Remember the Yorkie pizza horror? Here's who won our exclusive Reg merch...

The winner of our “what would you do with a terrible Morrisons Yorkshire Pudding Pizza concoction” competition can, at long last, be announced to Reg readers of the Great British Public and beyond. Almost five thousand gastronomically inclined Register readers voted in our poll about the very weird thing released by Morrisons …

[Anonymous South African Coward]

To the winners - well done chaps.

Pub o' clock it is!

All will now disperse in a chaotic fashion to the closest, and use the Bossly Unit's CC.

Cheers!

[Aladdin Sane]

Obvious fix

I should've won.

I blame Brexit, Putin, and the Warsaw Concerto.

[David Robinson 1]

Re: Obvious fix

Upvote for Spike Milligan reference.

[Alistair]

Oh my

Why .... Thank you .......

[Alistair]

Re: Oh my

And just to wrap things up:

Huge thanks to the Reg as I am now the owner of a Special Projects Bureau Dark Gray/Black Tee, although it is somewhat loose, it is appropriate and will be worn often to work. I've also acquired a black Register logoed polo style shirt.

Gareth: I'm certainly hoping that my small contributions help it continue.

[Individual #6/42]

adn thnak you from the depths fo Firday afternoon.

No finer end to the week.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: adn thnak you from the depths fo Firday afternoon.

Started already have we?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: adn thnak you from the depths fo Firday afternoon.

Started already have we?

Hic!

Haec

Hock![1][3]

[1] Other wines are available. Especially in the wine rack by my end of the sofa. Not yet ready to be refilled from the master[2] wine-rack elsewhere.

[2] Well - can't keep it where guests, passers-by and general oiks can see it!

[3] This old man, he played one, He played knick-knack at Verdun. Cognac, Armagnac, Burgundy and Beaune, This old man came rolling home.. (Flanders and Swann again.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad astra tabernamque indeed.

Thanks for the honourable mention.

[kryptonaut]

Yay!

Thank you very much!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yay!

From my read through, you missed out on first place by not replacing "The thing" with "It" and not dropping the "I" from the last line.

The devil is in the details, don't you know? And also in Morrisons if this story is anything to go by.

[Steve McGuinness]

I Clearly Won

But the thread was hijacked by Russian Hackers and replaced with #FakeNews showing their friends as winners*.

*may/may not be accurate, congratulations to the winners.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I Clearly Won

The same Russian Hackers who invented the morrisonstrosity in the first place?

Disclaimer: Sum in tabernam.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Travesty!

My favourite thing to do with Yorkshire pudding is still toad-in-the-hole. With onion gravy of course.

Which also works really well with chicken breast and lots of butter - done as an emergency when a fussy (non sausagivore) friend unexpectedly turned up halfway through cooking.

Heard a suggestion on Radio 4's excellent Kitchen Cabinet (gardeners question time for foodies) podcast that I should try putting suet into my Yorkshire pud batter for toad-in-t'hole - I presume because "fat is flavour".

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Travesty!

I should try putting suet into my Yorkshire pud batter for toad-in-t'hole - I presume because "fat is flavour"

Suet Pudding. Make a batter using suet, should be about half way between Yorkshire Pudding mix and Dumpling mix. Spread into a baking tin/roasting tin such that it's about 1/2 to 3/4" deep. Bake as if it's a Yorkshire pudding, ie to a similar colour but it stays flat, maybe a little rise at the edges. Imagine the beast and most tasty part of a dumpling, the top crispy bit, but that's the whole thing, not just a bit on the top.

[Salestard]

Northerners...

Story time. (because I've not got one for the Friday on-call thing)

Decade ago, I'm at Manchester airport awaiting my evening flight back to Gatwick. It's delayed so I wander round to the 'International' terminal in search of some food. Because I'm a soft shandy drinking southerner, I have a fundamental aversion to gravy with everything, which limited my choices somewhat.

Eventually I arrive at what would best be described as a Tortilla wrap bar. No gravy in sight. I scan the menu on the wall behind the counter, discounting the various options until I arrive at Pepperoni Pizza. This seems like a sensible choice - enough carbs and saturated fat to tide me over until I get home.

My request for said pizza results in a flourish from the guy behind the counter, as he whirls the worlds biggest tortilla bread around. He throws the tortilla on the counter, grabs a slab of pizza, and plonks it in the middle of the pitta. I call a halt to the proceedings;

"Woah, stop - what are you doing?"

"A pepperoni pizza tortilla wrap, it's what you asked for!"

