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I love fried pickles but I thought your comment about spears was really weird because I find the exact opposite to be true. The chips tend to get soggy and cold much faster than the spears. Which made sense to me because the spears are crunchier in the first place. I actually avoid places that have chips. Hooters for example has the chips. Which almost everywhere has a hooters so there you go but I don't go because I want the real thing. The full on spear and if you're lucky and you're at Little River BBQ in Townsend, TN then you get the special sauce too (some sort of sweet mustard). It's absolutely the best. Chips really?!!? So confusing....

i ate half the recipe. i want to marry gina de palma, and i'm pretty sure my husband wouldn't mind :)

OK, the disclaimer to Angus is mostly untrue, rather than true. We raised our own steers for a while, and one of the most important determiners of flavor is the feed that the cattle are raised and finished with. This also helps determine how lean or fat they are. To that end, grass fed steers taste a bit gamier than those who are finished with corn or a mixture. But there is an important caveat to all of this: to wit, bison, oxen, elk, and genuine Angus taste quite different than do most domestic cattle breeds, even when raised on a pure grass diet -- their meat is leaner, yet quite flavorful and relatively tender. The more that cattle run or graze over wider territories (like in the movies where they would herd them to the stockyards over hundreds of miles or more) the tougher the meat.

So saying that Angus taste like any other beef is false, but conditions do amplify or improve the final result. Why is Angus specifically different? It's because the Scots bred the Angus from hybrid stock to begin with, they are part old European zebu buffalo and more modern cattle strains. If you have ever actually seen Angus bulls in person, the resemblance to other cattle breeds ends fairly quickly. They are big, very big. And their heads look like something halfway between bison and cattle.

Again, all that being said, there are grades of Angus, just like any other beef and perhaps low grade Angus is indistinguishable from better grades of Hereford, Limousin (which I also like), et al, but a good cut of Angus can be easily taste tested as different from an equal cut of the others.

Let's face it, if all cattle tasted the same, or provided the same quality of meet, then they would all sell for the same price per pound, which they never have, even before the "marketing ploys" of the last decade. That is why dairy cattle are rarely the choice for meat, and why the Japanese can get $100 a pound for Kobe beef -- and yes, again, how they feed and prepare the beef is critically important.

There are many of my friends who cannot taste the difference between
ground chuck and sirloin, too. And those who cannot appreciate the difference between a Grand Cru Bordeaux and a low price bottle of California Pinot (don't get me wrong, there are some extraordinarily good California Pinots -- I live in the Central Coast!) but that does not mean that others cannot tell the difference or even recognize by taste the origins and identities of what they drink or eat.

Bon Appetite!

In Florida -- the Gator's Dockside in Lake Mary, FL, just added a basked of fried kosher dills to their menu. They were about 2-inch rounds, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick, fried quickly in a flavorful batter and still crisp inside, served with a cup of ranch dressing. We really enjoyed them, even if they sat a bit heavy afterward. But they were the highlight of the meal, and went wonderful with a pitcher of Yuengling...the dill flavor lasted quite a while on the palate.

Gator's Dockside also has EXCELLENT chicken wings, cooked dry-fried, batter-fried, or grilled, and tossed in a variety of sauces. Service is par for the course for a neighborhood sports bar.

Tony Packo's in Toledo, Ohio, offers their original pickles and peppers deep fried, with an assortment of dips (ranch, salsa, or spicy ketchup). The pickles are a spicy dill, but personally, I'd rather eat the fried pepper pieces and leave the fried pickles to my dinner companions!

The best place in Pensacola, FL for fried pickles is The Oar House!!

My first time (with fried pickles) was at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Nashville, TN. The ones at Cheeseburger in Paradise can't match them!

In Vancouver BC [yes, yes, it's nowhere close to the east coast...]

Mr. Pickwick's Fish and Chips on Denman street does gorgeous deep fried dill spears to go with their delicious and rather posh take on F&C.

Not a difficult thing to make and very good:

Can use bread/butter or dill pickles.

Dip in breadcrumbs seasoned with whatever seasonings you like.

Then you can choose either deep fry, pan fry, or pan fry in a non stick pan.

Serve with ranch dressing.

i grew up in rural virginia and had a lot of delicious fried foods -- fried okra, fried zucchini, hush puppies, fried catfish, fried turkey, fried green tomatoes -- but never fried pickles! will have to seek these out the next time i'm home.

They're usually dill pickle chips, though, right? Not bread-and-butter pickle chips.

Athens, Georgia, has them at Harry Bissett's, Knuckleheads, and the Blind Pig, to name a few places off the top of my head.

Portland Maine:

Silly's:
40 Washington Avenue
http://www.sillys.com/

Binga's Winga's
795 Congress Street
http://www.bingaswingas.com/

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

Here's a couple more that just came in from some friends.

Weird Fish in San Francisco
Soho Park in NYC