One man's statement has UK Twitter users questioning if they're eating fish and chips all wrong
One of Scotland's, and indeed the rest of the UK's favourite food pairings, fish and chips have been a staple for decades.
However, one man believes we've been eating them wrong this entire time.
Responding to a Guardian restaurant column by Grace Dent in which she reviews the Angel Lane Chippie in Cumbria, the unnamed man wrote: "Why would you eat the batter? The batter is there to protect the fish during frying, you peel it off, throw it away, then eat the fish."
Justifying his position, he then added: "If you bake a fish (or indeed a vegetable) in a salt crust, do you eat that too?"
The comment left the restaurant critic flabbergasted as she took to Twitter to share it.
https://twitter.com/gracedent/status/1226055069436665856
Her followers were suitably confused and soon more and more Twitter users were flocking to the post to respond.
One poster compared it to learning that "some people don't have an internal monologue", while another added: "That’s just ... it’s just... I don’t actually know what that is. This country is finished. We can’t even eat fish and chips properly anymore."
One person quipped: "I believe what we've got here is a quite good parental white lie that set in harder than it was ever meant to."
Another replied that it was "insanity", explaining that the fish was "merely there for the batter to cling to".
Even though the vast majority of people were as certain as Grace that the batter was an integral part of the meal, she was left a little shaken by his resolve, joking: "But he's sure. He is so so sure. listen to him. ARE WE THE WRONG ONES?"
Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright even got involved posting: "But you’re going to try it now... right?"
In an effort to clear up the matter, Andrew Crook, President of the National Federation of Fish Friers, explained that we can all rest easy.
Speaking to The Sun, he said: "Modern batters are delicious and crisp with a great crunch when you eat them with lovely white steamed fish inside, it's the combination of taste of the batter and fish bursting through that makes the dish so special.
"Batter came from a practice of baking fish in a salty dough to steam the fish inside historically, but by the time fish and paired with chips in 1860 it had become an edible batter."