Proper old school greasy spoons

[Tom B]

I mean you could get some fresh peas, or even frozen peas and gently boil them for a few minutes adding a little seasoning

A chippie in Kirkwall offered to do just this when we were there a couple of years ago. I explained to Mrs TB as I got on the bike to get them that mushy peas were most unlikely north of the 55th parallel*. But I did as was told and asked and now I'm telling this story. They really wanted to help but just had no idea what I was asking for.

* a colleague from Berwick-on-Tweed reckons she can't ever remember seeing mushy peas there

[ian]

For a nation where the national pastime is deep frying, Scotland really can't do chippies in any format. Horrid chips and manky gravel-battered fish that taste like they've been fried in used motor oil, and a lack of mushy peas to soften the blow.

[bobb]

What? Scottish chippies are great! You can often get your booze and fags in there too. Basically your weekly shop 

[Feanor]

For a nation where the national pastime is deep frying, Scotland really can't do chippies in any format. Horrid chips and manky gravel-battered fish that taste like they've been fried in used motor oil, and a lack of mushy peas to soften the blow.

I think that's your experience simply because of weight of numbers.
There are so many Deep Fried Emporia, that you have simply sampled too infrequently to characterise the distribution.
There are indeed a large number on the low side of the distribution.
But there is also a high side to the Gaussian curve, and due to the large sample size, the high end outliers are actually surprisingly good.

[ian]

Mostly Edinburgian, admittedly, but I've sampled a good number and they've been universally poor. That doesn't mean there isn't a good one, of course. There might be one. Though I've never found it. And even if the chips were close to initially edible, there's always the prematurely ejaculated soss to contend with. There's no known intervention that prevents that.

Of course, I grew up in the East Midlands we didn't have things so exotic such as haggis and bridies, and there's only so much creativity you can exercise with potatoes and coal, and only one of the two can really be deep fried (though I'm sure the more avant garde friers tried). So our chippies are an art form.

[CrinklyLion]

I worked in one of our local chippies for about 5 years (thought GCSEs and A levels and some of my gap year then bits of holiday cover) - the boss gave me an gold engraved (alarm) clock when I left and was immensely proud because I was the first one of "his girls" ever to go to uni.

It left me with a deep suspicion of non-brewed condiment (you should see what the stuff does to concrete if it isn't diluted properly), a large number of small burns scars and an inability to view mushy peas as food that lasted for years. In excess of 15 years. I was converted back to the cause by the mushy peas at the Magpie in Whitby, when we visited with friends one of whom said they were the best mushy peas he'd had in a long time and I should at least try. The EldestCub, then quite small, may well have pointed out about CrinklyAuntie and the olives (a traditional family tale told to small fussy people as proof that tastes can change) so, hoist by my own petard, I had to try 'em. I recommend them to those who love mushy peas, and those who think they don't but are able to test the theory.

[bobb]

I've just watched about 5 vidoes on how to make chip shop curry sauce. I'm going to give it a go 

I promise to try mushy peas again soon as it's been about 25 years...

[CrinklyLion]

I promise to try mushy peas again soon as it's been about 25 years...

I recommend going to Whitby to do so, and eating in at the Magpie.  The chips aren't veggie (and the menu says so) but they do the nicest veggie lentil cottage pie I've ever eaten which, along with the peas, is why it is my favourite fish restaurant.  And everything came with slices of white whoosh bread-n-butter too

There's since been 2 or 3 other places that I've tried and like mushy peas.

Despite this, I'm not sure I could buy them from the chippy I worked in 25 years ago.  Which, funnily enough, was probably Mr Larrington's term-time local purveyor of deep fried delights when he was a young oik, although I reckon that he probably left town a bit before I started working there.

[Paul H]

I promise to try mushy peas again soon as it's been about 25 years...

I recommend going to Whitby to do so, and eating in at the Magpie. 

But not too soon, I don't think it's reopened yet after the fire that gutted it in the Spring.

[CrinklyLion]

   I hadn't heard about that.

Reopening early December apparently.

[pcolbeck]

Two fires one after the other!
I think the takeaway is already open.

[bobb]

When I used to work as a Combustion Engineer Someone who used to blow things up for a living, at British Gas Research, frying ranges were the scariest things to work on. We had plenty of fires in the lab, but we had good burly men with moustaches to put them out. I also got electrocuted more times than I care to remember when testing the electrickery....

[ian]

Isn't non-brewed condiment just diluted acetic acid and caramel colouring ('yes,' the internet said earlier)? I didn't know you could dilute it yourself. Awesome, I love chemicals, me.

I dunno, I have to confess I'd rather have actual malt vinegar on my chips. I mean, it's not like it's expensive enough to require substitution, not even for a chap like me who deluges his chips. There has to be a puddle in the bottom of the tray. That said, you expect to see non-brewed condiment there on the counter, next to the wooden forks, and murky jar of pickled eggs.

[Mr Larrington]

Despite this, I'm not sure I could buy them from the chippy I worked in 25 years ago.  Which, funnily enough, was probably Mr Larrington's term-time local purveyor of deep fried delights when he was a young oik, although I reckon that he probably left town a bit before I started working there.

Oh yes!  Chips, scraps and curry sauce!

