The great chip shop gravy divide.

[pcolbeck]

When I was a teenager we used to walk back from the pub in town and the local chippy would be closed and starting to clean up. They would however have a window open round the side where for 50p they would sell you a bag of bits. This consisted of a mixture of chips. scraps and whatever bits of fish were left. Bliss after a few beers.

[Andrew Br]

Ah, Hollands pies I've fond memories from a Lancashire childhood of 'meat pie and chips in a tray with gravy' - eaten standing outside the chip shop, of course!

Anyone here a fan of Peter Kay?  I saw him a couple of years ago and remember a sketch about the difference between northern and southern chippies and the general lack of gravy etc in the latter - leading to the woderful line 'have you got owt moist?'

From much earlier, I remember being sent to the local baker to get hot pies straight from the oven for dinner (aka lunch ) with a tupperware cup to bring the gravy back in.

As I mentioned earlier, I worked at Holland's Pies over 3 consecutive summers. I have two memories that will stay with me 'til I die.
The first is eating the meat pies straight out of the oven at about 06.00 before going home at 08.15 to sleep for most of the day (after watching Selina Scott on breakfast TV). My grandad got a job at Holland's after he was made redundant when the cotton mills shut down. He put my name forward when Holland's wanted summer workers. My second memory is not so good. One of the workers, let's call him Bob (because that was his name) used to turn up for the Monday night shift wearing a particular short and smelling of soap. Tuesday night- same shirt, no smell. Wednesday- same shirt, slight odour. Thursday- same shirt, bad, bad smell. Friday- rancid  I used to hold my breath whenever he came near.
I still eat the pies from time to time, but they're never going to be the same as they were when they were fresh.

I also remember when I was much, much younger (actually at primary school) taking a bowl to the local baker on Friday mornings before school. At lunch time, my dad would come home from work (cotton mill) and collect the bowl full of steak and kidney pudding and peas and that's what we would eat. Glorious. IIRC, my mum used to finish work early on Friday afternoon, but this meant working through lunch time, hence the "bought in" food. My mum worked at Karrimor. The local baker's shop was actually a terraced house where the front room was the shop and the back was the bakery. We lived in an identical house but we had use of the downstairs rooms !
You tell that to the youth of today.............

[Andrew Br]

I'd have to know you a lot better before I let you examine my muffin.

And I don't know you well enough to ask about your bottom muffin.

IGMC.

[Martin]

Beer has a head on it all the way from the Midlands to the north of Scotland so it's the flat southern beer that's in the minority

yebbut when you pay as much as we do for it Down South you want maximum liquid and minimum froth 

ISTR a radio program where they found the most expensive pint of Bass in the UK (somehwere in Mayfair probably) and the cheapest (Wolverhampton) and swapped prices for the day (it was something like £1.60/76p); you can imagine the reaction in the Black Country....

[HTFB]

I'd have to know you a lot better before I let you examine my muffin.

And I don't know you well enough to ask about your bottom muffin.

Not forgetting up muffin, down muffin, charm muffin, and strange muffin.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Gelatine in beer?!   

Isinglas finings, a form of gelatine extracted from fish bladders is used to clear most British cask beers. I was also lead to understand that it was gelatine which made beers like Boddingtons have a tight head which stuck to the glass. An Internet search reveals nothing. There is something different about Northern Beers, perhaps it is the very soft water.

Damon.

Oh dear, this leaves the vegetarin beer drinker in a dilemma.

Now, where do crumpets diverge from being called pikelets?

*goes to fetch well-worn soapbox*

Is it a pike?  Is it a fish or a long weapon?  No.  Not even a small one.

It is a pie-clate, whatever them soft southern illiterate know-nowt jessies who run the stupidmarkets want you to believe.

Pie-clate.  And love your heritage!

*chest swells with Yorkshire pride - the best sort*

Now you need to tell us what a clate is.

[Frenchie]

In London it's not gravy, it's jus.

Un jus is not the same consistency as greavy IME! Gravy is very viscous, no? 

[pcolbeck]

Depends who makes it and what from.

[onb]

. The pizzas are folded over and deep-fried, though - not for the unsuspecting!
[/quote]




  Is there anything they wont deep fry in Scotland 

[Tom B]

Leyland is the Northern limit of the Staffordshire Oatcake

Damon, do you mean that Leyland has an oatcake bakery (if so, lucky you  ), or that oatcakes are available in bakers / butchers, or that the somewhat rubbery sub-variety can be bought in supermarkets?

[Sergeant Pluck]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7622561.stm

Dedicated pie panel

 

[Really Ancien]

Leyland is the Northern limit of the Staffordshire Oatcake

Damon, do you mean that Leyland has an oatcake bakery (if so, lucky you  ), or that oatcakes are available in bakers / butchers, or that the somewhat rubbery sub-variety can be bought in supermarkets?

The cheese stall on the market has sold them for as long as I can remember, they are also available from Tesco as you suggest. I was interested to find out that the North Staffordshire oatcake is an imitation of the chappatis that the soldiers of the North Staffs Regiment encountered in India in the 19th century.

Damon.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

  Is there anything they wont deep fry in Scotland 

It takes time and effort to be the heart disease capital of Europe, you know!

