Because God needs hardened arteries.

all the better to call us "home"?

I hope we never evolve not to love fattening foods, because the chances are pretty good we won't have much access to them a few generations from now. Wouldn't it suck if we were finally selected to crave salads just as the world's food supply collapsed?

all the better to call us "home"?

well, that and I think he's building something with them.

Fried food: why is it so delicious?

For the same reason that everything that is delicious, is delicious.

Fat and salt.

Because not too long ago and for very many millennia prior, fat was THE energy food. Read Guns, Germs & Steel for a very good history on how the availability of various foods affected human progress.

I have been thinking about chicken and waffles for days. This thread is not helping.

CP, don't think we're going to make that evolutionary leap anytime soon, unless I'm missing something we aren't exactly selecting for fat avoidance on any real scale. Plus, the majority of the world's population actually doesn't receive as much fat excess as we (US here) do, so I'd say for the majority the desire for fat is still a positive trait.

Did anybody mention fat and mouthfeel yet?

ha ha box. Yeah, you need fat for the mouthfeel. :)

I wish I craved sprouts and bulgur and ground up wheat berries. And water. I envy the people who drink water as their only beverage. My friends who order iced water "with lemon" irk me. No wine? No iced-tea? No beer? Live a little people.

Evolutionarily, you're probably right that it's not a factor, but when people talk about the sensory qualities of food, it's easy to focus on taste and smell to the exclusion of touch, texture, mouthfeel, all that stuff.

I crave water (and tea, and beer, and juice), but that 'ice water with lemon' thing kinda rubs me the wrong way too. I've got no idea why though.

I have been thinking about chicken and waffles for days. This thread is not helping.

I work mere blocks from Gladys Knight's chicken-and-waffles restaurant. That's a vortex of temptation that could probably suck me out of a high window from over a mile away. I keep a lot of pennies in my pockets just to weigh me down.

I love ice water with lemon! It tastes fresh and satisfying to me. My utmost favorite is sparkling water with lime. Yum! That said, I love wine, certain beers, coffee, milkshakes and malts, juice and all that nummyness.

A friend of mine had a U.S. Civil War cookbook that had been passed down through her family. There was a recipe for (brace yourself) deep fried lard balls. They were coated with flour and dusted with sugar. She brought the book out one night, after we'd had a couple bottles of wine.

She and I agreed that the mere thought of eating them was absolutely disgusting, until her husband said, "And yet here in Wisconsin, we adore deep fried cheese curds." The room fell silent and we all hung our heads in shame.

I'm one of those ice water with lemon people. I ask for lemon when I'm someplace where the tap water doesn't taste great.

LoriFLA- I used to ice tea out of an obligation to "live a little" but since I don't like it as well as water I decided I was being an idiot.

What REALLY annoys me are people who get offended when I don't drink alcohol. I'll order whatever I FEEL like drinking! WTF do you care what's in my glass?!

But. Back to fried things. I realized I ate a huge number of thick, freshly fried corn chips today. Is there a more boring food on earth? And yet I kept eating them because they were SO tasty.

Very true small_ruminant. I used to be a little secretly peeved that my husband wouldn't order a glass of wine with me at dinner. I wanted to share a moment. I got over it fast. At least I have a safe driver. The spouse doesn't like wine or coffee. Good God.

I like iced water too, even with lemon. I like sparkling water and mineral water, etc., etc. But it seems a little funny to ask the server for iced water with lemon, when all it is is tap water with a tiny wedge of lemon that doesn't offer any flavor. Or maybe it does. Now I'm craving a glass of water. I don't have any lemon.

One of my favorite fried foods are hush puppies. Fried fish sandwich with tartar sauce, fries, and hush puppies. Yum!

Bitter drinks are better shared.

LoriFLA- I never had fried fish sandwiches with hushpuppies until I moved here to Oakland- my neighborhood is full of them- SO good!

Club soda with lime for me, please.

You know what's very groovy when it's hot out? Iced water with cucumber slices in it - try it!

I kind of like fried foods, but it's a pretty rare occurrence at home (except stir-fry), because everything about the act of frying tends to bug me or squick me:

1) using a bunch of oil - enough to do a regular "fry" - just seems extravagant and wasteful, and I hate having bottles of filtered, used oil; I always just end up finally throwing them out a couple of months later.

2) the spatter. Ugh. And where it doesn't exactly spatter, there's still a fine film of grease covering everything nearby, including the cook

3) the smell. I love cooking smells, but not fried cooking smells - and it seems to permeate the entire house.

4) the greasiness of the food, unless you do it just right. Really light fried foods can be great, but it's not an easy technique. Oily fried foods make me feel nauseous, and I'm usually pretty hearty about that kind of thing.

So we fry chicken once in a blue moon, but I tend to use oven techniques more often... or, like I said, stir-fry, and get the fried things I like at restaurants that can do it well. That would be calamari, certain fish, and lightly battered zucchini (a nice Greek side dish, served with tzatziki). Poor mr. taz feels fry-deprived, and gets so happy when I agree that we'll fry chicken (something you can't get at restaurants here). I'm a fry bully.

Wait. There is a phenomenon called Chicken & Waffles? And Gladys Knight has a restaurant of it?

ps: I had occhiblu's broccoli for supper last night... what do you guys do with the half a can of tomato that's left over? I put mine in the fridge, and then take it back out a couple of weeks later, covered in mold. I can't seem to organize my cooking so that I have the broccoli one day, and then a soup or something that needs a little tomato push the next day.

You need to cook more pasta.

Though sometimes, if it's just a little mold, I use the tomato anyway. You can often scoop off the top layer and the rest is fine. Only if it's just for me, though; I don't like to force others to submit to my mold.