h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...because everything sounds posher in French

My half-arsed vegetarianism has crashed and burned once again. It's all the fault of a local councillor who mentioned fish fingers innocently enough, and left me craving them for the rest of the day. Specifically fish finger sandwiches, like my granny used to make me.

I've had them now and they were a bit disappointing. Maybe they needed ketchup, but there's none in the house.

Or maybe fish finger sandwiches require special granny skills. Never underestimate grannies, they have special powers! But my two died years ago, and then I acquired a third one, and she died this year, so I just had to make do with non-grannified fish fingers.

grannies have amazing abilities
mine made a macaroni and cheese that I've never since had the like of and another one kept a magical jar of mints...

oh yes, let's hear it for grandmas. Mine made the absolutely bestest meat and potato pie.

(I was craving fish finger sandwiches. I think the key is they must be crispy, on thick white bread with lots of butter and ketchup)

Oh dear. Now I'm a granny, I'll have to learn new skills to live up to these expectations. And I always thought grannies were born like that. I have never even eaten - or seen! - a fish finger sandwich, so how can I ever hope to make one to everyone's satisfaction?

By the way - due to your little typo, I was expecting this thread to go in a completely different direction

(But where, in this day and age, would you exercise droit de seigneur, and could you get away with it?)

I'm sure you won't disappoint! From what you've said in various conversations you sound like a dab hand at rustling up food!

I'm not sure if fish fingers are big in Germany...although I did have a eater tasty herring baguette in Wuppertal.

If all else fails, you could bombard your grandkids with Bratwursts.

And I'm not sure about the droit de seigneur, but if anyone knows it's probably 2legs

I remember the Hairy Bikers making some fish finger sandwiches http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/homemade_fish_fingers_85938 Be careful though - hot oil is hot and hot things can burn and burning hurts. Ow. Good thing the BBC put that warning in there.

I've never had a fish finger sandwich. That probably explains a lot about the sense of emptiness I feel. You should see the funny looks I used to get at work here though whenever I made a chip sandwich, not that those were really chips.

Oooh, chip butties...I might need to get a chip butty for lunch now...

Sheesh. I wish I wasn't so suggestible and craving-driven when it comes to food! Once I get a bee in my bonnet about something nothing else will do.

The key with Fish finger sandwichs, if I recall correctly; not had em since I was a student was that they absolutely have to be fried fish fingers, shallow fried, on high, in butter... until they're nearly burnt on the outside.... then they have to be on really well buttered, white bread (absoutely nothing fancy, just cheap rubbish stuff, works best), and has to be with ketchup daminit... now I'm craving fish finger sandwichs!

Well there are 12 fish fingers to a packet, and you can comfortably fit four to a round of bread, so I have two more goes to get it right from that pack!

want fish finger sandwichs, now!

I've just remembered another granny special power.

Now, I pride myself on being a bit of a canny shopper, and I can come up with a good satisfying meal for pennies.

But all my grannies (including great-grannies and the one who wasn't, strictly speaking, my literal granny) could go to a shop, buy about ten ingredients costing something like seven pence each - in modern prices, mind - and somehow these would turn into a fortnight's worth of meals.

Seriously, grannies kick serious ass.

Looks like there's lots to be learned from them. I've suggested it as a Create topic, so's we can learn about the wonders of everyone's gran.

My own Grannies were both very old when I was young, although they both died well into their 80s.

They lived quite a way away and we didn't see them much. I remember nothing about them at all really, except one taught me to play crib and the other gave us lettuce leaves rolled up with sugar.

I only knew one of my grandmothers... and, at least according to me, all I learnt from her, were various odd sayings about eels.... all of which of course are not true... so I never relaly knew her at all either

I was fortunate enough to have a great grandmother close by when I was small. She made the best chicken & dumplings, proper "sad" dumplings and not fluffy ones made from biscuit dough (US southern breakfast pastry bread not cookie). She would also make doughnuts from scratch and fry them in a pot of oil on the stove. She also made her own apple butter for spreading on toast.

I also had two maternal great grandparents, but they lived 1300 miles away and when we did visit they were rather infirm and quiet. I would just play in the yard... or wander off to the train yard nearby. I never got crushed.

Too late to try the second batch of fish finger sarnies tonight. Which will probably be fried in butter (the last ones were just done in the oven). I've a vague recollection that the granny method may have been grilled, with a bit of butter added as they grill, so that will be method three.

But what I want now is mature cheddar with habanero Tobasco sauce. As well as being hotter, the habanero has a much more complex, fruity flavour than the original tobasco sauce. It contains a little bit of things like mango and banana which you can't actually taste, but which add a lot of depth and richness.

This wouldn't be a granny one...the cheddar fair enough, but tobasco or anything like it would have been deeply suspect, I imagine.

I've never been a fan of Tabasco sauce. Too vinegary. If you want a really good habanero sauce then go to the source, Belize. Marie Sharp's is the best. Their normal habanero sauce is cut with carrots. You can really taste the subtle tastes of the habanero. I also highly recommend the green habanero sauce, it's cut with prickly pear cactus.

http://www.mariesharps-bz.com/

You should be able to find it online. I know you can order it from Amazon.


I really need to reorder some. I used to have to take a cruise to get it.

I'll look out for the create thing - I only knew my maternal grandma, my pater being the youngest of 13 some of whom were born just after the first world war, she was long gone by the time I came to be

My grandma was brilliant though - she taught me how to make (and smoke, using some of my Grandad's St Bruno Rough cut) an acorn pipe (a hollowed out acorn and a straw). And the phrase "fur coat and no knickers"

ooo! grilled fish fingers.... that is.... drawing up a very vague memory in my mind.... Possibly of my Mother (not grandmother), cooking them thusly... mmm.... yeh... I'm picturing the old cooker we had in our house; one of those ones with the grill fixed on to it, at the top, above the hob, above the oven.... oo... wonder if they still make cookers like that MMMM.... I do recall frying them, when a student... and I think they were good like that... but I was probably drunk... so... maybe not damnit.

I give in.

today I am going to buy all my food shopping, based on conversations I've just seen on Hootoo. thus far that gives cheese, strawberries, adn fish fingers I think