You can believe the references the Wikipedia article is based off, such as BBC Scotland:
"They surveyed hundreds of fish and chip shops in Scotland to find out if "the delicacy" was available and if people were actually buying them. It found 66 shops which sold them, 22% of those who answered the survey. [...] Annie Anderson, from the Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research at the University of Dundee, used to send her medical students out into the city to see if they could find somewhere that sold deep-fried Mars bar. "It was not much of a challenge in Dundee," she says."
I lived in Dundee during the 1990s and they were available. I'm told that they were popular at the Victor (https://maps.app.goo.gl/9g3je56Gt7spifo26) though I don't see them on the menu today.
> I actually live in Scotland. I have never seen anywhere that sells deep-fried Mars bars here
The link above literally has a picture of a shop in Aberdeenshire which sells deep-fried Mars and claims to have invented the delicacy.
Consider the possibility that your experience might not fully encompass the truth and you might not have seen the whole of Scotland. It's quite a large country.
I'm actually from Scotland and grew up in an area that laid claim to their invention - near Stonehaven - around the time they popped up.
They're basically a silly novelty equivalent to "deep fried butter" is in the USA but they definitely came from Scotland. I've never had one and know only a handful of people who did, I suspect they came about as a sort of pre-internet way to grab attention and go "viral"
They're not exactly a delicacy or something that we should be proud of, mind ...
They’ve been a Scottish thing for at least 15 years! Source: I ate one in Edinburgh 15 years ago.
Scotland is the home of deep frying things that have no right to be deep fried. My English friends are alarmed when I tell them of the “half pizza and chips” we used to have for lunch. Half a deep fried pizza, that is.
Deep-fried pizza is originally an Italian thing ("pizza fritta") and would have entered Scottish cuisine through the Italian community (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Scots). It's become its own thing now - a pizza crunch doesn't really resemble a pizza fritta - but it's originally Italian
My dilemma as a student in Glasgow (a long time) at the start of term when I had some money, Fish supper or deep fried Pizza & chips. With the mandatory bottle of Irn Bru.
Delicious but excessive consumption would certainly reduce your life expectancy.
God, how ridiculously hyperbolic. But we're in the midst of a debate about the origins of a deep fried candy bar with strangers on HN and just supposed to believe that you live in Scotland and have seen every possible offering in every possible shop.
Sounds stupid to decry something that people can verify to some extent then proceed to offer information that nobody can verify, doesn't it? This tired drum of Wikipedia being able to be edited by any wad off the street needs to be laid to rest, especially now in an age where misinformation is insanely prevalent in our general media and trusted sources who get paid to spread it.
They were supposedly invented in Scotland, and I've not seen them sold in an English fish and chip shop. Go to Scotland however and they're not uncommon.
I read George Mackay Brown in high school - Greenvoe and An Orkney Tapestry were the set texts in 2nd year and 3rd year respectively - and I was struck by the immense sense of depth of history from a living poet. It's difficult to explain what reading An Orkney Tapestry was like for the first time. It's like seeing Saturn's rings through a telescope with your own eyes for the first time except it's a telescope that's letting you see in crisp sharp focus all the way through 5000 years of time, instead of 750 million miles. From where I was standing aged 14 in a fairly small town on the Isle of Skye, 5000 years seemed a hell of a lot further.
I've been to Orkney several times, and it's an incredible place. The people who built Skara Brae had more advanced architecture than the Romans did (at least, they had better drains, and understood things like septic tanks and keeping drainage away from water supplies).
Very very real. You can go there and see it. You can walk around and sit where people sat over 5000 years ago.
I grew up not far from there (it's about a six or seven hour drive, followed by a two hour ferry journey, so it's not something you do every day, but barely 160 miles in a straight line) and it was all Iron Age brochs and such. Skara Brae was already ancient and lost when they were built.
I used to work with a guy whose parents were Pakistani but who had been born in Scotland, although he had quite a strong accent from living with his grandparents for several years. People used to ask him "So where are you really from?" quite often.
"I'm from Wishie", he'd say.
"No but where are you really from?"
"Well, dinna tell onyone," he'd say, dialling up the Lanarkshire accent, "but I'm really from Newmains, but if they hear I'm from there they'll think I'm a bam"
I know a few people born in, or on the edge of the "neolithic", inuit from far up north, and idiginous peoples a bit further south, and more than a few scotts, including a clan of blacksmiths, but allas this space isn't quite suited to the raising of ghosts
but as a fact, there is no invention or practice that is not bieng conducted nativly, astounding continuity, though essentialy invisible, as there are no signs, labels, certificates, or verifications, completly unplanned, though closed source in
that most essential of ways
Not true. They definitely didn't have deep fried Mars bars in the Stone Age.
Deep fried Mars bars are an English thing.
The origins of the Deep Fried Mars Bar are disputed but all of the people doing the disputing appear to be here in Scotland?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_Mars_bar
Yeah, you can't believe anything that's on Wikipedia.
I actually live in Scotland. I have never seen anywhere that sells deep-fried Mars bars here, but I have seen them in England.
You can believe the references the Wikipedia article is based off, such as BBC Scotland:
"They surveyed hundreds of fish and chip shops in Scotland to find out if "the delicacy" was available and if people were actually buying them. It found 66 shops which sold them, 22% of those who answered the survey. [...] Annie Anderson, from the Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research at the University of Dundee, used to send her medical students out into the city to see if they could find somewhere that sold deep-fried Mars bar. "It was not much of a challenge in Dundee," she says."
I lived in Dundee during the 1990s and they were available. I'm told that they were popular at the Victor (https://maps.app.goo.gl/9g3je56Gt7spifo26) though I don't see them on the menu today.
