That little cluster of islands off the north coast of Scotland is the Orkney archipelago. 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. Although Auskerry has just the 4 inhabitants. All that stuff in the sea on the way to America is the Western Isles.The archipelago further north is the Shetland Isles. You can easily visualise the three archipelagos as the tops of a mountain range drowned during the melting of the ice sheet during the last episode of global warming at the end of the fourth Ice Age. mr ishmael thought they looked like dog droppings in the sea as he observed them from the window of the Saab 340 that serves Orkney.
Honestly, I go away for
a fortnight on my epic journey to the heart of England, and on returning, I find the place on its knees.
Orkney has
caught the covid. It was inevitable. Gnasher made political capital for
a year on the basis that she had held Scotland together through the
pandemic, unlike England under the insouciant Boris, who was so
negligent that he almost died of it. The truth of it was that the virus
made its way north, human by human, until it exploded into Scotland.
Fuelling the tourist trade, encouraging the export of the Tartan Army
and its covid-laden return, helped enormously to spread the virus, of
course. The strategy for the UK - not just Scotland, is to "let the
virus run hot", relying on these time-limited vaccines to reduce the
numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. I was right, wasn't I? It is a population-control measure.
Anyway, the league table for the highest Covid rates in Scotland go like this: (figures adjusted per 100,000 population):
Na h-Eileanan Siar has the highest rate in the country – at 630.2 as of Sunday, November 7.
The Orkney Islands has the second-highest infection rate at 598.2
while Clackmackfuckery is third with 563.5.
By way of contrast, Shetland has 161.8 (just you wait, Zetlanders, its on its way), whilst Glasgow, for now, has 220.6. Wonder how high that will bounce after COP26 has done its worse?
Anyway, the league table for the highest Covid rates in Scotland go like this: (figures adjusted per 100,000 population):
Na h-Eileanan Siar has the highest rate in the country – at 630.2 as of Sunday, November 7.
The Orkney Islands has the second-highest infection rate at 598.2
while Clackmackfuckery is third with 563.5.
By way of contrast, Shetland has 161.8 (just you wait, Zetlanders, its on its way), whilst Glasgow, for now, has 220.6. Wonder how high that will bounce after COP26 has done its worse?
Never heard of Na h-Eileanan Siar? It is the indigenous name for the Western Isles, in the retching language of a tiny Scottish minority - the Garlic. 61%, or around 18,000 of the Na h-Eileanan Siarians speak the Garlic - it is the highest cluster of Garlic-speakers in Scotland. It is estimated that there are 60,000 Garlic Speakers in total out of the Scottish population of 5.517 million. They can speak English, though, after a fashion, when they try hard. My English friend asked me to identify the accent of a call-centre operative recently encountered, reporting that: "It was very sibilant. Lots of sssssses." I was straight onto it. "Western Isles. Did you find your eyelids drooping as you fought to stay awake under the insidious torrent of sssssssses?"
Funny thing, that. When I first came to Orkney, I thought that everyone with a not-English accent must be Orcadian, and that some of them were permanently drunk and incoherent. I later discovered that those Orcadians were, in fact, Glaswegians and they weren't drunk at all. Well, not all the time - it was just the way they spoke. Edinburghians - also known as Edinburghers or Dunediners, and Sneckies (Invernessians) are the most intelligible; but the people of the Western Isles might as well not bother speaking as the soft, monotonous essing is an infallible soporific.
