My OH is from Grimsby where they claim to know a bit about fish (they used to have lots of it before the Icelandic Cod Wars, still a touchy subject in that part of the world) and the chip shops there don't serve cod unless you specifically ask for it, they regard that as inferior. They prefer haddock.

Grimsby's the only place I've ever been where the chip shops are open on Christmas Day. OH says that when he was young everyone knew someone who worked on a trawler or the fish docks, and you would get your fish for free, take your parcel of fish to your preferred chip shop and they would fry it for you, half for you to take home and half for them.

I have family from Grimsby, and I agree that haddock tastes better (less likely to have parasites in the skin too). However I've read in various places that the reason haddock is traditionally served up in fishing ports, is the fact that cod was the big earner and it all went to the big markets inland and down south.

Lynn I am from West Yorkshire and don't know about now (40 years since I left home) but certainly when I was growing up it was the same when you asked for fish and chips it was Haddock you had to order Cod, it was deemed a dirty fish. I must admit though I have travelled around and still think the best fish and chips are from Yorkshire. By the way the only Fish and chips you could get on a Sunday there from the Chinese Takeaways which were in their infancy then and they had a different licence I believe, mind there fish was awful frozen rubbish. Whitby fish and chips take some beating or did.

I'm quite happy with both, or should I say either, one at a time. Not such a great deal of difference in either taste or price, but both much better than anything I've had in Spain.

The story goes that the original Guinness used water that originated from a old black death cemetery and it was claimed that it never tasted the same after the moved the brewery.

Jim

Porter was STOLEN from London!

Sort of, the Porter brewery was already brewing and selling it in Ireland and so when A.G. got a taste of the stuff and compared it to the disgusting crap brewed in the Irish brewery he had just inherited, he knew there was only one way forward.
Wether the recipe was begged, stolen or borrowed, no one seems to know for sure.
The rest is history.


Here's an interesting story,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

What a way to go,eh ?

Although sometimes believed to have originated the stout style of beer, the first use of the word stout in relation to beer was in a letter in the Egerton Manuscript dated 1677, almost 50 years before Arthur Guinness was born.

The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.

Since there seems to be a variation of Porter" for all the different countries on the planet looks like you win, RBM.


Jim

Eh?

The Porter brew that became Guinness,was originally,as the name suggests,brewed for the Porters doing the donkey work, humping heavy stuff about on London markets.
The water at that time wasn't fit to drink but beer was fairly safe.
In addition it was looked on as food or sustenance as well as drink, so a fair amount of it was supped during working hours.

I seem to recall that the same tradition of a pint or two during mid-day break, was carried on by workers in heavy industry in my part of the World as late as the early sixties.

I came across an old English brewery beside some ancient ironworks in Sweden a few years back which hadn't been in use for many years and was being restored.
Apparently the only way that the skilled English ironworkers would consider moving to Sweden to live and work 160 years or so back, was if there was a guaranteed constant supply of beer on site, so the Lancashire forge owner had it built especially for his workers.

When I was twelve in Gib I got an infection that caused me to spend a few days in the BMH hospital. The evening meal was always accompanied by a bottle of stout for all patients including me. Alas I was only in for 4 days but nevertheless it made for a really interesting 4 days. Mind you I got a rocket on the last day when the matron and my mother arrived for visiting hours and she pointed out in no uncertain terms that I might be nearly six foot tall but I was still a child.

Jim