Thursday 27 July 2017

"It’s not a takeaway when we do it, say middle class people"

This bit from an article by The Daily Mash has me slightly worried:

Museum curator Helen Archer said:

“The news about these awful diets is so sad. I’m just glad it’s something that I’m able to avoid. I’m super busy so I’m always on Deliveroo – usually Szechuan, pan-Indian, or Five Guys – but it’s not really comparable, because when it arrives I put it on plates.


We get takeaways every week or two (usually Chinese or Indian, like everybody else) but we always serve it nicely on plates and use cutlery, why would you not? They put it all into separate plastic tubs, so you have to, unless you want to alternate between spoonful of rice from one tub and spoonful of sauce from the other.

Does that mean we are middle-class? If we get fish and chips, we use the fish forks and fish knives, maybe that'll help you answer the question.

21 comments:

A K Haart said...

"Does that mean we are middle-class?"

Possibly, although you don't mention napkins.

Dinero said...

Serviette Vs Napkin. That old Chestnut.

Dinero said...

Fish and chips is with the fingers. Also best to consume pieces of battered fish and a chip simultaneously to get the best out of the fish..

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, no need, we are not messy eaters.

Din, I'm European, they are serviettes.

Din, you can spike a bit of fish and some chips on the same fork. If God had wanted us to eat with our fingers , he wouldn't have given us cutlery.

Dinero said...

OK everyone remain calm.

When I was a kid I was told that working class people called Napkins serviets
to sound "posh" but in fact the posh called them Napkins.

Dinero said...

Any way you must be middle class because you did not mention "kebab meat and chips".

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, thinking on, how can you eat mushy peas with your fingers?

Din, I've heard that about serviette v napkin as well, but as I don't use them I'm not too fussed.

My lad likes kebabs, I'm not that keen.

Dinero said...

What about chop sticks , any one here proficient with them. I used to impress with them back in the day, I can tell you.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, if you're European and use chop sticks, you are really middle class.

Obligato said...

Mark you dip the chips in the mushy peas

L fairfax said...

The fish forks is a windup isn't it? BTW Bill Bryson wrote in one of his books that there are no benefits to fish knives compared to normal knives, do you think he is right?

Lola said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Q8cVmn-FU 9.21 onwards...

Mark Wadsworth said...

SB, sounds messy.

LF, I suspect so.

Lola said...

Oh Gawd. I (we Mrs L and I) are clearly not down wiv der masses. We very, very rarely have takeaways. And then it's always fish n' chips. Which we eat off plates warmed in the Aga whilst I fetch them (it's a 10 min drive; 20 min round trip plus frying time). Mostly we open a bottle of Chablis or similar, but I do use brown sauce. I do like mushy peas by I prefer samphire. (I think I'd better stop digging now...)

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, I think "warming plates in the Aga" tips the balance.

Shiney said...

Partial to a Jalfrezi myself.

But, if you are going to have a 'chippy' takeaway it has to be chips with two battered sausages and a pot of acid green curry sauce.... sorry, that is the ONLY way to enjoy them.

DBC Reed said...

Being dead common is usually a reliable guide to the correct thing to do, but mushy peas prove otherwise.They appear to be peas long past their first flush of freshness that are then boiled down into ,well,a mush.
Northampton was once well-known for them . When a visiting suit invaded our staff canteen,( full of syndicalists, workers control socialists etc), he looked over the counter and squeaked enthusiastically "Oh these are your famous Northampton mushy peas!".
To which Beryl, the canteen lady replied, "No these are the ordinary peas!" and entered,not for the first time , into staff folk lore.

Lola said...

MW Would it help if I tell you that I sometimes have one of these instead of Chablis?
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=black+sheep+ale&rls=com.microsoft:en-GB:IE-Address&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii2fuikKzVAhUGKsAKHZx7DyEQ_AUICygC&biw=1280&bih=908#imgrc=u97tD3AGAnolrM:&spf=1501250073107

Lola said...

Or this:-
https://www.lebonvin.co.uk/index.php/bianco-del-veneto-colle-dei-tigli-lenotti-estate.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwevLBRCGARIsAKnAJvchmen_cvI65GCB-wcHh2oCuTCg3n5WImHmY1qERfS2a6No5MPeupcaAq_CEALw_wcB

Which I can highly recommend.



DBC Reed said...

Don't get pork scratchings, either. Or condensed milk which was once thought a great working-class treat.

Bayard said...

LF, AFAIK, fish knives and forks date from the time that ordinary knives were made of steel (not stainless, it hadn't been invented). Iron reacts with certain types of fish to produce an unpleasant taste, so, as fish are soft, special knives made from silver were used with them. Dunno what poor people used, wooden knives perhaps or possibly their fingers. The forks would have already been silver, so I suspect that fish forks are just different to go with the fish knives. All made obsolete by the invention of stainless steel.

"Phone for the fish knives, Norman.." probably arises from the use of fish knives by social climbers unaware that the upper classes no longer used them. ISTR from my youth Portobello Road market being stuffed with sets of fish cutlery, those and silver-backed hairbrushes.