My reference to the Great British Chip as being related to "French fries" in last week's column caused considerable rumblings in staunchly proud British stomachs. "Shockingly unpatriotic," was one of the more polite observations.
I've been half-expecting the Beefeaters to show up on my doorstep, put me in ball and chain and transport me back to the Tower of London for a grilling, or perhaps a frying.
An explanation is in order. I foolishly thought the alternative etymology for chips might benefit our North American readers for whom "chips" are what Brits call crisps.
Misunderstandings of this nature when ordering chips are quite common even in Thailand. On occasions I have ordered a meal which on the menu included chips, only to be served crisps. I recall once trying to explain to a waitress in a Bangkok hotel that the crisps she served were not chips. It wasn't her fault of course and understandably the poor girl hadn't a clue what I was talking about. So I sulked and ate the crisps, which were actually quite tasty.
I'm ancient enough to remember the joy of possessing a threepenny bit which in the mid 1950s was enough to buy a very small bag of chips, suitably soaked in vinegar. Oh happy days. Alas, inflation soon intervened and for most of my childhood you needed a sixpence and then a shilling for the same amount of chips.
I am also wrinkly enough to remember eating fish and chips wrapped in newspapers. Perhaps it was the printing ink that slid down with the vinegar which sparked my newspaper career.
The lure of England
Fish and chips are still regularly brought up in conversation when people are distinguishing British culture from another. The meal is regarded as a long-standing bastion of Britishness.
One of my favourite moments from the film Snatch (now an alarming 22 years old) is when New York gangster "Cousin Avi", played by Dennis Farina, is explaining to a puzzled underling that he reluctantly will have to fly to London. He explains his misgivings with fervent distaste:
"Yes, London. You know: fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary f------ Poppins. LONDON".
Later while speaking to "Doug the Head" Cousin Avi continues his rant about England: "I don't like leaving my own country, Doug, and I especially don't like leaving it for anything less than warm sandy beaches and cocktails with little straw hats."
Cockney rebels
During my early days in Bangkok I had an American friend who taught at one of the universities. He was a friendly fellow and also very much an Anglophile, although he had only visited England once. We got on well but for some reason whenever he saw me he felt obliged to break into a pseudo cockney accent and tell me how much he missed the pubs and fish and chips in England. Unfortunately his cockney accent was even worse than Dick Van Dyke's in the 1964 film Mary Poppins (that woman again).
Van Dyke was graceful enough to admit that his cockney accent wasn't a total success. At an awards ceremony in 2017 he apologised for "the most atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema". Van Dyke said he was puzzled that none of the all-British cast, including Julie Andrews, hinted that his accent was a bit off. "People in the UK love to rib me about it. I will never live it down," he said recently.
He shouldn't have worried because his unique accent simply added to the charm of the film.
Codswallop
One of the characteristics of fish and chip shops is that they give restaurateurs the opportunity to come up with all sorts of dreadful puns. In the UK there is A Salt and Battery and The Frying Scotsman and you can even go to a Fishcoteque. Inevitably there are lots of cod puns of which Codfather and Oh My Cod! are probably the most common, although I prefer Battersea Cod's Home.
One fish that takes a bit of a "battering" when it comes to shop names is plaice, and around the world you are like to see variations on Perfect Plaice, Happy Plaice, Our Plaice and so on. Popular films have also made an impact with For Your Fries Only in several locations, while there is A Fish Called Rhondda located in the famous Welsh valley of that name.
Seafood specials
All this talk of fish brings to mind some of the splendid seafood offerings that have graced Thai menus over the years with their unique, but charming brand of English.
A Siam Square restaurant featured a promising "From the Sea'' section which included the intriguing stripe calms and prawn cocklait. In Khon Kaen there was a place which boasted seafoot cocktail and among other enticing "seafoot" offerings were fried squit and boiled crap.
Then there was the Phitsanulok hotel with the delightful steamed mussies, a must for all mussie lovers. Other seafood offerings were filled of sole and that seafood speciality only available in Thailand … ogsters.
Fans of chips will be pleased to learn that restaurant in Korat had its own local version, potato ships.
