Where is the Pea Fritter North/South/East/West Divide?

mr_goo

Down here on the south coast (Lymington to Poole) our chippies serve pea fritters. A marvellous morsel to go with cod and chips. For those who have never heard of nor tasted one, it is a ball of mushy peas, coated in batter and deep fried.


We are all posh down here and require our chips to be stacked like a game of Jenga.

My mates up north think I'm deluded as they have never heard pea fritters. So where exactly does the pea fritter fit into the UK food map?

marcusjb

I am not sure where the split is, but it is very much a south coast thing designed to trick us innocent northerners into biting into a ball of thousand degree molten peas.

I have only eaten them on the kent coast.

monkimark

Eurgh, peas are rank.
Mushing them up makes them worse and hiding them in batter is just plain sneaky.

Also, much as I appreciate the symmetry in that photo, 9 chips is not enough.

verylonglegs

Hmmn fish and chips where you can actually count the number of chips. And that drizzling of oil on the plate is a curse of Jamie Oliver isn't it? I swear every recipe I've ever seen of his ends in drizzling something on it.

I'm in the East and have never encountered pea fritters

finchy

verylonglegs wrote:

Hmmn fish and chips where you can actually count the number of chips.

I was gonna say - NINE CHIPS??!?!?!?! That has to be the ponciest fish and chips I have ever seen in my life.

arran77

That just isn't proper fish and chips :shock:

Mikey23

If you get bored with the company you could play djanga with them...

daviesee

That is simply pretentious carp.

Fish & Chips should be battered fish and a mass of chips. No frippery required. Including mushy peas.
Salt & vinegar is a must.
Any other sauces are up for debate but that photo in the OP is nonsense.

team47b

North of here

I liked the photo, nice food, presented well, supreme effort.

I think mathematical alignment of chips is a southern thing.

What length (metric please) are those chips?

MattC59

That's not fish and chips !!!

1. What's that poncey green sh!t on the top
2. What's that poncey green sh!t drizzled on the plate ?
3. Why is the word "drizzle" even being used in the same breath as "fish and chips" ?
4. Nine chips ?!? If resorting to a plate, there should be too many chips for the plate, even when asking for a small portion.
5. Salt, vinegar and perhaps some ketchup. The pepper has no place in that picture.

Whilst I know what a pea fritter is, I've not seen them in my local chippy near Newbury.

nicklouse

where is the Gravy on t´chips?
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/north-o-meter/

graham.

nicklouse wrote:

where is the Gravy on t´chips?
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/north-o-meter/

I scored 100% on that!
Couldn't be prouder tha knows.

pinno

I think the drizzle stuff they put on plates these days, looks like the effluent from wild birds.

By 'eck, what a test were tha'? It did me 'ed in and no dowt. Smack bang in the middle o' Gods country were I finished. So long as me weren't ended up in Lancashire, tha' cess pit o' Yewmanity.

daviesee

York apparently.

But it is a flawed survey as it doesnt go North enough.

city_boy

daviesee wrote:

That is simply pretentious carp.

Fish & Chips should be battered fish and a mass of chips. No frippery required. Including mushy peas.
Salt & vinegar is a must.
Any other sauces are up for debate but that photo in the OP is nonsense.

And should be eaten with fingers from the paper in which it comes!

Ps. I thought it was only the Scotch who battered and deep fried food items which are perfectly acceptable in their original form (eg. Pizzas, Mars Bars etc..)

rolf_f

If I order chips and get a game of Jenga, then that's the last time I'll eat at that place. It's almost as bad as ordering bread and butter pudding and, instead of getting a slimy mess in a bowl covered in custard you get a plate with a perfectly shaped cylindrical tower on it and a small dollop of something smooth and magnolia coloured next to it. Custard is yellow, bread and butter pudding resembles a sandwich that someone trod on and it always comes in a bowl and it's about time the poncy chefs realised this!

And the OPs fish and chips is the crappest plate of fish and chips ever.....

crispybug2

Mushy pea fritters were a Friday night staple growing up in deepest rural Northamptonshire in the 1970's. I absolutely loved them.

Recently discovered a chippy here in Southend but they don't seem to be as yummy as I remember them being!!

arran77

Pretentious food is for pretentious people, end of

knedlicky

City Boy wrote:

daviesee wrote:

I thought it was only the Scotch who battered and deep fried food items which are perfectly acceptable in their original form (eg. Pizzas, Mars Bars etc..)

