Deep-fried Mars bar
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| Place of origin | Scotland |
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| Main ingredients | Mars bar, batter |
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A deep-fried Mars bar is an ordinary Mars bar normally fried in a type of batter commonly used for deep-frying fish, sausages, and other battered products. The chocolate bar is typically chilled before battering to prevent it from melting into the frying fat, though a cold Mars bar can fracture when heated.
The dish originated at chip shops in Scotland as a novelty item, but was never mainstream. Since various mass media have reported on the practice since the mid-1990s, in part as a commentary on urban Scotland's notoriously unhealthy diet, the popularity of the dish has spread. The product has not received support from Mars, Inc who said "deep-frying one of our products would go against our commitment to promoting healthy, active lifestyles."
The dish is said to have been created in 1995 in the Haven Chip Bar (now the Carron) in Stonehaven, near Aberdeen on Scotland's northeast coast.
The first recorded mention of the food was in the Aberdeen Evening Express, following a tip off phone call to their journalist Alastair Dalton that a chip shop in Stonehaven had been deep frying Mars Bars for local children. The article included a quote from Mars spokesperson who said this was the first time they had heard of this being done with their product. The following day the story was picked up and run in the Daily Record, August 24, 1995, in an article titled "Mars supper, please". Scottish broadsheets The Herald and Scotsman ran the story the following day and the UK broadsheets the day after, each adding their own cultural slant. On the fifth day Keith Chegwin performed taste tests on The Big Breakfast TV program and the story was covered by the BBC World Service.
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