Orcadians speaking to other Orcadians could well be speaking an entirely foreign language - it is not just the accent, a sort of bastard Welsh, but the worms are different, too: grimleens, gablo, beuy, peedie, kye, yow; then there's the baby-talk - tatties, twathree, neeps, cloot, claes -- but TV came to Orkney in the Sixties, and Orcadians are gentle, helpful folk, so when it is clear you have no idea what time "the morn's morn" might be, they will slow down, and do their BBC English.
mr ishmael reckoned that all indigenous Orcadians were either related to each other or had fucked each other - seeing as how teenagers are promiscuous and there's just the two senior schools. And now, due to the popularity of dick pics, everyone under a certain age has seen everyone else in the nude, probably in a state of tumescence. So it is most unwise to slag anyone off as they'll get to hear about it in two ticks, beuy. The local paper carries rave reviews of everything: there are never any mediocre performances of anything, everyone is supremely talented, each art work is nuanced, each football match a privilege to watch. mr ishmael would see two men in the Orkney uniform of blue boiler suits, yellow wellies for the seamen, orange wellies for the fairmers, standing on the streetcorner, talking to each other out of the side of their mouths, whilst looking straight ahead, and immediately assume they were making assignation arrangements, being convinced that all Orkney blokes were gay. I thought it was a manifestation of the secret society that links the Orcadian-born and excludes ferry-loupers.
Anyway, because Orkney has caught the Covid, everything's cancelled, schools are closing and people are eyeing each other nervously, as if they have Plague in their hands. Well, they probably do. No bananas in Tesco today. Didn't linger to see what else isn't on the shelves - cos of the Plague.
And I've got some tatties in.
22 comments:
Wot, no neeps?
And is morn's morn "crack of dawn", or just tomorrow morning, "manana por la manana" kind of thing? Please enlighten us further.
v./
Exactly so, mr verge. Tomorrow is "the morn" all day, so to distinguish a morning appointment from an afternoon assignation, it becomes the morn's morn. Simples.
Now, if you want fish and chips at lunch time, you have to order a fish supper. Any time of day, it is a fish supper. My friend who used to be a police officer in NuCastle, told me that a portion of chips there is known as "a load" of chips. A Newcastle lad went into a chippie in Scotland and politely asked for a load of chips. He was sternly told that he would get the same as anyone else. Whereupon, worried that he might be forced to eat deep-fried Mars Bars the same as anyone else, he reiterated his requirement for a load of chips, and he was told not to be greedy.
Daft as it sounds, but it is one of the things I miss most about England. Queuing up outside the chip shop in the freezing rain and snow. Finally, progressing inside the inner sanctum; sounds of frying and delicious smells. At last receiving the forbidden fruit wrapped in yesterdays Sun. The quick drive home, and....heaven.
What, no chippies in Australia, mr mike?
mr ishmael, who, as you know, held professional catering in the deepest mistrust, had an exception for chip shops. You can see them cooking your food, they do it then and there, you can smell whether or not the oil is clean from outside in the street, it is served in disposable paper and you eat it with your fingers. Nothing to go wrong. He was particularly partial to a poke of chips when out and about. (a poke is a rolled up cone hand-crafted from white chip shop paper)
There's been a bit of a change in serving practices in chip shops since your day, mr mike. No more yesterday's Sun. For many years, the newspapers were replaced by a massive stack of absorbent white paper on the counter. The Chip Assistant nimbly maneuvered the golden, crisply battered fish and load of chips onto greaseproof paper, then cleverly packaged the lot into a hot steaming parcel, the paper absorbing excess grease. Best if you refused the offer of salt and vinegar, (as it attacks the integrity of the batter, softening it)if you intended taking them home, where the canny would have plates warming in the oven and the table set with sliced white bread and butter, and their own salt and bottle of brown vinegar and tomato ketchup for the kids.
Nowadays, every chip shop in the land has a stack of white cardboard boxes into which the chips and fish are slotted. Neat, no doubt. Hygienic. Doesn't require wrapping or poke making skills, but the box isn't absorbent and the grease sits on the bottom of the box, whilst the contents steam all the way home.
My young relative prefers what he calls "batered sosige" to fish - never having fallen in love with the tender white flakes of haddock confined within the golden batter. Do you remember scraps? Little bits of batter scooped out of the boiling fat and kept in the warming oven for the kids who'd ask for a bag of scraps and be given them free of charge.
