How to make Coke better? Fry it. Sounds healthy

RALEIGH - It has come to this at the N.C. State Fair: Deep fried Coca-Cola. Each year, some carnival culinary innovator with a flair for foods bound to lead to congestive heart failure offers a new foodstuff bathed in gooey dough and dropped in a vat of boiling vegetable oil. Past fairs have seen candy bars, Twinkies, Moonpies, Oreos, cheeseburgers, sweet potatoes and even green beans fried up and, in most cases, impaled on a stick. South Carolina's state fair even added crispy Ho-hos. Perhaps the concession operators, these Emerils of the french fry basket, simply ran out of solid foods. The solution? Mix funnel-cake batter with Coke instead of water. Pour batter into the fryer and cook up a mass of doughy strands. Stuff into a Coca Cola cup, sprinkle with powdered sugar and douse with pure Coke syrup. Top it with whipped cream and a cherry.

"Anything's good when you deep fry it," said Greg Seamster, of the N.C. fair's concession staff, as he served up the Cokes at a fair preview Tuesday. Seamster's words caught the ear of Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison, perhaps wondering if the fat-and-sugar cocktail qualified as a controlled substance: "I heard him say it would give you a `Zing.' "

Mark Parker, an afternoon radio host, indulged with mental images of doctors using tiny balloons to reopen his arteries. "Do you sell it," Parker asked, "with a little angioplasty on the side?" link