jm wrote:Seems to be mostly an Edinburgh tradition.
Aye.
Did you see this?
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f134 ... ood-60027/
Like most of the UK, Scotland uses salt and vinegar only on chips and suppers. Some places also put mushy peas over the chips. Some use ketchup. However, where I came from (the Edinburgh area) it was unique in the land for using brown chip-sauce, a thinnish brown spicy condiment whose recipe is a closely-guarded secret and is likely derived from bottled brown sauce such as A1, HP, Hammonds or a Scottish brand. Usually water and/or onion pickling juice or malt vinegar (or all) is added to thin it down and tone down the spiciness. Being thinner, it also runs over the chips in the bag and makes it delectable. To me, this way of eating chippie food, with chip-sauce, is the best ! What makes them even more delectable is eating it all straight out of the wrapper with your fingers.
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Apparently, the thin brown chip sauce I mentioned is particular to Edinburgh and SE Scotland. It was a standard condiment in my home town Musselburgh (Mussaburry had many chip- shops and mobile vans), plus the surrounding area where I’ve had suppers or chips, such as Dalkeith, Prestonpans, Seton Sands, North Berwick, Dunbar etc. I could have sworn it was used in West Lothian too, such as Broxburn. I also thought I had it with chippies in Fife (such as Cowdenbeath, Kelty, Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes, the Dunf and Aberdour) and parts of the Borders (such as Galashiels, Selkirk, Melrose, Hawick etc) but I could be wrong. When I was a lad in the 1960’s and our family used to drive through to Kintyre in our Bedford Dormabile (with 2 canoes on top and towing our boat containing creels and net !) for 2 weeks during the school holidays, we always stopped off there and back at the chippie in Harthill on the old A8. I’m sure they had brown sauce there.
I’ve had chippies in Cambeltown, Oban (I bet the same one on the Esplanade as you went to Woot !), Ullapool, Portree and beyond, but I can’t remember if they chip sauce or not. I was highly surprised to learn recently that other places in Scotland don’t use ‘The Sauce” ! For someone brought up with chip-shop chip-sauce, if it’s not there in my supper, there’s something missing. It’s difficult to explain chip–shop brown sauce, if you try to make it yourself, somehow it’s never the same as what they splash over your chips in SE Scotland chippes. Chip-shops sometimes offer bottles of their own secret concoction for sale.
I have heard that it’s made from the cheapest brown sauce you can find – Gold Star Brown Sauce is apparently often used, mixed with some water (2 parts sauce to 1 part water) to thin it down. It is said they don’t use A1, HP, Daddy’s, Branston or other spicy brown sauce as they’re too spicy and too expensive.
http://www.livilions.co.uk/forums/showt ... hp?t=16919
my first Saturday job was in a chippy and one of my more technical tasks was mixing the right amount of water with the sauce before pouring the mixture into Globe bottles (with a hole pierced in each of the metal lids)
I'm going to try it. (I bet deep-fried Mars bars are good too.)