PROUD Geordie telly star Ant McPartlin stocked up on a local delicacy during a trip back to Newcastle.
The Saturday Night Takeaway host had a huge bag of stotties with him as he left a Greggs bakery in the city.
Stotties are a North East version of a bread bun which can be up to a foot wide and are stuffed with ham and pease pudding or other savoury sandwich fillings.
Ant, 45, couldn’t resist them while on a Quayside stroll with fiancée Anne-Marie Corbett, 43.
Customer services manager Andrew Hickin, 41, said: “Like any good Geordie Ant obviously loves Greggs.
“He was more than happy for me to take a photo as long as the Greggs bag was in the shot.
“He had bought stotties — he’s clearly a fan. He had loads of them.”
Andrew, from Newcastle but now living in Corby, Northants, added of the couple: “They seemed really happy together.
“They were enjoying the sunshine with Ant obviously pleased to be back in his home city and showing Anne-Marie around.”
Since anyone not from Newcastle is often baffled as to what a stottie exactly is, Greggs — based in the city — includes a description in the FAQs section of its website.
It states: “Stotties, a North East favourite! They’re a heavy dough, round flat bread, baked on the oven bottom.”
Ant and Anne-Marie were out in Newcastle last Friday and returned to London shortly afterwards, where they were seen on a dog walk in Wimbledon at the weekend.
They are set to marry after Ant, who regularly parodied Star Trek with Dec Donnelly on SMTV Live, below, proposed on Christmas Eve with a ring he designed.
The engagement came after his 2018 split from wife Lisa Armstrong.
Bread roll with bounce
A STOTTIE is a large, round flatbread from the Newcastle area.
In the Geordie dialect “to stott” means to bounce. Traditionally, bakers bounced the stottie on the floor to determine if it was the right texture.
Ones that failed to bounce were discarded
Early stotties were heavy, chewy bread cakes made from leftover dough on the coolest part of the coal-fired oven. They are only available in the North East.
Greggs tried selling them elsewhere in 2013 but with limited success and said: “Unfortunately demand is not high enough.”
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