Whether you call them potato cakes, potato scallops, potato fritters or spud discuses, there’s one thing we can all agree on: they are definitely a roughly palm-sized disc of deep-fried potato.
Believed by scientists* to be the missing link in the evolutionary progression between potato chips and deep-fried fish, the fried potato hubcap is wildly popular by virtue of it being crispy oil-soaked and salt-caked carbs, which is more or less the perfect food.
Unfortunately, we’re going to be seeing a lot less of the humble potato scallop for a while, as Australia‘s nationwide potato shortage has made it difficult and expensive for fish and chip shop owners to get their hands on them.
While it might seem logical that a potato shortage would be uniformly affecting all potato products, it’s hitting scallops harder because of their unique potato requirements: the potato needs to be big.
One fish and chip shop owner in Queanbeyan told the ‘Canberra Times‘ they hadn’t been able to get potato scallops since October:
“We can’t get any potato scallops whatsoever.“We’ve been to all of them, mate – every supplier in Canberra that supplies takeaway shops and none of them’s got scallops.“I used to sell 1000 scallops a week and I’m not picking up $1000 elsewhere.”
Another said that while he’d been able to get them, he had to keep jumping between suppliers and had to give customers more than one thanks to their smaller size:
“We’ve managed to go only a couple of days without any coming in.“There’s a demand for it – people love their potato scallops. They’ve got to be a good quality potato with batter that’s not too thick and cooked fairly well.”
The shortage has come as the result of a particularly wet and storm-filled spring, which saw crops damaged and harvests delayed, mostly in South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales, although Western Australia and Queensland managed to pick up some of the extra demand.
Communications officer Dimi Kyriakou from AUSVEG says things should be back on track relatively soon:
“The latest potato growing season is going well and it is expected that supply will soon pick up again, as long as no major weather events occur before harvest.”
Thank fuck.
Source: Canberra Times.
