It’s great to see us all drooling a bit for food that’s hard to get for those of us away from the supply source ! Glad to share !

Definitely no dig at American fast food or soul food ! I honour everyone’s favourite comfort foods !

The pickled onions in chip shops are usually larger than the ones from the supermarket. They can be obtained pickled in white vinegar, though more commonly I found them in brown malt vinegar. They usually sit in a big gallon jar on the chippie counter and may be added direct to the order, or else put in a little greaseproof bag alongside your order. Working from memory, I would say it’s not uncommon to find big jars of pickled onions about 2 inches diameter. I liked 2 of them with my fish/haggis/black pudding supper.

As for red pudding, my main recollection is seeing a dead one which had been thrown (part-eaten) over a garden wall in Edinburgh, while I was surveying the house to which the garden belonged ! I never tried one, but as far as I am aware, it is a meat sausage made of beef, with bacon, pork or bacon rind, suet, dried breadcrumbs, stock (beef I think), salt , pepper and spices.

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.