In Scotland, vinegar is white, not brown. It's just not right.
Mrs I: yes we have chippies in Australia - some very good ones and even better ones in NZ.
But I haven't see good old battered cod like in the UK (I assume cod still exists? and hasn't been stolen by the Spanish and French). And it was the freezing rain and snow that added to the expectation. And wrapped in the Sun and the smell of the malt vinegar - it used to be that the batter was impervious to the vinegar!. It was the whole experience. And mussy peas when oop north.
Before the virus thingy, I used to go to Spain every year and walk one of the traditional Camino routes. My preferred arrival point was Barcelona, and then take a high speed train to the setting off point (Saville, Lisbon etc). First though, en route from airport to train station, a stop at El Born market in old Barcelona. There is a cafe which does a rolled up cone of flash fried small shrimps cooked to order with a dollop of mayo on the top. With a cold beer, the perfect breakfast after a 24 hour flight.
mushy
Cod seems to have disappeared from the chip shops round here, mr mike - tis all haddock.
Now then, mushy peas. Being from oop north, which is now down south - (it is all a question of perspective)I have fond memories of Pie Tom's down Bradford Market - one of those fabulous Victorian markets extolled by John Betjeman, but gone now. At Pie Tom's you got a plate of mushy peas with your meat pie and glass of Tizer. When I had a vacation job as a barmaid at the Five Lane Ends pub, we had Pie Day once a week. The landlady would set the dried peas to soak with a soaking tablet or two the night before, then the peas would be tipped into a nappy boiler first thing in the morning and set to simmer away at the back of the bar until lunch time. The pies, in their round foil containers, were in a warming oven on the bar. The dish was assembled by half filling a bowl with mushy peas, then upending a pie onto the peas, which were quite sloppy. The peas needed to be dredged with salt and brown vinegar. It was eaten with a spoon and accompanied by a pint.
It was only this week that I was abandoned and couldn't be bothered to cook. Sadly I proved insufficiently bothered to walk the half mile to the chippie. Another opportunity lost.
As you say, put the S&V on your fish at home.
Vinegar ruins a pie though. The top of the pie being a gorgeous flakiness and the bottom being a sodden-with-gravy different wonder. Soaked in veinegar it is all but uneatable and it's the best bit.
The correct terminology, mrs i, is that Orkney has "got the Rona". Stay away from those English!
I used to work in a chippie when I were a lad.
My Italian uncle had one in a town on outskirts of Glasgow.
10 hours a day six days a week, living above the shop.
It was strenuous work for 16/17 year old. (2 summers doing this)
Humphing 25kg bags above shoulder height into the peeler, would not be allowed these days.
Neither would the hours be. No complaints from me though.
You could still remain as slim as a racing snake while putting away:-
Deep fried pizza in batter (A whole one…not half)
2x chips.
1x carton of mushy peas. (Salt n, vinegar also applied to the peas)
Or
King Rib with the above.
Never fried cod. Was never even mentioned. The fish wasn’t haddock either, but whiting.
I think, in retrospect, whiting was the most reliable delivery.
When the fish came ashore (In the town where I lived) there was hardly ever any Cod.
If there were they were small compared to the ones the trawlermen were fighting over during the Cod Wars.
I have read that Cod can grow to six foot if left alone for a few years.
Anyway, the two most difficult tasks was getting the batter the right consistency and colour and getting the peas mushy.
If the batter wasn’t the right colour it would go too brown when in the frying. Not the right consistence and it would not hold shape or protect the fish.
Peas came in as hard as marbles and would need boiled down over a period of time to turn to mush.
There is just as much attention to timing as would be in a restaurant. If you messed up the timing of the peas, they’d be off menu until a new batch was made.
You wanted no help, because you have to do your own timings Too many cooks etc…
Best lesson I learned…don’t be a cook for a living.
