The Deep-Fried Mars Bar: Stonehaven's Notorious Treat

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The dish is best described as developed and popularised in Scotland, with its exact point of invention unproven. The 1995 newspaper report is the firm anchor. The 1992 date rests on the shop's own account and on later recollections. Rival claims from other north-east chip shops are also recollections. The names of the people involved differ between accounts.

Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, ed. Tom Jaine, 2014) does not mention the deep-fried Mars bar; its entry on fish and chips is used only for the history of the chip shop trade.

The 2004 Lancet survey is the only systematic evidence of how widely the dish was sold. We were able to read the journal's own press release and the bibliographic records, but not the full letter. Figures in the press release are used here; secondary summaries add figures that do not fully reconcile with it, and these are flagged below.

Stonehaven and the 1995 story

established The first report. On 23 August 1995 the Aberdeen Evening Express carried a story by Alastair Dalton about teenagers at the Haven Chip Bar in Stonehaven ordering battered Mars bars during the school holidays. Dalton had been tipped off by a friend and passed the story to a colleague who covered Stonehaven. The shop's owner at the time, Ingram Mowatt, was quoted. A Mars spokesperson said it was the most unusual way of eating a Mars bar the company had heard of.

established The national pick-up. The Daily Record ran the story the next day under the headline "Mars supper, please" and later called it "Scotland's craziest takeaway". It is often said that the Record broke the story, but the Evening Express was a day earlier. Within days the BBC had covered it.

shared The 1992 origin. The Carron, as the Haven later became, says it first battered a Mars bar in 1992 at the request of a schoolboy. Later accounts name the schoolboy as John Davie, and some say he was dared to eat one by a friend. One account names the cook who fried the first bar as Evelyne Balgowan; another implies it was done under the owner, Ingram Mowatt. We found no contemporary record that settles who stood at the fryer. Some popular histories date the whole episode to 1995, confusing the first report with the first frying.

Rival claims

shared Banff and Buckie. In 2015 a former owner of the Duncan Street chip shop in Banff said battered Mars bars had been sold there from about 1984, and conceded that a chip shop in nearby Buckie had done it first. Local reporting named the Buckie shop as Dodie's, since closed.

shared Cathcart Chip Bar. The owner of the Cathcart Chip Bar told the Press and Journal that the shop opened in 1975 and was selling battered Mars bars before 1980.

shared What the rivals show. Fish and chip shops have long battered and fried things other than fish, and it is plausible that several shops tried chocolate bars independently. Stonehaven's real distinction is that it was the shop the press found. It therefore has the best-documented claim, not a proven first.

How it is made

established The method. The bar is usually chilled so that it does not melt before the batter sets. It is dipped in the shop's ordinary fish batter and fried for a short time in hot oil. The batter crisps while the chocolate, nougat and caramel inside soften. It is often served on its own, sometimes with ice cream or chips.

established The chip shop behind it. The deep-fried Mars bar depends on the fish and chip shop, and The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, 2014) shows how young that institution is. It calls fish and chips one of the national dishes of England "(and SCOTLAND)", but dates the familiar combination only to the 1860s, in Lancashire or London. Fried fish sold cold with bread was a London street food by the 1840s, with roots in a Jewish tradition of frying fish in batter, and chips go back to the late 18th century. Shops multiplied until the Second World War, with marked regional preferences for frying fat: vegetable oils in much of Lancashire, dripping in West Yorkshire, lard elsewhere in the north.

established An Italian trade in Scotland. The Companion also notes, citing the Irish cook Darina Allen, that Italian immigrants had become prominent in the fish and chip trade in Scotland, and that it was Italians from Scotland who took the combination to Ireland. Many Scottish chip shops, ice-cream parlours and cafés of the 20th century were Italian family businesses, which is the trade in which a batter-and-fryer novelty like this one could spread from shop to shop.

established A chip shop dish, not a factory product. Unlike most products on this site, the deep-fried Mars bar has never been mass-manufactured. It is made to order. Some shops refuse to sell it because sugar from the bar darkens and spoils the frying oil.