"Erm, can I just have the pizza?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"This is a tortilla wrap bar... I have to wrap it in a tortilla... of course, you could always unwrap it once you've bought it"

I turned down this culinary adventure and went to find anything else. I remained bemused by the concept of a pizza wrapped in tortilla, wondering if it was truly a north-south thing going on here. So I ring my good pal, a Boltonite through and through, and the most northern person I know.

"Hello mate, need your help... I'm gonna say four words, and I want your immediate, instinctive reaction"

"Go on"

"Pepperoni. Pizza. Tortilla. Wrap."

"....what? together? a pizza wrapped in tortilla?"

"Exactly that"

"That is utter... GENIUS!"

Chips and gravy it was then (and I threw the gravy away)

[Lee D]

Re: Northerners...

To paraphrase Joey from Friends:

"What's not to love? Pepperoni? Good. Pizza? Good. Tortilla? Good. Gravy? Good."

[caffeine addict]

Re: Northerners...

1) were they really using pittas for tortilla wraps?

2) if they were using tortillas, did they then deep fry it?

As terrible as a pizza wrap sounds, the idea of a tortilla with a bit of sour cream smeared on it, then a slice of pizza, wrapped up, and then fried in really hot fat (like in olden days that no-one seems to use any longer) so the tortilla crisps up sounds strangely appealing. And I'm stone cold sober.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Northerners...

"fried in really hot fat (like in olden days that no-one seems to use any longer)"

If you are ever in Co. Durham, make time to spend a day at the Beamish Open Air Museum. As part of the museum, there is a period Fish & Chip shop cooking on a coal fired range (they do specifically warn of you of that since quality may vary due to difficulty of controlling the temperature) and it's all cooked in real honest to goodness beef dripping (which they also warn of in case anyone is one of those strange vegetarian types thinking they will be ok with just chips)

[MonkeyCee]

Re: Northerners...

"Beamish Open Air Museum."

"cooked in beef dripping"

God, it's been over 20 years and those are still the best chips I've ever eaten.

It was helped by it being on a family vacation, and the two least culinary adept family members had been on dinner duty the night before. Hunger makes the best sauce and all.

[The Jon]

Re: Northerners...

"...and I threw the gravy away"

What? Has tha' nowt moist?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Northerners...

When I was about 7, I went to a friend's house for sunday lunch And for some reason was further shuttled along out of the way by his parents - we walked over to his granny's house a few streets away. I was absolutely delighted to be served proper deep fried chips (oven chips back then were truly awful), sausages and baked beans. Mum believed in feeding me a bit more healthily, sadly. So a properly good meal, to this 7 year-old.

Even better, she'd constructed the appropriate dam of sausages, in order to protect the chips from the encroachment of de-crispifying baked-bean-juice. Perfection.

But no! The horror! His granny was a northerner. She then proceeded to pour gravy over this magnificent culinary creation! Chips with gravy is already an abomination - that's why I build the sausage-dams in the first place! But gravy mixed with baked-bean-juice. Ugh! Bleurgh!

As I was dragged up to be polite, I had to eat every soggy mouthful of ruined deliciousness.

Gravy on chips is wrong!

Hmmm. Better don the flameproof trousers after posting that. But this is the ditch I will die in. The ditch dug to protect chips from being needlessly decrispified by the erroneous application of extraneous gravy!

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Northerners...

the appropriate dam of sausages, in order to protect the chips from the encroachment of de-crispifying baked-bean-juice. Perfection

Y'see, this is how I knew t'missus and I were compatible. She understood why I did this and replicates it if she does the serving-up of said meal.

Mind you, she does adore deep-fried or pan-fried spam so is not *quite* perfect. And this from someone who, when we met, didn't like sausages because "they had everything in, even the squeak".

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Northerners...

As I was dragged up to be polite, I had to eat every soggy mouthful of ruined deliciousness.

Much like my attitude to roast lamb - the few times I've been offered it at friends houses I've managed to eat it - assuming that they posess a nearly-full jar of mint sauce.

Sheep (and goats) are same from carnivorous tendances with me. Pigs and beef, not so much.

[Toltec]

Re: Northerners...

How weird, I must have been brought up in a different version of the north, chips were eaten with mushy peas and mint sauce when I was a nipper. When I was old enough to be looking for post pub scran it might have been chips and curry sauce, but gravy should only be served with Yorkshire plain pudding or with onions on sausage and mash.

I have lived down here for nearly thirty years though so it could be my memory has under gone selective editing during therapy. Probably explains why I like chips and mayonaise a little too much.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Northerners...

