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This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Food

Breakfast of Champions: Deep Fried Cereal (and SPAM!)

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"Cereal is not jail with milk anymore. It's OUT," said Charles Pheonix in his popular DIY fried cereal video. Southern Cali's deep fry king Chicken Charlie has followed Pheonix's lead, and is serving up deep fried cereal at this year's San Diego Fair.

As if Trix and Cinnamon Toast Crunch weren't unhealthy enough, Chicken Charlie dunks them in a vat of scalding hot fat, and then tops them with syrup. Need some protein? Never fear. He's also re-introducing deep fried SPAM, as well as deep fried PB&Js.

These festivals have become notoriously competitive in their pursuit of outdoing each other's odd fried foods -- doing everything from avocados to Oreos and candy bars. Last year, Charlie even did a fried Kool Aide. A man in Plano, Texas one-upped him with a fried beer recipe, where he injected the liquid into a pretzel before frying.

"Fried Kool-Aid is Kool-Aid-flavored dough balls," he told USA Today. "If I was going to fry a liquid, I actually wanted it to be a liquid."

The fried beer is something we're admittedly curious about, but when it comes to the other items, we'd rather stick to one the many excellent doughnuts here in LA, but if you're morbidly curious, the San Diego Fair goes thru July 4. Chicken Charlie will be bringing his deep fried goodies to the Los Angeles County Fair at the end of August.

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