So Why Are Brits So Obsessed With Scampi?

Google’s annual Zeitgeist of the popular search terms of the year throws up some interesting quirks about the British, or 'Mid-Atlantic Island Monkeys' as we're becoming increasingly referred to in Germany and France following the EU veto row.

The most intriguing was the 'what is' top 10, which revealed that the UK’s love affair with food doesn’t look like going away anytime soon.

Bizarrely, "what is scampi" was the second most popular search term in the UK – with Google revealing that interest in the shellfish had soared by 80% over the past year.

But experts are at a total loss to explain why the tail of a Nephrops norvegicus, also known as a langoustine, Dublin Bay prawn, or Norwegian lobster (just in case you haven’t Googled it), sparked such a cocktail of interest.

There were no new crisp flavours or other major news stories involving the British pub menu staple which might have caused such a sudden flurry in puzzlement. And the creator of Fingerbobs hadn’t died (not for 10 years anyway), causing a tsunami of Twitter tributes from people who'd never known him.

The only tale that got much attention was a scare story in the Daily Mail (does it do any other types of stories) that scampi and chips could soon be off the menu for millions of horrified pub-goers because of a major decline in fish catches.

The 50% slump was blamed on those dastardly pencil pushers in Euroland, of course, as well as rising fuel costs, bad weather, and an increased demand for whole langoustines from France, Spain, and Italy (who tend not to eat them in the basket, smeared with tartare sauce).

David Jarrad, director of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, said he had no idea why there had been such a big fascination in scampi. "I'm quite surprised. It has been a traditional pub grub for many decades and it remains the UK's most popular and valuable shellfish by a long way," he added.

Further illustrating the British obsession with what is stuffed into our mouths, the top 10 also featured “what are truffles” in third place, and “what are cookies” in sixth.

Although presumably the latter was referring to cookies of the coding rather than cooking kind.

Top 10 “What Is” Searches

1. What is AV
2. What is scampi
3. What are truffles
4. What are piles
5. What is 4D
6. What are cookies
7. What is copyright
8. What is Zumba
9. What is iCloud
10 What is probate

Is There A Chilli In The House?

I took a deep breath and walked in the restaurant, wondering what the hell lay ahead. I gave my name at reception, and was told to wait in the conservatory area for the head chef to arrive. I sat there amongst the foliage, flicking through a menu.
It was true what they said about Rick Stein putting chilli in everything. He couldn't leave the stuff alone. There was monkfish vindaloo, Goan lobster curry, Singapore chilli crab, hot shellfish platter with chilli, smoked mackerel and green mango salad with bird eye chillis, mussels, clams and cockles masala, grilled scallops with chilli and coriander sauce, and probably other ones I can’t remember.
I was about to see whether there was chilli in the desserts when Raymond the head chef rushed in, and apologised for making me wait. I was surprised by all the fuss - the last time I’d done work experience anywhere, they'd taken the piss out of me all day, asked for tea every two seconds, and then sent me out to buy a pound of elbow grease.
I figured the same was going to happen at the restaurant. I thought when they weren't asking me to dice flour and wash salt, they'd be asking me to fetch strawberry deseeders, left-handed parsley curlers, buckets of steam, and cans of mise en place.
Raymond plainly wasn’t sure how good a friend I was of Stein’s, and was taking no chances. He led me through the restaurant and introduced me to the staff. The kitchen was clean and airy, and there was no smell of fish. The white-tiled walls gleamed under the fluorescent lights. In the centre was a large stove area, with stockpots and bubbling saucepans. One of the chefs handed me a freshly boiled langoustine.
The forelock-tugging continued as Raymond showed me each section of the kitchen, and then it stopped abruptly when I was introduced to a stocky man with cropped hair, and barnacled hands named Ted the Turbot. He looked me up and down as if choosing a ragworm for a hook, and pointed at the pass.
“There’s the coffee machine, I take two sugars.”


:: This blog eventually became a bestselling book, called Down And Out In Padstow And London by Alex Watts, about my disastrous attempt to train as a chef, including stints at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and Rick Stein's kitchens in Padstow.

You might like it if you're a foodie or have ever entertained the ridiculous idea of entering the padded asylum of professional cooking. It's here on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle book if you want a read...