Tikumu’s letter

Press, 18 March 1980, Page 14

Tikumu’s letter

pear /Readers, When you •;• buy your • lunbh rph a . school - day; : what do you usually have? Fish , and chips, perhaps, if there is a .shop'hear: your ’ school. It is '- a popular > choice for a quick/ tasty meal that can be'eaten ? how, when and where ybu want it. - " ■ Fish and chips seem to belong together, but this hai?' hot always been sb. They were fried and sold separately, for quite a long time? hofore they, became partners. A London fish shop owns a’plaque which states that It is the world’s oldest fish and chip business. It was presented in 1988 by the National Fedora km of Fish Friers, to commemorate “100 years of fish and chips.” However, both fish and chips «. were meeting a popular demand for a number of years before 1868. Frying facilities may have kept them apart, at first. Frying was done in heavy iron pans on coal or coke ranges, and the early friers have been likened to boiler stokers, because it was such, heavy work. The fumes from burning coal and boiling oil were wafted

some distance from the shops, arid many people did riot like, the . smelt The ■ premises- were small. Fish . arid chips had to be cooked < separately. yr/TThese were some of the .. difficulties the fish and chip industry encountered in the beginning, but always the demand was greater than the problems. At first fried fish shops - > sold fish only, and some provided bread to go with it.> Later, baked potatoes were added to the bill of fare, but the frier did not cook them. He boiled the potatoes until they were partly cooked, and a bread baker browned them in his oven, for a small charge. The baked potatoes were kept hot in a warmer over a charcoal firepot Meanwhile, chipped potatoes were being fried in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the north of England. They were called “potatoes in the French style,” and not surprisingly, the idea is believed to have ... come from France. ■ ■ Good news travels ■ quickly. It was not long be- . fore the idea of cooking potatoes in the French style i was taken up by fish I friers in London and other I parts of Britain. Chips had

found their way to fish at last. T'/' Towards the end of the ninteenth century mobile cooking units were produced by manufacturers; and shops on wheels went out to the customers. They stationed themselves near the factories during the day, later moving into handy positions to serve the housewives with their fish and chips for the evening meal. The home of fish and chips, in a manner of speaking, is on the range, and cooking conditions have come a long way since the “stokers” of more than 100 years ago kept the shop fires burning to fry fish, selling at about two cents for one piece with some chips. The immaculate shops with their gleaming white refrigerators and smoke- r less odourless frying pans that cook our hasty, tasty meals today are very different from the'ones that pioneered the fish and chip industry. So is the price. But fish and chips are still much the same in Britain where it all started, and in the countries around the world that have adopted “fish and chips in the British style.” ...J.-....