ITICA National Fish & Chips Day 2014

None in Galway.
Well screw you! :mad:

biko wrote: »

The whole concept of Fish and Chip shops being Italian is just weird.

It's all thanks to Giuseppe!

Be grateful because back in the 1880s, Giuseppe Cervi, the man who introduced us to the Italian takeaway, had very different ideas when it came to tantalising Irish taste buds.

The young Italian arrived in Cobh, or Queenstown as it was known back then, after mistakenly disembarking on the final stopover of an American-bound boat. After watching his American Dream set sail, Giuseppe turned and set out on foot to find his fortune in Ireland instead.

After walking the long and rocky road to Dublin, he worked in the city as a labourer intent on earning enough money to buy a coal-fired cooker and handcart to go into business selling roasted chestnuts.
While fish and chestnuts would have been unlikely to catch on, we were spared having to find out thanks to a small but highly significant mistake young Giuseppe made while selling his fare outside the pubs of Dublin.

Legend has it that one day instead of a chestnut he mistakenly roasted a potato and quickly realised the Irish knew a good spud when they tasted one.

It looks like it's national fish and chips day in Dublin. There's nothing remotely near me doing the offer but I'm still using this as an excuse to go to the chipper tonight.

Tail Docker wrote: »

I stand corrected. And a little bit lopsided..

I remember well going hunting Haggis with my old lad in the Scottish Highlands - he had a beautiful Purdey side by side and used very fine shot - so's not to damage their perfect, round skins. I found it very cruel - they screamed like babies when they were wounded. Very hard to tell the males from the females too, and it used to be illegal to shoot the females.

Nobody says it better than the man himself -

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis