When you eat onion rings, you are eating a bunch of batter with some onion in it. The onion may be marginally good for you, but the overwhelming amount of calories, fat, cholesterol, etc makes this a treat for sure. In other words, "deep fried butter with some onion in it."

I absolutely adore onion rings and can scarcely ever turn them down. But I'm honest about what I'm eating.

If you eat something like deep fried butter and feel bad, you could eat a piece of vegetable and pretend that was inside of it...but again, I wouldn't say it offsets enough anyway.

There is a reason "batter" and "butter" have only one letter difference ;)

2 things:

1) Take the amount of butter/oil/fat in the batter...then ADD a stick of butter. That's what you're eating.

2) There's a difference between having some fat/oil/butter integrated into a batter vs. a stick of whipped butter wrapped in batter. If you don't consider that a difference, I don't really understand where you're coming from.

To put it another way, I eat lots of things that contain a Tblsp of butter as an ingerdient. That doesn't mean I'd take a tablespoon, scoop out some butter from a tub, and eat it. Let alone wrap a stick of butter in something that contains a Tblsp of butter and eat that.

I'm totally craving onion rings now. Thanks CP...

I'd try the sweet potato one and maybe the shrimp too.

OK, Burger King onion rings for dinner tonight. Thanks, CP !!

It didn't say how much butter is involved. It also mentioned that it's surrounded by dough. I don't know what the percentages are, but I'm assuming it would be similar to a jelly donut. Sweet, whipped butter isn't much different from custard.

If we're talking about the subjective gross factor, I've stuck a pinky in sweet whipped butter and had a lick. I can't say I'd eat it with a spoon. It all depends on percentages and flavoring.

Regarding health concepts - you really couldn't make a case that it's any worse than any other deep fried thing.

I would eat deep fried butter. Can't say whether I'd like it, but I'd sure give it a try.

I know someone, and now I can't remember who, that just eats sticks of butter right out of the fridge. So some people might like it, but it does sound kinda gross.

I just thought of something really wacky the fairs should try next year: take some regular potatoes and cut them into long thin strips (maybe a 1/4" square and as long as the potato). Leave them naked (don't batter them) and just put them in a the deep fryer. Cook until golden brown, drain and lightly salt. Serve them with a dipping sauce made from tomato concentrate, corn syrup (or other sugar), vinegar, salt, herb extracts (including celery), spice and garlic powder.

Now THAT would be really wacky!

So like... frenched (the cut) potatoes... fried? Frenched and fried potatoes? Novel.