And then I'll kiss your salty lips

[venta]

Yesterday evening I was sitting on the sea-front at Ramsgate, eating fish and chips. They were pretty good fish and chips, actually. However, the menu bewildered me...



The "sundries" section. Right there. Curry sauce? Fair enough. Mushy peas? Well, I'd rather not but I hear some people like that kind of thing. Pea fritter? You what? I mean, I understand the concept, but since when has that been a thing that you get in a chippy? Pickled onion, fine. Pickled egg, ditto (whatever dmh tells you). Pickled... wally?

I'm also faintly alarmed that the curry sauce isn't vegetarian. What's it got in it? I'd have assumed the basic list of flour, water, oil, curry powder and radioactive waste (with local variations to taste).

Oh, and a roll and butter? Not bloody likely. I'm in a chip shop. The sort where you sit down at a formica-topped table and drink tea that dissolves the enamel off your teeth. If I want bread and butter with my meal, I want sliced bread, pre-buttered for me (or possibly even pre-marged) and cut diagonally. I'm not saying that's better, I'm saying that that's what happens in chip shops. This roll nonsense is just messing with the natural order of things[*].

When I first moved to Oxford, I was horrified to discover that the Carfax Chippy - an otherwise decent emporium - didn't serve scraps. And indeed were completely confused when I ordered them (initially as to what it was I wanted, and latterly as to why I wanted such things). Scraps are the drips of batter which have fallen off the fish - basically little blobs of deep-fried batter. No, of course they didn't serve them. They threw them away when they cleared the oil out. They also didn't serve baby's heads.

So, what are your expectations of a good chip shop? Do you expect pea fritters? Would you order a pickled wally? Am I the only person south of Scotch Corner who likes scraps? What can't you get where you now live, that was a stand-by where you grew up?

As a side note, my parents (if not paying proper attention) will inadvertently order "a fish and six". This is, apparently, a fish with 6d-worth of chips. Whether they get a sensible answer depends largely on the age of the person serving. Is anyone else familiar with this?

(A wally, for those who want to know, is a gherkin. I asked on the way out.)

[*] Chip butties are an exception. I'm talking about the bread served with your fish and chips in a sit-down eatery. But even for a chip butty I don't want a roll, I want a flat, soft bread bun or bap. Which may have been what they meant. See also: bread, confusing regional terminology for.

Comments

[uitlander]

A 'pickled wally' is a gherkin, or at least that's what my family thinks it means on a chip shop menu. The family is mostly London-based with a distant branch known as 'The Ramsgate Mob'.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'd order a pickled wally without knowing what it was, just on principle.

My only real requirement for a chip shop is that the chips must be good. Bonus points if they serve rock, because nothing beats rock. 8-)

[uitlander]

Being rather wary of fish I look for other menu items to make a chip shop 'good'. Obviously the chips have to be good. A decent line in sausages or scampi is always appreciated. Having Mayonnaise and tartar sauce is a bonus, not charging extra for them even better, asking before they cover things with salt and vinegar is also good (I tend to avoid the salt).

I discovered 'scraps' when I liven in Lancaster. Rather good, something that needs to be imported down south.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I'm more worried about the mineral water not being vegetarian.

(Unless, of course, the mineral water went through limestone and they were having a one-upping game with Silk soya milk who claim they use no animal derivatives and then say they use natural limestone for their calcium)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'd order a pickled wally without knowing what it was, just on principle.

Yeah, in general, so would I. Especially at only 50p :)

Although yesterday I was fairly sure I didn't want a pickled egg, and I figured a wally was going to be a pickle of approximately similar magnitude, so felt I wasn't going to want one.

Bonus points if they serve rock, because nothing beats rock. 8-)

Paper, surely!

[venta.livejournal.com]

But surely, even in menus where things are labelled (v), it's not normal to label water as vegetarian?

The roll & butter aren't labelled (v), but I figure there are some things people will assume are vegetarian and you'd only need to mention it if they were unexpectedly not. Then again, I'm surprised they labelled the pickles and the mushy peas...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems that Peter's Fish Factory (at least) agrees with your family :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Paper, surely!

Gosh, turns out you're right! And there's quite a bit of paper in most fish & chip shops too... Right, next time I go I'm definitely ordering scissors!

