“Texas fries everything but ice cream” is a quotation in Edna Ferber’s 1963 autobiography A Kind of Magic. Ferber’s Texas work is best represented in the film Giant (1956), with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. The quote is dated today—at the Texas State Fair, they seemingly fry everything (including ice cream).
 
See also: “Texans barbecue everything except ice cream.” 
 
 
Internet Movie Database 
Biography for Edna Ferber
 
Date of Birth
15 August 1887, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
 
Date of Death
16 April 1968, New York, New York, USA. (cancer)
 
Trivia
The character of Jett Rink in Ferber’s novel, Giant, was loosely based upon the life of Texas oilman Glenn McCarthy. McCarthy built the Shamrock Hotel at a cost of $21 million. It opened on St. Patrick’s Day 1949 with a grand opening party costing over $1 million. Ferber was one of the famous guests that stayed in the hotel, and after meeting with him, she decided to write a novel based upon McCarthy’s life. McCarthy sold the hotel to the Hilton family in 1955.
 
She made her acting debut in Orson Welles’ 1939 non-musical, Mercury Theatre radio production of her own 1926 novel, “Show Boat,” playing the role of Parthy Ann Hawks.
 
Pictured on a USA 83¢ postage stamp issued 29 July 2002.
 
Wikipedia: Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 - April 16, 1968), was an American novelist, author and playwright.
 
Edna Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan (in 1885, not 1887 as sometimes stated), to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Jacob Charles and Julia (Neumann) Ferber. She would become a leading American author who wrote a number of successful books and plays.

After living in Chicago and Ottumwa, Iowa, at age 12, Ferber and her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and briefly attended Lawrence University. She took jobs at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican and Democratic national conventions for the United Press Association.

Her novels generally featured a strong female as the protagonist, although she fleshed out multiple characters in each book. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons; through this technique, Ferber demonstrated her belief that people are people and that the non-so-pretty persons have the best character.

Due to her imagination in scene, characterization and plot, several theatrical and film productions have been made based on her works, including: Show Boat, Giant, Saratoga Trunk, Cimarron (which won an Oscar) and the 1960 remake
 
Google Books
A Kind of Magic
by Edna Ferber
Garden City, NY: Doubleday
1963
Pg. 250:
Texas fries everything but ice cream. From the first I had made it clear that I had come to Texas as a writer. I did not pretend to be a visitor or a tourist.