Couldn't you go a Chiko roll?

No.
But there are fad foods all over the world.  The kind that is high fat, battered, deep fried, cholesterol clogging cheap crap. I think the Baby Boomer generation should be recalled the Deep Fried Generation. Gen X is the Falafel/Kebab generation. Gen Y should be called the Sushi Generation. It's all relative.
Here in Australia we've had some classics from the 50s that hang in there in the odd Fish & Chip Shop - which, like the local corner pub is becoming a heritage institution.
Saveloys, Potato Scallops, Pluto Pups and Chiko Rolls.
I personally have never needed to sample one of these fatty quick fix feasts. I do know that they were favourites amongst surfers and footie buffs in the late 60s, 70s, winding out by the 80s. They were easier to eat than a meat pie and a beer. As legend has it.

 Pluto Pup     

....looks rather rude to me. (a sausage dipped in batter, deep fried & tomato sauced)
ewwww. but someone out there is trying to upgrade them with beer batter.


These sausage shape instant foods are targetted at men 18-25. Really? That's twisted.

But I digress.

The Chiko Roll used to have ads with a girl on a bike holding a Chiko Roll near her crutch. Pre-1999 trash. I always thought of Bon Scott, AC/DC, Motorhead and bike gangs at this image (sorry guys). Sex usually sells. But not very profitably in this case. Chiko had image problems.

So what the heck is a Chiko Roll you don't even care to ask? Some variation of a Chinese spring roll. It started off as a Chicken Roll and being Australian, was quickly reduced to a Chiko. But no chicken, just mutton, massively battered with bits of cabbage, carrot, animal fat, celery, onions, green beans, textured soy protein, cooked barley, salt, sugar, spices and numbers like 471, 635, 320, 450 and colours 102, 100. Matt Preston (fab food critic, www.mattpreston.com.au) would be delighted.

 only a little less rude than a Pluto Pup.

But now, the gorgeous new Chiko Chic, from Sutherland Shire, Annette Melton = an all-Australian fun, cheeky down-to earth girl is the 21st century face of the Chiko Roll. Don't think sales are going through the roof for 'the roll', but the ads are hot. Maybe they should also upgrade the recipe?

I saw this poster at Paris coffee shop in Bondi on the weekend and I actually thought it was an original, retro commercial from the 70s. Easy on the eye, huh? Nice styling and typical Aussie vision. I love it.

But nutritionally, Vietnamese Rice Roll anybody? Only they don't have the cool poster power. Just those cold little white soldiers lying in single file with a ubiquitous spring onion sprig decoratively adorning it's top. And I can't imagine an NRL fan eating one of those with a beer. They're messy to eat, even if they are healthy. All those wormy, rice noodles falling out halfway through the roll. At least a Chicko Roll is all in tact, soldered by heat. Well, what can I say?

A Bendigo boilermaker called Frank McEnroe bought his original Chicken "Chiko" Roll to the Wagga Wagga Agricultural Show in 1951. Somewhere between then and now Simplot took over and make them in bulk in Bathurst, NSW, Orstraylia.

Incidentally, the dude who started up Simplot was a 14 year old from a little farm town in Idaho. 14! J.R. Simplot founded his company in 1923 and by 2004 his company was ranked 59th in Private Companies by Forbes magazine. He's responsible for dehydrated veggies for soldiers in WW2, Edgells, the first chips for Maccers etc....

How clever and forward-thinking can a 14 year old boy be with potatoes and peas?

Now that's my kind of punk.