And the winner is – well, I don't know who the winner is, but later on today Seafish will be announcing the winner of the title Fish & Chip Shop of the Year 2008. In this day of pan-global food knowledge, of chicken tikka masala, Thai green curry and spaghetti carbonara, of pizza, sushi and the Mexican-style wrap, the more homely joys of fish & chips tend to get passed over by gastronomic glitterati and pseudo-sophisticated foodistas. But, when done properly, good fish and chips is more than the equal of any imported dish.
For what is fish & chips but British tempura, with a very Japanese emphasis on quality, science and tradition? There is, or there should be, the insistence on the very finest and freshest ingredients; the delicate steaming of the fish within a fine jacket of batter; the complex understanding of the relationship between the water content of potatoes, solid matter and hot fat; the nature of different fats themselves and the precise control of frying temperatures. And are not malt vinegar, salt and mushy peas the equivalent of soy sauce, mirin and dashi, the time-honoured accompaniments to tempura?
And to my way of thinking, the papery rustle of chips, the golden brown of autumn leaves, the exquisite crunch of crisp batter, the little puff of steam bearing the sweet promise of cod or haddock (sustainably sauced, of course) that escapes as you break through the batter carapace for the first time, the slippery collops of hot, lucent, white fish slipping between your fingers into your mouth, the tang of vinegar, the rasp of salt, the gloss of fat on the lips – don't tell me that these aren't the equal to any gastronomic experience in any part of the world. Of course, relatively few chippies reach these celestial heights consistently, but that is all more reason for encouraging the back sliders to do so.
Of course, and I'm edging out onto tricky ground here, there are two great schools of fish & chips. There is the Modern School, which believes that the fish is the hero of the fish & chips, and the fish and only the fish should be the focus of attention. In these places, and they are in the ascendancy today, the batter is as light as a butterfly's wing, the frying medium is invariably vegetable oil and the chips tend to outsourced and, frankly, play second fiddle to the fish. This is a fish and chips of hierarchies, with the fish at the pinnacle.
And then there is the Old School. Here fish, batter and chips all have equal parts to play in the fish and chip experience, and the medium of their equality is the fat used for frying – beef dripping. Beef dripping is the key to the overall sensation. Unlike vegetable oil, it isn't neutral. It's flavour keys the flavours of the other elements. The batter tends to be very slightly more substantial than that in the Modern School chippies, but then Old School batter is eaten on its own as part of the dish in its own right, not simply as a vehicle for the fish. The chips, too, take on a sweeter, meaty note.
The health police and contemporary obsessions may turn us away from beef dripping on the grounds that it isn't good for us, but, as you can probably tell, I am a devotee of Old School fish & chips. I accept the penalty of batter with a higher specific gravity because I like the way the batter becomes of a player of substance in the dish as a whole, and the way it carries the flavour of the dripping. You can always discard it, or some of it if it weighs too heavily on you, but my feeling is that it guards the pristine qualities of the fish just as well as the lighter, more refined batters and brings something distinctive to the celebration. And when it comes to chips, there is no comparison – chips fried in beef dripping are superior to chips fried in anything else, with the possible exception of goose fat. Indeed, they are superior to almost any other gastronomic experience known to man or woman.
Here are three favourites of mine:
Old School
· The Magpie Café, 14 Pier Road, Whitby, North Yorkshire, YO21 3PU (01947 602058)
· Fryer's Delight, 19 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8SL (020 7405 4114)
New Wave
· Seniors Fish Bar & Restaurant, 106 Normcross Road, Blackpool FY3 8QP (01253 393529)
No wonder fish & chips remains one of, if not the, most popular street food in the country. Like sausages (another hot topic), it is a national dish, eaten by those of high and low estate with equal gusto and pleasure.
There can't be many people who don't have their own views of precisely what constitutes the ideal fish & chips, and where to find them. What's yours?
