Deep-fried Mars bar: a delicacy or embarrassment for Scots?

Officials at Aberdeenshire Council have backed down after attempting to remove a banner that hailed Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven as the birthplace of the deep-fried Mars bar.

The chip shop, which attracts tourists from around the world, was ordered to take down the banner "for the good of the wider community" after the council reviewed ways to "improve the look" of the area.

Lorraine Watson, the owner of Carron Fish Bar, said she had no plans to remove the sign, which tourists love to pose in front of with their battered chocolate.

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"I appreciate that deep-fried Mars bars aren't to everyone's taste, but they are what make us unique," she said. "From a business point of view it would be suicidal for us to take it down."

After public outcry from politicians, customers and tourists, officials said they would not force the takeaway shop to stop advertising the country's "most maligned snack", says The Times.

"There are some Scottish icons that should never be trifled with, however unsavoury, for fear of a public backlash. The deep-fried Mars bar can now be added to that list," says the newspaper.

Legend has it that two pupils from the local academy "challenged each other to eat a load of random battered stuff, resulting in the Scottish delicacy (or culinary embarrassment, depending on who you talk to) known as the deep-fried Mars bar", explains The Guardian.

Writing in The Independent, restaurant critic Grace Dent says it is "unfair for Scots to go out into this world tarred with this big, battered brush" – the battered Mars bar that leaves Michelin-star chefs "weeping" north of the border.

Promoting the 1,200-calorie snack as a "national delicacy" suggests that "just past Gretna Green one will spot hoards of sticky-faced, morbidly obese nougat-addicts, cramming fats fried in fat into shame-free fat gobs", she says.

But chip shop owner Jackson points out that everything is bad for you if you do it enough.

"People come here to go to Dunnotter Castle and then have a deep-fried Mars bar as a wee treat," she says. "I don't think there’s anything wrong with that."