The Lancet survey, 2004

established Why it was done. By the early 2000s the dish was so often cited as proof of Scotland's poor diet that public health researchers David Morrison and Mark Petticrew set out to test whether it existed outside newspaper stories. Their letter, "Deep and crisp and eaten: Scotland's deep-fried Mars bar", appeared in The Lancet, volume 364, page 2180, in the issue published for Christmas 2004.

established What it found. According to the journal's press release of 16 December 2004, the survey covered around 300 Scottish fish and chip shops. Of these, 22 per cent sold deep-fried Mars bars. Three-quarters of the sellers had only started in the previous three years. Average sales were 23 bars a week, although 10 shops sold between 50 and 200. About three-quarters of the bars were sold to children and 15 per cent to adolescents.

shared Other figures. Secondary summaries of the letter say the researchers approached 627 shops, that 62 per cent responded, that a further 17 per cent of shops had sold the bars in the past, and that the mean price was about 60p. The 627 and 62 per cent figures do not sit easily with the press release's "around 300", and we could not check them against the full text.

shared What it means. The survey both confirmed and limited the stereotype. The product was real and sold across Scotland, but about four in five responding shops did not sell it at the time, and its main market was children rather than adults.

Mars and the trade mark

established The 2012 letter. In September 2012 Mars's senior regional trade mark counsel for Europe wrote to Lorraine Watson, who runs the Carron with her husband, Charlie. The letter said the company was "flattered" but that deep-frying its bar was "not in line with our marketing code". Mars asked the shop to display a notice that "Mars is a registered trade mark of Mars Incorporated" and that its use was "not authorised or endorsed" by the company. Mrs Watson said she was happy to put a disclaimer up.

established No protected status. The Watsons had looked into EU protected food name status for the dish but decided it would not be viable. Mars said no application had been made and that it would not support one.

From local craze to national symbol

established Tourism. In 2012 the Carron said it sold between 100 and 150 deep-fried Mars bars a week, about 70 per cent to visitors who came because of its reputation. In 2015 Aberdeenshire Council asked the shop to take down its "birthplace of the world famous deep fried Mars bar" banner, then relented.

established International spread. Coverage spread well beyond Scotland. In 2000 a Scottish chef put the dish on the menu of a Paris chip shop, and in 2004 it was mentioned on American late-night television.

shared The stereotype. The deep-fried Mars bar became shorthand, often mocking, for Scotland's poor health record. Many Scots resent this, pointing out that few people eat them regularly. Others treat it with humour or sell it to tourists. The 2004 survey is the best evidence that the dish has been more symbol than staple.

• The first newspaper report, in the Aberdeen Evening Express, came a day before the Daily Record story that is often credited with breaking it.
• The 2004 Lancet survey found that about three-quarters of deep-fried Mars bars were sold to children.
• Ten Scottish chip shops told the researchers they sold between 50 and 200 a week.
• Some chip shops refuse to fry chocolate bars because the sugar blackens the oil.
• Mars has asked the Stonehaven shop to say the product is not endorsed by the company.
• In 2012 about 70 per cent of the Carron's deep-fried Mars bars went to visitors.
• Fish and chips as a combination only dates from the 1860s.

• Myth: The deep-fried Mars bar was invented in 1995. That is the date of the first newspaper report. The Stonehaven shop's own date for its first battered bar is 1992.
• Disputed: Stonehaven is the birthplace. It has the best-documented claim because it was the shop the press found. Chip shops in Banff, Buckie and Cathcart say they sold battered Mars bars earlier, and none of the claims is documented at the time.
• Disputed: who fried the first one. Accounts name a schoolboy customer, usually John Davie, and differ over whether the cook was Evelyne Balgowan or the owner, Ingram Mowatt. No contemporary record settles it.
• Myth: The Daily Record broke the story. The Aberdeen Evening Express ran it on 23 August 1995, a day earlier.
• Myth: Most buyers were young men. The 2004 Lancet survey found about three-quarters of the bars were sold to children and 15 per cent to adolescents.
• Myth: Deep-fried Mars bars are a common part of the Scottish diet. In the same survey 22 per cent of responding chip shops sold them, so about four in five did not.
• Myth: Mars endorses the product. In 2012 Mars asked the Carron to display a notice that its use of the Mars name was "not authorised or endorsed" by the company.
• Myth: The dish has protected status. The Carron looked into EU protected food name status but decided it would not be viable, and Mars said it would not support an application.