[venta.livejournal.com]

As a side note, I learned (also from the menu) that rock and huss are the same thing. I hadn't realised that.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I just learned that from someone's LJ a few seconds ago. :-O

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

but I figure there are some things people will assume are vegetarian and you'd only need to mention it if they were unexpectedly not. Then again, I'm surprised they labelled the pickles and the mushy peas...

So why are you surprised the curry sauce isn't?

Or is it just a question of where to draw an arbitrary line?

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

And in Whitby they call it 'Woof' - or at least in the Magpie they do.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have an unrelated question to which you might know the answer. Can you recommend a non-dairy milk-esque product which comes in smaller boxes/cartons/quantities?

A friend of mine sporadically drops round, and I try to have UHT soya milk in the cupboard so I can make her coffee. Unfortunately, that tends to mean I end up with an open carton of soya milk (less one coffee's worth) in the fridge, and I don't really like the stuff much. And an open carton isn't usually practical for her to take away. (And I don't want to ask her about this in case it sounds like I'm finding it a big problem. Which, of course, it isn't - soya milk is cheap - it's just a bit wasteful.)

In Tesco, I've spotted some weird tiny-tetrapak things of "lacto-free milk", but I'm not quite sure enough exactly what she's allergic to to know whether that would be ok. I think soya is her milky substance of preference.

Hmm. Can I freeze soya milk in ice cube trays and just get a cube or two out as required? Will it still be palatable?

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

What on God's earth is a pea fritter, whether (v) or not?

By the way, Scots don't speak the same language as the rest of us.
"Two fish suppers and a can of juice please".
Apparently, "X supper" translates to "X and chips", while "juice" means "unspecified soft drink".

In your universe, does a chip buttie need to have butter, marge, lard, mayo or similar, or is it OK with just bread and chips

[venta.livejournal.com]

The line does seem to be a bit arbitrary.

However, if you said that you served:
- curry sauce
- pickles
- mushy peas
- pea fritters

then I think my default assumption would be that they were all vegetarian. If you label three of them (v) but not the fourth, I get suspicious about that fourth. Of those four, I think curry sauce is the one that mostly likely could be unsuitable for vegetarians, although I'd be very surprised.

Even if you labelled all 4 of them (v), I still think things in another section of the menu (like mineral water) I wouldn't expect to be labelled.

I think mostly the curry sauce appeared un-vegetarian to me because it was in a section where everything else was (slightly unnecessarily) labelled (v).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Is that the same thing? I didn't know that, either.

I think the legal name for the fish is "spiney dogfish" or something, so woof just sounds like a bad joke...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I assume a pea fritter is mashed up peas, battered, and fried. I didn't order one to find out because I don't really like peas.

I am familiar with "fish supper" parlance, but wouldn't use it.

In your universe, does a chip buttie need to have butter, marge, lard, mayo or similar, or is it OK with just bread and chips

It is absolutely not OK with just bread and chips. I mean, you can put chips inside bread if you want, but it won't be a chip butty. Butter or marge. I'm not familiar with lard in there (though it doesn't sound appealing). Mayo is some kind of continental wrong-headed craziness.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...you don't have fish suppers down south? What sort of crazy barbarian country is this?! O.o

(It's been eighteen years, but I'm still always disappointed when I look at a menu and it doesn't contain battered black pudding. Even though I couldn't eat it now anyway.)

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Well, in my experience and also in the book "Lern Yerself Scouse" it clearly is OK for chip buttie to have no accompanying grease. This of course assumes that the chips themselves are greasy and not those poncy shoestring things.
I agree fully about mayo, but some southerners do not.
What happens if I ask about chips and gravy? It's a delicacy unknown in many southern parts, even including Birmingham.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

We have 'em, but use different words.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't have strong opinions on chips and gravy. Except that hearing anyone say it makes me start singing Beer and Sex and Chips and Gravy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxkoSbbGxB8), and that rarely ends well. (Warning: contains rude words and generalised offensiveness.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I noticed the other day (sadly, after I'd paid up and was leaving) that my local butcher sells black pudding burgers. They've got to be worth a try :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I think pea fritters would be the most likely non-veggie thing by virtue of being fried in animal fat (or, more likely, fried in the same fat as animal products)

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Ooh, now I wants a chippy tea.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, good point. Not being used to having to look out for such things, I hadn't thought of it.

I guess if they fry their chips separately in vegetable oil, they could perhaps fritter things in there, too.