We used to buy potatoes by the bag from the farmer at the end of the road, Mr Shoulders. I guess it was a couple of hundred yards or more but in those days nowt to be thought about. And poor old me, a mid-teenager was the one who had to fetch them. As you say, a paper sack up on my shoulder - half-hundredweights in old money.
If I was a fancy lawyer and extremely well connected, so well in fact that I could rise to be Attorney General, and thereafter to repair to the Caribbean to conduct my legal advising via Zoom from a deckchair by the shiny blue, I think that I would have the sense not to soil my reputation by engaging in the old Parliamentary Home Expenses Thievery Game - even if it is within, strictly speaking, m'lud, the letter of the law, or if I may say, in verba legis, and that will be 500 sovs, thankee kindly.
Surely one can have enough money that ripping of Joe Public for a few tens of thousands more isn't worth the embarrassment ?
Half a hundredweight right enough Mr Mongoose. But certainly manageable at that age.
These MPs and their grift; just brings a smile and a shake of the head.
I’ve seen well paid people, spending half a morning trying to figure out where to put that 80 pence coffee they had at the airport into the expense claims system.
Why bother, and what kind of mentality would you ascribe to such piss-poor behaviour? Avarice would be good enough.
I almost feel sorry for them.
The vinegar is for the peas, mr mongoose, not the pie. And up-ending it into a bowl of peas rather destroys the crisp flakiness of the pastry.
I've always admired the batter in chip shops, mr shoulders - (now I understand about the shoulders - it was all that formative heaving about of sacks of potatoes wot dunnit). The coverage of batter is consistently good - no bare bits of fish. I've never been able to achieve proper batter at home. Do you still have the recipe?
The MP thing - I heard a pundit on the wireless yesterday explaining that an MP's salary may seem like a lot of money to you oiks, but to the high-earning people who public-spiritedly represent you oiks, they simply can't make ends meet on what is a pittance to them, so they need to continue with their lucrative professions, consultancies, and, of course, submit expenses. Do you want these excellent people representing you, or not?
I sometimes make mushy peas Down Here; after all, Friday night is fish night - I like beer battered flathead - at least I did when it was $14/KG, now its over $50/kg. And we are surrounded by the biggest oceans in the world but the price of fish has sky-rocketed. Go figure, as the yanks say.
Anyway, back to my humble recipe. Take 1 packet of dried split green peas ($2 max); rinse in warm water; cover with warm water (sometimes I use vege stock); add one chopped up brown onion, and chopped garlic cloves as many as you like; put lid on pan and simmer for an hour or so until the split peas have almost lost their texture and tuned to mush; the onion and garlic will have mostly dissolved by now. Turn off gas, or take off burning shitcake if in Orkney. The green mass will almost solidify when cool. When ready to eat, re-heat and it will become partly liquid again; stir to encourage mushiness.
The key is to get the solid/liquid ratio correct. The dried split peas absorb a lot of liquid as they cook; but for the first attempt its best to just cover, and add more liquid as needed. Finally, add salt/pepper to taste. For a couple of dollars, suprisingly tasty and easy.
PS - for the beer batter. Put 1 cup of flour (either plain or self-raising seems to work) in a mixing bowl. Add a little salt and ground black pepper. Open a bottle of your favorite beer (for us Down Here in NSW we drink stubbies, a little over half pint, but more alcoholic than UK beer); pour half into bowl and drink the rest. Whip batter into a smooth mixture with a fork. Should be a smooth not overly thick consistency. Allow to rest for a while whilst the beer does its magic. Dip flathead fillets into the batter which will evenly coat, and if the correct consistency the excess will run off. Then cook, briefly, in hot vege oil until nicely brown. Eat hot with mushy peas.
The beer batter sounds good, mr mike. You don't dip your fish fillets in seasoned flour before introducing them to the batter?
The sort of dried peas we get come in a packet with two soaking tablets and they have to be left in water, withe the soaking tablets, overnight. Just looked up what is in the soaking tablets - Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate and Disodium Diphosphate. There you go.
