Previous studies have been carried out on the influence of frying fats on the formation of food mutagens, but most of them have been performed on model systems or under cooking conditions that are more frequent in northern countries. The objective of this work was to study the overall mutagenic activity generated in hamburgers and frankfurters deep-fried under cooking conditions that are normal practice in Spain and other Mediterranean countries, in order to determine if there was any modulation of the mutagenic activity with respect to other cooking conditions previously studied. Hamburgers were prepared from beef purchased in a butcher's shop. Frankfurters as well as the oils [olive, marc olive ('orujo'), sunflower and soya bean oil] and butter were purchased in a local supermarket. The samples were fried in a teflon-coated frying pan at 170-180 degrees C for 10, 20 or 30 min. The mutagens were extracted and the mutagenic activity evaluated using the Salmonella mammalian microsome assay with strain TA98. Two independent assays were carried out for each experimental condition. All the hamburgers showed a mutagenic activity that was more than four times higher than that of the controls. Frankfurters showed a lower mutagenic activity than hamburgers (fried under the same conditions) because they have a lower protein content and a higher fat content. Hamburgers fried in olive oil for 10 min showed a significant increase in the number of revertants with respect to the other oils, probably due to the fact that the temperature reached was approximately 10 degrees C higher. Longer frying times significantly increased the number of revertants in samples fried in oils, except in olive oil, probably due to its lower content of polyunsaturated fatty acids.