"But gravy mixed with baked-bean-juice. Ugh! Bleurgh!"

As a born and bred proud Northerner of 55 years may I just agree with you on this? Very few, if any meals, succeed in culinary measterpieceness with more than one liquid on the plate, especially if they mix.

[Kernel]

Re: Northerners...

"Gravy on chips is wrong!"

It's terribly wrong, but still pales in comparison to the crime against humanity that is curry on chips!

[kiwimuso]

Re: Northerners... @ I ain't Spartacus

"Chips with gravy is already an abomination "

Personally, I think that smothering chips in vinegar is an equal abomination, and also makes the chips go soggy.

Whatever heathen thought that vinegar (vinegar, for Deity's sake) is an appropriate condiment to drown chips with, needs to be flogged within an inch of his benighted life.

In fact, any sort of liquid addition to chips is an abomination. Although I must admit to a partiality to the continental habit of mayonnaise, and maybe, at a pinch, a smidgen of tomato ketchup. But only to dip said chips into as required, not actually smothering them and ruining the texture. Certainly not the abominable, overly sweet tomato sauce much beloved by other Kiwis!! I lost my taste for over sweet foods a long time ago.

Now awaiting the copious down votes from other heathens.

[jake]

Re: Northerners... @ I ain't Spartacus

When I make chips/frys (or chips/crisps) I often use a little vinegar powder in with the salt. You get the flavo(u)r without the soggy. I'm working on the company to do a proper malt vinegar powder ...

[fluffybunnyuk]

Good on El reg for posting the winners. It was a funny comments section.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Good lord, that looks good. I don't even know what in the flying tarnation a yorkshire pudding is (Yankee here,) but it looks good. Probably about 1,500 calories as we count 'em over here, though.

> Checks the Wiki.

"Batter of eggs, flour and milk." So yeah, basically calories incarnated. Looks rather like the crust of a chicken pot-pie.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Good lord, that looks good. I don't even know what in the flying tarnation a yorkshire pudding is (Yankee here,) but it looks good. Probably about 1,500 calories as we count 'em over here, though.

Having been sent to the local Morrison last Saturday on a mission to find four of these culinary delights, it honestly seems to be a male delicacy. I ended up eating two, daughters bf ate one and the Mrs and daughter couldn't manage one between them.

They truly are a thing of edible beauty.

[caffeine addict]

Well over 1500 calories I'd have thought.

You can't describe a yorkshire. It's British pancake batter (basically) poured into hot beef fat in a muffin tin and then baked until the edges rise and go crispy and the middle has just the right amount of stodge.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That sounds quite like the crust of a chicken pot-pie, in fact. Huh.

Man, I wonder if there's anywhere in the vicinity of where I am such a thing could be procured. Probably like, Wilmington, Philly or New York.

[jake]

Here in the US ....

... the Yorkshire Pudding is known as a "popover".

In the immortal words of Ogden Nash:

"Let's call Yorkshire pudding / A fortunate blunder:

It's a sort of popover / That turned and popped under."

The pizza hybrid is probably more like 3000 calories AWCT. TINW.

[agurney]

Southerners

..calling the kettle black.

Curry night in the Reading Hilton ... serving tattie scones.

[The Nazz]

Congrats to the winners.

And indeed, all the thousands of others who took part.

I'm content with the old saying "it's the taking part that matters".

Innit to win it.

[arctic_haze]

loud, aggressive porter

The kind of working class guy who used to carry luggage?

[Alistair]

Re: loud, aggressive porter

@ arctic_haze:

Summat liek Dis

Sadly I can't find a link to the Porter I fell in love with from GLB, although I suspect it may have been a single run for halloween three years ago.

[Alistair]

Gravy/Chips issues.

What are you talking about.

Gravy doesn't go on the chips.

The chips are on the bottom.

The curds are in the middle.

The damn gravy goes on the fresh cheese curds. It is the best way to melt them over the chips.

[jake]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

Poutine, by any name, is bloody disgusting.

[Alistair]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

@jake:

Clearly you've not been down hill skiing in -35C weather, and then had the pure joy of warming yourself from one end to the other with the glorious cheesy deliciousness of poutine. This makes me sad for you.

Have a beer to cheer up with.

[jake]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

Actually, that pretty much describes how I first ran across the monstrosity. An afternoon of playing hockey on a frozen lake in Stratford, 170ish kilometers East of Montréal. Only about -5C, but with a fairly decent breeze.

