Heroin Cuisine

The commonly accepted birthplace of the sinfully delicious -deep-fried Mars Bar is Stonehaven Scotland, near Aberdeen. In other words: hell. Parts of Scotland have the highest incidence of heart disease, cancer, strokes, and the lowest life expectancy in the developed world-. Is this at all traceable to their diet? Hmm, you tell me. While we don’t dispute that Scotland originally visited the deep-fried Mars Bar (DFMB) upon the world, we would like to clarify its origin even further, right down to that cuddly species known as the Scottish junkie.

We recently met James, a 35-year-old homeless methadone addict who now pitches his bed near New Oxford St, Central London. After I’d given him £2, he told me that the DFMB almost certainly came from the heroin-plagued estates of mid-1980s Scotland.“Aye, Mars Bars were one of our favourite things when we were doing junk full time,” James fondly recalled. “I walked in on my mate once and he’d fallen asleep with a whole Mars Bar in his mouth.“I heard they started frying them in chip shops but it was definitely the boys who were into the skag that started doing them up with batter and all. It was a little treat every once in a while. When I was on junk, all I ate was chocolate. We used to fry them up to vary the diet a little bit. You have to be careful though cause you can burn ‘em quite easy. I don’t eat them much down in London because the crack takes away your appetite.”

We tried to get 17 different chip shops in London to make us a deep fried Mars Bar but they all refused. Too low class and disgusting, every single one of them said. So we did one at home. You make thick batter out of the stuff Jamaicans use to coat fried chicken, then break a medium-sized egg in there, add 12oz of water and heat up some nut oil until it’s smoking hot. Coat your Mars Bar in the batter and drop it in the oil for about half a minute. Ours was slightly burned, but once you got inside the melted caramel and chocolate it tastedx. really vomit-inducing. It’s something I never want to try again—at least not until I’m a junkie living in a squat in Glasgow.

ANTHONY CORPER