I once had two slices of black pudding deep-fried in batter from a chippy in Workington in Cumbria.. The people of Bury (famous for its black pudding) would probably go bonkers if they knew of such adulteration, and I wouldn’t blame them because the black puddings were a right mess to eat.

This was, as I discovered when trying to eat the things, because the chippy hadn’t used black pudding with edible skin, rather they had chopped up into fat slices one of those long black puddings which comes in a plastic rind, and then dipped the slices into batter and fried them, without ever removing the ring of plastic still around each fat slice!

pinno

knedlicky wrote:

City Boy wrote:

daviesee wrote:

I thought it was only the Scotch who battered and deep fried food items which are perfectly acceptable in their original form (eg. Pizzas, Mars Bars etc..)

I once had two slices of black pudding deep-fried ...without ever removing the ring of plastic still around each fat slice!

Chewy?

Pituophis

I went darn sarf once, they didn't have gravy in the chippy? NO GRAVY!!! :shock:
I've never bin back. :evil:

arran77

Pituophis wrote:

I went darn sarf once, they didn't have gravy in the chippy? NO GRAVY!!! :shock:
I've never bin back. :evil:

Gravy is for Sunday roast only :evil:

BelgianBeerGeek

I moved to Hampshire about 13 years ago and came across the abomination that is the pea fritter - I have never brought myself to eat the thing.

However, recently in a chippy a stone's throw from the Solent I came across battered deep fried pizza! Lord save us!

As a midlander, the only dilemma one should face when purchasing chips and pie (fish is for vegetarians) is: gravy or curry sauce. Or both. Dilemma solved - phew!

BelgianBeerGeek

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

I moved to Hampshire about 13 years ago and came across the abomination that is the pea fritter - I have never brought myself to eat the thing.

However, recently in a chippy a stone's throw from the Solent I came across battered deep fried pizza! Lord save us!

As a midlander, the only dilemma one should face when purchasing chips and pie (fish is for vegetarians) is: gravy or curry sauce. Or both. Dilemma solved - phew!

Oh, and a saveloy whilst I'm waiting.

Quoting myself, FFS :roll:

mr_goo

Please not that picture was for illustration purposes only, not an indication of the fish and chips available in the 'sarf'

As for it being labelled an abomination (BBG), thats outrageous. They're are great, just so long as they are hand made at the establishment and resemble a tennis ball in size and shape. I have noticed that some of the chippies are using frozen ones that are flat (burger shape) and the batter is 5hiite.

It does appear from the posts that this is very much a southern counties phenomena.

daviesee

Mr Goo wrote:

Please not that picture was for illustration purposes only, not an indication of the fish and chips available in the 'sarf'

As for it being labelled an abomination (BBG), thats outrageous. They're are great, just so long as they are hand made at the establishment and resemble a tennis ball in size and shape. I have noticed that some of the chippies are using frozen ones that are flat (burger shape) and the batter is 5hiite.

It does appear from the posts that this is very much a southern counties pretentiousness.

FTFY

Kieran_Burns

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

I moved to Hampshire about 13 years ago and came across the abomination that is the pea fritter - I have never brought myself to eat the thing.

However, recently in a chippy a stone's throw from the Solent I came across battered deep fried pizza! Lord save us!

As a midlander, the only dilemma one should face when purchasing chips and pie (fish is for vegetarians) is: gravy or curry sauce. Or both. Dilemma solved - phew!

Do what?

No vegetarian eats fish.

Pross

On a similar note can you get rissoles in chippies outside of Wales?

t4tomo

Mushy peas with Fish and Chip = good.

Never seen a pea friter growing up the home of great fish & Chips (Whitby N. Yorks)

Re the OP's plate - presumably that is a codlet alongside the 9 chips. A Whitby fisherman would have thrown that back its so damn small.

Scraps anyone?

sniper68

arran77 wrote:

Pituophis wrote:

I went darn sarf once, they didn't have gravy in the chippy? NO GRAVY!!! :shock:
I've never bin back. :evil:

Gravy is for Sunday roast only :evil:

Gravy is to put on Chips 8)

Pross

Gravy is to put on anything and everything. The thing I've found when having a pub meal in (southern) England is that they never give enough gravy and what they do give is too runny.