The high-quality cod and haddock served in Wetherspoon’s fish and chips are made to be praised
Freshly battered fish and chips continues to be a perennial favourite with Wetherspoon’s customers.
The pub classic is available every day of the week, as part of Wetherspoon’s pub classics and small pub classics ranges, as well as in the afternoon deal.
The afternoon deal (Monday – Friday, 2pm – 5pm) offers the choice of a small pub classic meal or a pub classic meal and also includes a drink*, all in a value-for-money offer.
The fish (cod – or haddock in Scotland) is freshly battered by hand, for the best-quality product, and served with chips, as well as your choice of garden peas or mushy peas – and includes a drink*
(alcoholic or nonalcoholic), with more than 150 to choose from.
The fish…
All cod (and haddock, in Scotland) served at Wetherspoon’s pubs carries the blue fish ecolabel – assuring you that the fish has been sustainably sourced. Wetherspoon is the largest pub chain in the UK certified to use the blue Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel.
Wetherspoon serves fish which has been caught by fishermen in fisheries which have been certified to the MSC standard as sustainable.
The MSC is an international charity which wants to see the world’s oceans teeming with life, so it sets globally recognised, science-based standards for sustainable fishing and seafood traceability.
The blue MSC ecolabel gives customers the assurance that seafood comes from a wild-catch fishery, independently certified to the MSC’s standard for environmentally sustainable fishing – fully traceable to a sustainable source.
The chips…
Wetherspoon chips are made from British potatoes. The company’s long-term partner McCain has been producing and supplying chips to Wetherspoon’s pubs since 2001.
Market-leader McCain Foods produces every portion of Wetherspoon’s British potato chips, sourced from more than 250 Red Tractor-assured farms across the UK, from the Highlands of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall.
A family-owned company, McCain cares about using simple ingredients to create simple food which tastes good. There are no artificial colours or flavours added – and with every potato, McCain (and, therefore, Wetherspoon) has traceability right back to the farmer and the exact field where that potato started.
The McCain brothers founded the company in their hometown of Florenceville, Canada, in 1957, creating the first-ever frozen chip. McCain in the UK began in Yorkshire and is still there today.
The accompaniments…
Although peas are a staple food in Britain and have been grown here for roughly 10,000 years, the origin of mushy peas as an accompaniment to fish and chips is thought to date from just the 1970s.
Mushy peas are made by soaking dried marrowfat peas (mature peas which have been left to dry out) in water overnight.
They are then seasoned and cooked to produce a thick, mushy, bright green paste, originally made popular in the north of England and the Midlands.
What is tartare sauce and where does it come from?
The real origin of tartare sauce remains unclear, although it was first mentioned in 19th-century French cookbooks and was originally an accompaniment to steak tartare.
The sauce, which became commercially available in a jarred version in the 1920s, is, at its core, made from mayonnaise mixed with pickles, capers and herbs – and is perfect with fried seafood.