Ever heard of Fried ice cream? What about chili ice cream? Its feels completely oxymoron (Coincidently Moron is also A city in Argentina, to the west of Buenos Aires) to those who are unaware of it; but it does exist as prominent as the fact that Sun rises from East. I heard this term while I was attending one group discussion for the purpose of final placements at AIMK. We got “Fried ice cream” as our topic, and we all analyzed this in our own way treating it as a metaphor indeed the dish does exist.

So, the dish is basically an “Americanized Mexican” desert commonly found at Mexican food chain restaurants in US, fairs and carnivals. The recipe literally goes by the name - take the ice cream (well frozen at much below the temperature which ice cream is generally kept) dip it in hot oil, of course it doesn’t melt - They are frying it, na :)

Before frying the deep frozen ice-cream is rolled in egg, then rolled in cornflakes or cookie crumbs to make an insulation between hot and cold. In Chinese and Japanese version of the dish vegetable or sea food is usually used in place of cornflakes. Coconut may also be used.

If you ‘Google’ a bit about its history, the concept of encasing frozen ice cream in a hot edible shell dates back (at least) to the 19th century. Also, it doesn’t appear in Mexican cookbooks meaning it is not a “traditional” Mexican recipe.

During our group discussion we spoke about many things we can term that “Fried ice cream philosophy”. The term is coalition of two different school of thoughts, and it can be observed that many things behave like (including human behavior) is like friend ice cream - inside something else and outside something else. Such behavior of persons are not moronic always; but it does makes sense. Indian youth is a perfect example, Indian value mixed with western modern life style.

Everybody knows Retail is one of the sector on boom, taking economy ahead, better than traditional distribution channel. Few months back I read an article in ET about retail which does resembles with “Fried ice cream” concept though loosely.

Suppose some item is available in open market at Rs. 110/-. Big retail chains claim they are offering the same good at much below price say Rs. 95/-. How does it happens. They make a deal with the manufacturer and purchase a huge amount of the goods say at Rs 85/- (Suppose in open marketing they are supplying at Rs. 95/- so that when it goes to end customer its price is equal to MRP). Now ET discovers that these big retails are not able to sell all the goods in the Mall so they re-route the product to traditional distribution channel lets say at 100/- which will be available to end user at Rs 105/- (Rs 5/- saving). But, in the root the manufacturer is being looted.