[citoyen]

On the subject of Scottish fish & chips, I once had an excellent example of the genre on a family holiday in Oban. It's the only time I've ever had fish & chips in Scotland, so that's a 100% hit rate.

However, we were spared/denied the pleasure of 'soss' - perhaps because the chippy owner recognised us for the Sassenachs we were? I wasn't aware of the existence of soss at the time, otherwise I might have asked for it - you've got to try these things at least once.

[ian]

I wasn't joking when I wrote 'epitaphic diarrhoea dribbles.' On your chips. The only brown stuff on chips should be gravy and then only north of Wigan. I'm drawing a gravy line across the country. Gravy isn't permitted further south, they'll mess it up.

There are shit fish and chip shops in England. Lots of them. But the hit rate is generally a lot better south of the border. I don't know how people do it wrong. OK I do, oil not hot enough, food left slumbering under the heat lamp for a day (with the exception of the sad saveloy which needs to have been in the cabinet for a week to properly mature), etc. That kind of thing ought to be a treasonable offence. Bring back Tyburn.

[CrinklyLion]

Isn't non-brewed condiment just diluted acetic acid and caramel colouring ('yes,' the internet said earlier)? I didn't know you could dilute it yourself. Awesome, I love chemicals, me.

It's supplied to chippies (and presumably other bits of the catering trade) in large flagons of concentrate that then need to be diluted appropriately....

[Kim]

It's the corrosive warning symbol that makes it.


Here's Tom Scott explaining non-brewed condiment with the aid of some seagulls:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/642x2Y3Zla0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/642x2Y3Zla0&rel=1</a>
https://youtu.be/642x2Y3Zla0

[Ham]

I like regional variations in chippies.

Many years ago, when I lived in the Midlands, I'd never experienced or even considered putting gravy on chips. So I always like to do so when north of the Watford Gap. I like it very much.

I rememeber when one of my housemates at uni (from The North^TM) came down to visit in the summer. We had a few beers and then went to a chippie and I fancied adding a Savaloy. When I ordered it he went "WHAT THE FOOK IS A SAVALOY?!!!"

Happy days 

You should have said "Something you can eat with a wally" ......

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

It's true that they're never open on Sundays and usually closed by 10pm, if not earlier. I have never known why. Surely we shouldn't blame a proper Englishman like Cromwell, this is undoubtedly some kind of anti-British EU law designed to let more foreign food onto our shores. Shame.

I remember some time back when I lived in Sheffalump, taken with idea of fish and chips as I meandered home early one Friday evening so I stopped at the local fish and chip shop. It had already closed – 7.30pm on a Friday evening. In studentland (off Ecclesall Road).

Blimey. Anyway, it had gone the last time I wandered past. Hairdressers, if I recall. That's an entirely different Friday evening, for sure.

My dad and his mate John were well miffed when Gordon Whittle sold his chippy on to someone who didn't realise it was supposed to stay open till my dad and John went in on their way back from the pub on Friday nights.

Mushy peas are an abomination on the face of this earth. Chips and gravy is delicious, but I'm veggie now so it is unavailable to me.

Previously mentioned in the Audax Perms thread, apropos of JayP instituting an eponymous perm.

As did Kevin Keegan.

On the subject of Scottish fish & chips, I once had an excellent example of the genre on a family holiday in Oban. It's the only time I've ever had fish & chips in Scotland, so that's a 100% hit rate.

However, we were spared/denied the pleasure of 'soss' - perhaps because the chippy owner recognised us for the Sassenachs we were? I wasn't aware of the existence of soss at the time, otherwise I might have asked for it - you've got to try these things at least once.

Soss is an east coast thing. They won't have it in Oban.

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/glasgow-man-says-edinburgh-ketchup-charge-racist-1-3062264

[bobb]

Chips and gravy is delicious, but I'm veggie now so it is unavailable to me.

You like a nice bit of cheese though. Almost always containing a bit of dead cow...

[rr]

When I used to work as a Combustion Engineer Someone who used to blow things up for a living, at British Gas Research, frying ranges were the scariest things to work on. We had plenty of fires in the lab, but we had good burly men with moustaches to put them out. I also got electrocuted more times than I care to remember when testing the electrickery....

You only get electrocuted once.
My food rock bottom was a deep fried pizza somewhere near Stirling.


Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

[citoyen]

Soss is an east coast thing. They won't have it in Oban.

Ah! That would explain it then. Thanks!

[Tom B]

Ian, is your ‘gravy line’ anything like this?

[ian]

Pretty much so, though the southern border appears too low, like the waistline of those hammock-crotched jeans favoured by feckless urban youth. While we did have chips and gravy in the East Midlands such a choice would make you out as a potential dissident, one of those people who might be found to be 'talking proper.' We had little tolerance for people who spoke in such a manner that there arose a genuine danger of comprehensibility.

Now, we had gravy, don't get me wrong. But it was proper gravy, stewed up after you'd roasted a joint of meat dry (top tip, if you start Thursday evening it can be ready for Sunday dinner). It was a sort of gloopy stuff, the consistency (and taste) of warm bitumen.

Now you could have curry sauce in the chippy, which was an odd one, because there was near total aversion to anything 'foreign' that chip shop curry sauce slinked its way around. OK, I know it's not actually curry, but it's was dangerously spicy for the East Midlands. We'd only got salt and pepper a few years earlier.