Ten years ago, on a night out with friends, Craig Adams wrote his name into buttery history when he invented the rowie fritter.
It started, as many great ideas do, after a few drinks. Craig, a bartender and co-owner of Krakatoa bar on Aberdeen’s Trinity Quay, was entertaining some acquaintances. As the night wore on, the conversation turned to food, and what would make for a good late-night snack.
Exactly what happened next is slightly unclear – no doubt to be debated by food historians for years to come.
But somehow a plan was hatched to take a buttery to a chip shop, dip it in batter and get it deep fried.
This week on Me and My Buttery, we speak to Craig, 51, for his take on that legendary night out, why more people need to know about his co-creation and what exactly a deep fried rowie fritter tastes like.
Spoiler alert: A bit like chicken.
Craig, hello. We are honoured to have you on Me and My Buttery. Can you tell us how you came to create the deep fried rowie fritter?
We were thinking, what would be the ultimate local cuisine? That got us talking about deep fried Mars Bars, and we thought, ‘Oh, my God, nobody’s ever tried to deep fry a rowie. Because that makes perfect sense.
We couldn’t find any record of anyone having done it, so we went into the Dolphin chip shop (in Aberdeen) and asked if they’d deep fry a battered one for us.
They said yes but insisted on a prepackaged one because they were going in the fryer. So we went to a supermarket, bought some and took them back.
And then they did them for us. They were laughing the whole time they were cooking them.
What time was this?
It would definitely have been very late in the evening. Then we took them back to Krakatoa for sampling.
How did they taste?
We thought they would taste just like a rowie but in batter. But because it’s been deep fried it gets so hot it kind of melts.
It has a really soft center and it tastes like an inexpensive chicken burger. Salty and meaty, but you have trouble discerning what the meat is.
That must have been an amazing discovery.
Yes, and I can’t believe no one has repeated the trick.
Why haven’t you repeated this yourself?
I discovered I was coeliac in 2012, not long after we did this. I haven’t been able to eat anything with flour in it since then. The rowie fritter was probably the final nail.
Why hasn’t anyone else done it?
Well, you’d have to restrict how many someone could eat in their lifetime, for medical reasons.
But I just think nobody has made that connection. It’s just passed everybody by.
We’ve tried our best to promote it, and we even thought of a follow-up to take it to the next level. You get TWO rowies, slap some donor meat and maybe some cheese in between them. And then deep fry that.
Krakatoa is on 2 Trinity Quay and hosts live music. To see upcoming gigs and buy tickets, click here.