I don't dip the fillets in flour first. The batter coats the fish nicely; grip with two fingers at the edge and flip-flop in the batter; allow the excess to drip off for a few seconds.
Re the split peas; ours come in a polythene packet with no tablets. I've never soaked overnight with/without tablet.
BTW, one packet of split peas will be more than enough for two (me and my wife); save for the next day - this sounds neanderthal, but its nice spread on a slice of toast.
Yep, fish n chips n pea wet.But for me it’s babbies yed, chips n gravy.
No recipe I’m afraid Mrs. The batter came in 20kg bags if I recall.
You could try online for “Chipshop batter”. We would mix plain flour into it as well to try keep as white as possible.
It will brown up nicely in the fry. I was taught; hold the thick end of the fillet in a 3 finger grip sweep the fillet into the tin of batter, let the excess drip off and gently lay it into the fat*.
This method is for industrial sized fryers though. 12-15 fish frying at once.
Everything is gently does it, including mixing the batter. I think the mixer might have been a cake mixer…looked like one.
*Beef fat only; If chip shops started using veg oil they’d be out of business. The not so secret ingredient in fast food outlets, why their chips taste so good, is the addition of beef flavouring.
I never liked the crumbly things. The excess batter is scooped up in a flat, fine mesh net and deposited into the top heater thing for whoever wants it. After that fryer (We had three fryers, all going at once on a busy time) had done a couple of battered batches, in with the chips, off with the heat, 30-40 seconds, depending on the type of potato and back on with the heat.
The chips cool the fat quickly and also clean the oil of floor/batter. You’ll see when you fry chips, the grains of burnt whatever, coating the chips, tell you when the oil/fat needs changed.
When you’re frying anything; don’t forget to crank up the heat just before you remove the fish, chips or whatever. This will lessen the amount of oil/fat on the batter when the food is taken out.
Ah, yes, mr inmate - chips n gravy. The Kirkwall Hotel does chips n gravy. Or did - I've not been there for ages. The gravy seemed to be proper gravy, made out of the residue from roasting giant quantities of beef - hotel kitchens can do that, industrial-size roasting. The gravy was thick and brown and deeply flavoured, and came in an individual bowl, into which you dipped your chips.
Good tip about increasing the heat prior to removing the fish, mr shoulders. And thanks for the chipshop reminiscences.
We have more Chipshops in Orkney than you can shake a stick at. There's three in Kirkwall alone, two of them under Chinese ownership and management, more in Stromness, and a chip van that tours the villages.
None of their output tastes like Harry Ramsden's though - the original restaurant, on the edge of the moors, not the franchises in every motorway service station. At Harry Ramsden's back in the land of before-before there was a long, shed-like affair, with a roof, leaned-to the building, an open wall and long wood tables with benches. You ordered your food from a window in the shed, and it was handed through wrapped in paper, for eating at the benches. This was for the fell walkers and bicyclists, so they wouldn't muddy up the posh restaurant. The posh restaurant had chandeliers, white linen tablecloths and napkins, heavy knives and forks and waitresses in black dresses and white aprons. The fishnchips were the same as the muddy fell walkers were eating, but they came on plates and you could have a pot of tea or a "mineral". That's fizzy pop.
A chip van that tours the villages? There's posh for you.
Before, before my mate lived a bit out in the sticks and you could phone an order to the chippy, and they'd drive it round to you. A bellyful of beer of a Saturday and the midnight munchies could be sorted out for a couple of quid. They were wonderfully civilised days.
Sounds like Deliveroo, mr mongoose, avant la lettre. Plus ca change, innit?
v./
Indeed, mr v, except that it was the chippy man his-own-self who sent one of his lads out into the night with our fiver-worth of chip suppers. Can't be bothered to walk to the chippy? Or too pissed? They'll bring 'em to your door for an extra quid. We lived like kings, I tell you.
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