Don't forget to put vinegar on your chips!

If it wasn't from Vesta, you wouldn't have a match, would you?

were Swans involved?

Never tasted swan, so, hard to say.

We mostly have F&C from a shop whilst we are away from home, so it's either their salt & vinegar or none.

At one time, an essential part of the car's emergency equipment was a resealable box containing salt and vinegar, but we seem to have given that up.

I'm quite happy to wait. I would always prefer to wait ten or fifteen minutes for freshly cooked fish - since the alternative is some wizened object which has been on the warming tray for the last several hours. Fish & Chip shops (wild generalisation here) seem to sell very few portions of fish these days. Most of the demand seems to be for... all the other 'stuff' that appears on the price list[1].

I remember those days. We had a camping condiment set. Also John Slater's Just Off The Motorway. In the earliest days, a couple of wire coathangers. It's surprising what could be fixed on a car with wire coathangers, though mostly exhaust-related.

Or the metal clip from the cap of a ball-point pen. The electric fan on our rented Alpha Sud wasn't coming on, so the engine was getting a bit hot. I used such a clip to hotwire the fan so it was on all the time. I was in a *bit* of a hurry, as this was in a Kenyan Safari Park, and Mrs. Elephant was bearing down at a rate of knots. She appeared to be a bit miffed because we must have inadvertently got a bit close to little Dumbo.

Havent you?

Fruit is often an ingrediant in many curries - coconut, lychee. mango...and the more arabic curries tend to feature meat and fruit a lot. Lamb with chickpeas and apricots. Chicken and prunes...

Dunno if I'm weird, but I really don't like crispy batter. It is not a selling point for me. I prefer it when it's been in the cabinet and still moist and soft.

There are a few things that you can't really "crack" domestically. And that style of batter is one. So it's a mild irritation that (presumably due to the sunk costs) chippies have stopped pre cooking and having them ready.

In time, I guess, the palate of the nation will undergo a(nothing) enforced shift and people will be wanting what they are given. Which is all very well, but tends to keep my wallet closed. No point in spending money on something you don't really like. Sometimes I wonder if that attitude is behind some shop closures and brand fails.

That said, I have found myself in the Midlands. And despite themselves giving themselves awards, they really can't hold a candle to the London chippies of my youth.

I think the low point was when I ordered a large cod and a regular cod and the assistant asked me if I wanted them to "mark the large piece on the bag". Intrigued, I weighed them when I got home. One piece was 220g, and the other 240g despite costing £2.50 extra. This led to a "discussion" between SWMBO who said it must have been a "one off mistake", and me who said it was a rip off. When the same thing happened a week later, I felt vindicated.

In an Oxfam shop in Warwick, I once saw a pile of them advertised as "Car radio aerials"

:-)

I'd better ask the Pilot.

No.

Point taken (not that I've ever been in an Arabian-stle restaurant), but I'm fairly sure that Premier Foods tried to project an image of the sub-continent with their Vesta beef and chicken curry meals.

See:

(SFW).

I've never liked currants, sultanas, etc in anything at all. Not even Christmas cake.

When I was growing up in the '40s -'50s my local fish and chips shop would fry in beef dripping.

I think I remember that too.

But it wouldn't change the taste of non-brewed condiment, would it?

I thought in hindsight that the early commercial curries tasted more like Chinese than 'Indian' curries. Certainly very weak on chillies, hardly any heat.

A useful source of potassium, all the minerals of the original fruit with almost none of the water. Practically forbidden to dialysis patients.

By weight, much higher potassium than the famous banana.

Still don't like it.

I can tolerate it in Branston pickle, though.

The overall taste was different, I didn't have vinegar on my fish.

You forgot the Chow Mein with crispy noodles.

Did the swan have Webb-ed feet Captain?

Do I have to choose only one?