[microphonie]

Now, where do crumpets diverge from being called pikelets?

*goes to fetch well-worn soapbox*

Is it a pike?  Is it a fish or a long weapon?  No.  Not even a small one.

It is a pie-clate, whatever them soft southern illiterate know-nowt jessies who run the stupidmarkets want you to believe.

Pie-clate.  And love your heritage!

*chest swells with Yorkshire pride - the best sort*

You learn something new every day...unless tha mekkin' it up 

Only found one Google entry for that spelling though: Albert T Smith on the Sheffield Forum asked
"Can anyone recall the (Pie-clate ?) shop on Division Street where they were made on a big flat hot table in the shop? We called there after going to Glossop Road."

[Tom B]

I was interested to find out that the North Staffordshire oatcake is an imitation of the chappatis that the soldiers of the North Staffs Regiment encountered in India in the 19th century

Chappatis contain milk and oats, do they? Sorry, but this sounds like a made-up story to  me (tho I doubt we'll see it investigated on snopes.com  ). I'll bet staffs oatcakes were around long before Britain was involved in India.

[hellymedic]

. The pizzas are folded over and deep-fried, though - not for the unsuspecting!

  Is there anything they wont deep fry in Scotland 
[/quote]

Ice cream?

[RJ]

UKTV Food: Recipes: Deep-fried ice cream and mincemeat parcels

http://www.britishchineseonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42797&page=2

Possible  - but not particularly Scottish, though.

[Gattopardo]

. The pizzas are folded over and deep-fried, though - not for the unsuspecting!

  Is there anything they wont deep fry in Scotland 

Ice cream?
[/quote]

Yep they do.

[MattH]

From much earlier, I remember being sent to the local baker to get hot pies straight from the oven for dinner (aka lunch ) with a tupperware cup to bring the gravy back in.

When I was at uni, there was a bakery a few doors up from our flat. The baker came in after midnight, and by around 2-3am the pies were coming out of the oven for the next day.. He'd open up, and did a roaring trade with students, late night drunks and taxi drivers.

Allegedly. Of course I don't know this from personal experience and I wasn't on first name terms with him because I was always tucked up in bed by 9pm so I'd be fresh in the morning for my lectures 

[clarion]

Now, where do crumpets diverge from being called pikelets?

*goes to fetch well-worn soapbox*

Is it a pike?  Is it a fish or a long weapon?  No.  Not even a small one.

It is a pie-clate, whatever them soft southern illiterate know-nowt jessies who run the stupidmarkets want you to believe.

Pie-clate.  And love your heritage!

*chest swells with Yorkshire pride - the best sort*

You learn something new every day...unless tha mekkin' it up 

Only found one Google entry for that spelling though: Albert T Smith on the Sheffield Forum asked
"Can anyone recall the (Pie-clate ?) shop on Division Street where they were made on a big flat hot table in the shop? We called there after going to Glossop Road."

If you're relying on Google to preserve our language and heritage, then you lay yourself open to the illiteracy of the world.  What's pie-clate in l33t-spk?

[HTFB]

∏KL8

[clarion]

[Rich753]

Jumping back to a note from Damon that didn't seem to get picked up.

What about steak and kidney puddings from chip shops?  Pies, yes dead common, but I've only ever come across  s&k puddings in darkest lancashire.  Do they crop up elsewhere?

[Really Ancien]

As I mentioned earlier, I worked at Holland's Pies over 3 consecutive summers. I have two memories that will stay with me 'til I die.
The first is eating the meat pies straight out of the oven at about 06.00 before going home at 08.15 to sleep for most of the day (after watching Selina Scott on breakfast TV).

For me the metaphorical Madeleine is the smell of the pies at Rueben Marsden's Pork Butchers on Pall Mall in Chorley, we'd stop there at about 11am on the way to the Lower Burgh tip when I worked on the bins as a vacation job, they would just have poured the jelly into the Pork pies, we went round the back to pick up our pies, if we timed it right we could have a choice of jelly or not, it all depended if you wanted the juice to run down your chin or not.

Damon.

[Really Ancien]

I was interested to find out that the North Staffordshire oatcake is an imitation of the chappatis that the soldiers of the North Staffs Regiment encountered in India in the 19th century

Chappatis contain milk and oats, do they? Sorry, but this sounds like a made-up story to  me (tho I doubt we'll see it investigated on snopes.com  ). I'll bet staffs oatcakes were around long before Britain was involved in India.

An American blogger of Indian heritage reckons that they are more like a dosa. Maddy's Ramblings: The Staffie Oatie
The practice of having them for breakfast with a savoury filling ties in with that view. The unusual size of the North Staffs oatcake certainly bears that out. Many of the fast foods we have been talking about have part of their roots in military cuisine, Crumpets, Pikelets and Oatcakes are all griddle cakes, made on a bakestone, a portable alternative to an oven. Fried foods and pies are easily adapted to field kitchen conditions, so some aspect of military nostalgia is possibly present in their consumption. Part of their appeal is the disassociation between eating and a formal setting, be it home or restaurant. I remember meeting continental teenagers in the 70s who found this liberating, after the stifling formality of hour long meals with the family, eating fish and chips on the hoof on the way back to the pub seemed so delightfully transgressive.

Damon.