> I actually live in Scotland. I have never seen anywhere that sells deep-fried Mars bars here
The link above literally has a picture of a shop in Aberdeenshire which sells deep-fried Mars and claims to have invented the delicacy.
Consider the possibility that your experience might not fully encompass the truth and you might not have seen the whole of Scotland. It's quite a large country.
Google Street View of the same shop.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Carron/@56.9627456,-2....
I'm actually from Scotland and grew up in an area that laid claim to their invention - near Stonehaven - around the time they popped up.
They're basically a silly novelty equivalent to "deep fried butter" is in the USA but they definitely came from Scotland. I've never had one and know only a handful of people who did, I suspect they came about as a sort of pre-internet way to grab attention and go "viral"
They're not exactly a delicacy or something that we should be proud of, mind ...
They’ve been a Scottish thing for at least 15 years! Source: I ate one in Edinburgh 15 years ago.
Scotland is the home of deep frying things that have no right to be deep fried. My English friends are alarmed when I tell them of the “half pizza and chips” we used to have for lunch. Half a deep fried pizza, that is.
Deep-fried pizza is originally an Italian thing ("pizza fritta") and would have entered Scottish cuisine through the Italian community (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Scots). It's become its own thing now - a pizza crunch doesn't really resemble a pizza fritta - but it's originally Italian
My dilemma as a student in Glasgow (a long time) at the start of term when I had some money, Fish supper or deep fried Pizza & chips. With the mandatory bottle of Irn Bru.
Delicious but excessive consumption would certainly reduce your life expectancy.
> you can't believe anything that's on Wikipedia
Anything
God, how ridiculously hyperbolic. But we're in the midst of a debate about the origins of a deep fried candy bar with strangers on HN and just supposed to believe that you live in Scotland and have seen every possible offering in every possible shop.
Sounds stupid to decry something that people can verify to some extent then proceed to offer information that nobody can verify, doesn't it? This tired drum of Wikipedia being able to be edited by any wad off the street needs to be laid to rest, especially now in an age where misinformation is insanely prevalent in our general media and trusted sources who get paid to spread it.
I lived in Edinburgh a while back and there are multiple chippies where you can get one.
I'm born and raised in Scotland, we're keeping it.
I lived in Edinburgh for a while, and there were a number of establishments (typically fish and chip shops) which made them.
I have seen quite a few chippys in Glasgow and Dundee, but it has always seemed to me like a thing for tourists
It's always been a daft novelty thing really
I suspect very few people have more than one!
Just as an aside, I always like bumping into one of your contributions on HN and especially so when it's something Scotland-related!
They were supposedly invented in Scotland, and I've not seen them sold in an English fish and chip shop. Go to Scotland however and they're not uncommon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_Mars_bar
> I've not seen them sold in an English fish and chip shop
I had one in Whitby, so they do exist in (the north of) England.
I've never seen nor heard of them anywhere in Scotland, but I have seen them in the Midlands.
I saw them on the menu at a chippy food cart at glasgow comicon this summer, so they exist here. I did not order one, but they were for sale. :)
I haven't been to Scotland in over thirty years, so I might as well toss my opinion in as "fact", as well.
https://archive.ph/Ta4ON
I read George Mackay Brown in high school - Greenvoe and An Orkney Tapestry were the set texts in 2nd year and 3rd year respectively - and I was struck by the immense sense of depth of history from a living poet. It's difficult to explain what reading An Orkney Tapestry was like for the first time. It's like seeing Saturn's rings through a telescope with your own eyes for the first time except it's a telescope that's letting you see in crisp sharp focus all the way through 5000 years of time, instead of 750 million miles. From where I was standing aged 14 in a fairly small town on the Isle of Skye, 5000 years seemed a hell of a lot further.
I've been to Orkney several times, and it's an incredible place. The people who built Skara Brae had more advanced architecture than the Romans did (at least, they had better drains, and understood things like septic tanks and keeping drainage away from water supplies).
> The people who built Skara Brae had more advanced architecture than the Romans did
But why did they put so many spinner traps and magic mouths in the perfectly rectilinear, monster-filled maze underneath the town?
In all seriousness, I had no idea until just now that Skara Brae was a real place, and not just a setting for tales sung by bards.
Very very real. You can go there and see it. You can walk around and sit where people sat over 5000 years ago.
I grew up not far from there (it's about a six or seven hour drive, followed by a two hour ferry journey, so it's not something you do every day, but barely 160 miles in a straight line) and it was all Iron Age brochs and such. Skara Brae was already ancient and lost when they were built.
You know I wondered who those guys throwing spears at the busses were. Thought they’d just come doon the watter.
Just Wishaw things.
I used to work with a guy whose parents were Pakistani but who had been born in Scotland, although he had quite a strong accent from living with his grandparents for several years. People used to ask him "So where are you really from?" quite often.
"I'm from Wishie", he'd say.
"No but where are you really from?"
"Well, dinna tell onyone," he'd say, dialling up the Lanarkshire accent, "but I'm really from Newmains, but if they hear I'm from there they'll think I'm a bam"
Perfect. Right up there with, "but are you a Protestant Muslim or a Catholic Muslim?"
Stone age? Nah, more like IRN age.
You sly dog. Take an upvote.
I know a few people born in, or on the edge of the "neolithic", inuit from far up north, and idiginous peoples a bit further south, and more than a few scotts, including a clan of blacksmiths, but allas this space isn't quite suited to the raising of ghosts but as a fact, there is no invention or practice that is not bieng conducted nativly, astounding continuity, though essentialy invisible, as there are no signs, labels, certificates, or verifications, completly unplanned, though closed source in that most essential of ways
This is the best way for ancient culture to survive.
Well, it wasn't that bad when I visited Scotland last time
You obviously haven't been there recently.