After the game, we adjourned to a local restaurant. They offered me a plate of poutine. I thought they were hazing me (being a Californian & all). But no, they were dead serious ... I was polite and sampled it. 'Orrible, 'orrible concept, kinda reminds me of the contents of the pig bins. Instead I went with the soup of the day (a delightful concoction of beef & barley with local greenhouse veg) and bread&butter, all made on the premises (including the butter!). Much more civilized.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

"Poutine, by any name, is bloody disgusting."

Just to help clear up any confusion (if any), gravy in the UK and especially with Yorkshire pudding, is a thick beef gravy. British gravy is almost invariably brown. What passes for "gravy" in the US seems to vary quite wildly even in the same locality, let alone across the rest of the USA. Biscuits and gravy being a prime example of something we'd have difficulty even understanding over here without visual aids.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

Biscuits and gravy is very nice though. Just horrific for your poor little arteries.

But then when I was a kid I used to eat bread and dripping. It was lovely! But the thought of it now, over 30 years later, makes me feel queasy.

[Kernel]

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

"Biscuits and gravy being a prime example of something we'd have difficulty even understanding over here without visual aids."

Never over fed the cat, then?

[Wensleydale Cheese]

truly a north-south thing?

I haven't a clue about the motivation for tortilla wrap, but the whole idea of gravy on chips reveals an East-West divide.

Gravy on chips is definitely a Lancashire thing, and simply doesn't exist in Yorkshire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

But in Yorkshire they have chips and scraps*, which are very hard to come by this side of the Pennines.

If only we could have a fusion food of local chips and gravy with foreign exotic scraps from yonder.

* scraps, aka bits: The bits of batter that falls off the fish in the fryer. Big mound of that with chips is the only good thing to ever come out of Yorkshire.

[Chris G]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

@ disgustedetc, We used to have chips and bits in South London when I was a kid in the '50s and '60s, and still going last time I was in the UK.

I was always under the impression that gravy on chips was a Brummy thing as I was offered it every time we went into a chippy in the midlands when I was working installing hyper market refrigeration systems in the late '70s, my mate thought putiing gravy on chips should carry the death sentence.

On the whole it wasn't too bad when the gravy was in a polystyrene cup so that you could dunk the chips if you wished (same with curry sauce but only from a Chinese chippy).

[Kevin Fairhurst]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

Scraps are certainly a thing west of the Pennines as well... I never went for gravy on chips when growing up, although due to being a fussy kid didn’t have proper roast dinners so didn’t have gravy on anything.

Now i’ve grown up & had some sense knocked in to me (ie Mrs refusing to let me get away with being a fussy bugger all my life!) I absolutely love proper roast dinners smothered in gravy, but still haven’t yet ventured in to having chips & gravy... or peawet* for that matter!

* scoop up some mushy peas from the pan, dribble the juices over the top of the chips, put the scoop of peas back in the pan!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

"but still haven’t yet ventured in to having chips & gravy"

It needs to be a really thick gravy, nearly as thick as ketchup, don't drown the chips and DON'T put vinegar on the chips.

[Dagg]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

It needs to be a really thick gravy, nearly as thick as ketchup, don't drown the chips and DON'T put vinegar on the chips.

Agreed! Also chips with Egg Mayo, Yum, NOT that 'orrible the crime against humanity "Salad Cream".

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

"* scraps, aka bits: The bits of batter that falls off the fish in the fryer."

AKA batter, bits, batterbits and, according my late father, scramptions, although I never heard anyone but him call it by that name. BTW, this is Tyneside, north of Yorkshire, and every chippy will ask if you want it with your chips, no extra charge because basically it's "waste".

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

As others have said, scraps isn't just in God's own county. My Mum worked in a chippy as a part time thing before the last of us were old enough for nursery. She did scraps. And complains about the new frylite stuff they use, rather than the proper beef fat from the 70s. Although chippies round our way, in Bucks, don't seem to do us anymore.

[jake]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

There are reason that Yorkshire is God's Country. This is one of them.

Gravy on scraps? Uh, no. Not unless you like eating wall paper paste.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: truly a north-south thing?

Scraps are certainly a thing a lot further south than Yorkshire. It may indeed be an East-West thing since they're normal in Peterborough.

[David Given]

Post-pub neckfillers!

Man, I miss those. I found myself wanting to look one up the other day and spent ages with the Reg's, um, great search engine...

Was there / will there ever be an edited collection of them, possibly with full colour photos and scratch-n-sniff previews, on paper? Because I might actually buy one.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Am I a Northerner?

Not sure how many others do this, but I absolutely love cold Yorkshire Puddings (the small ones, not the plate sized ones) with strawberry jam in them for dessert after a proper Sunday lunch.