If you don’t know the joy of scraps, you’re missing out.
They’re a bonus treat from the chippy, made up of little bits of fried batter; oily, greasy, and crunchy, to be dug out from the bottom of a paper bag and eaten with your fingers.
You might also know this particular delicacy as scrumps, batter bits, gribbles, scramptions, or dubs.
Usually, you’d get scraps from your nearest fish and chips shop… but now if you’re really in need of the joy of scraps, you can get a pot for £1.05 from Marks & Spencer.
But people aren’t all too pleased with M&S’s latest addition to their range, accusing the brand of ‘gentrifying’ scraps by selling them for ‘one pound sodding five’.
Foodie Twitter account Well This Is New first shared the product, writing: ‘Chip Shop Scraps!’ along with a drooling face emoji.
The reaction was… mixed, to put it gently.
A tweet from Natasha Wynarczyk, reading ‘can’t believe they’ve gentrified scraps’, has been retweeted more than 2,000 times and been flooded with responses from people with a general vibe of ‘back in my day, we didn’t have to go to M&S to get our scraps’.
One critic wrote: ‘What is wrong with the bloody world when they package and sell scraps.’
Another said: ‘£1.05! Ridiculous. A scrap butty was a standard snack in the summer in Hartlepool after being out on our bikes all day.
‘We’d park up in the doorway “got any scraps?” Then we’d dump our bikes on the pavement, hand over 15p (for the bun, scraps were free) and then… go in the back alley to munch it. Then it was time to go home for tea.’
While that particular anecdote does sound lovely, it’s worth noting that, while scraps are immensely popular up north, they’re not that common in certain regions of the UK.
In London, it’s hard enough to find a great chippy that isn’t wildly overpriced, let alone one that won’t greet your request of ‘got any scraps, please?’ with either a confused squint or a request for a few quid for something called an ‘optional batter crumble’.
As one person explained: ‘For those of us living in the south this is the nearest we can get to having them’.
Selling scraps isn’t actually an entirely new thing for M&S, who since 2018 have included a little sachet of scraps along with their battered fish to help customers get that fish chop experience at home.
What is new, though, is the shop selling scraps separately in their own pot, presumably for people who say a sachet is simply not enough bits of batter to be content, but also for anyone who doesn’t even want fish and chips, just the glorious crunch of scraps.
M&S has responded to the backlash pretty cheerily, with a spokesperson commenting: ‘We first introduced our delicious scraps back in 2018 with our popular battered fish, and this autumn we decided it was time to set them free and allow customers to choose where they sprinkle these crispy, light nuggets of savoury batter!
‘Launched as part of our new Chip Shop range, they’ve definitely got the nation talking and we’re now looking forward to hearing how customers across the whole of the UK are enjoying theirs.’
We can’t sensibly suggest sprinkling scraps on everything you eat, but we can’t recommend you don’t do that, either, as it would likely be delicious.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/13/people-are-accusing-ms-of-gentrifying-scraps-by-selling-chip-shop-batter-bits-for-1-05-a-pot-13412442/
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