 2004 Democratic presidential primary season. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, then a candidate for the White House, I remember, was placed in the awkward situation of eating a deep-fried Twinkie on a stick. According to MSNBC, Lieberman declared the treat to be “delicious.”
I asked myself, “Was this fried Twinkie offered at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi?” No. It was at the Iowa state fair. The same state fair that once saw an exhibit of Da Vinci’s Last Supper scene sculpted in butter.
So no healthier-than-thou sanctimony for you, Pastor Schumacher. Y’all will have deep-fried Coke in your neck of the woods before you know it. Excuse me: deep-fried “soda pop.”
As for me and my house, we’ll avoid this health-destroying development. I’ll wait for the introduction of deep-fried Diet Coke.
