Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Piece and Six

I grew up in Grimsby. Well, our house was actually in Grimsby's Siamese twin town Cleethorpes (by about two hundred yards) but I always thought of myself as being from Grimsby, and I still do. This is mainly because the Cleethorpes of my childhood was little more than a soul-sucking stretch of stark, flat, polluted beach and bleak residential nullity with pathetic delusions of being a seaside resort, whereas Grimsby was its bigger, uglier, meaner brother which at least had a reputation as the largest fishing port in England. Residents of Hull, just over the Humber in the East Riding of Yorkshire, would dispute this claim but it didn't matter to us. They were Yorkies and they talked funny, wore flat caps and kept whippets. Such people were obviously retarded and not to be taken seriously.

Look at a map of north east Lincolnshire, if you can find such a useless thing. Here, I'll help you. You'll see that Cleethorpes sits immediately to the east of Grimsby on the south bank of the river Humber, right at the estuary. The Humber is a deep axe wound that severs England's spine just over half way up, as if the country had been murderously attacked from across the North Sea by some vicious and doubtless horribly moustachioed German assailant (which is a not entirely inappropriate image, of course.) To the west, the grey Grimsby docks give way to mile upon mile of polluting factory towers and the sinister steel cities of the Humber bank oil refineries. To the south, the bland rolling miles of the Lincolnshire Wolds stretch away and nothing interesting happens until they reach the marshes and canals of the Fens. Oh wait... nothing interesting happens there either. The eastern regions of England are largely flat, uninspiring and thinly-peopled. Life in Grimsby in the seventies was a little like living on an island, and we ain't talking Antigua here.

In the sixties and early seventies Grimsby was all about fishing. My maternal grandfather had skippered a trawler until he was lost at sea after his vessel was sunk by one of those German fellows during the war. I really cannot overstate the extent to which the war's long grey shadow still coloured English life even twenty years after the event. Everyone - everyone - I knew had lost family members during the conflict. It takes a long while for a people to forget that, which is a fact the current US administration seems blithely unconcerned about in regard to its recent Middle Eastern escapades, but woah there Jack, wrong venue for that sort of remark, stick to the point. The point is fish. More precisely, fish and chips.

As the emaciated young runt I was, fish and chips was one of the very few meals which I could not only tolerate but actually enjoy. In Grimsby the default fish was not cod, as it was - and is - pretty much everywhere else in the country; it was haddock. I have never really understood why this is. For some reason the inhabitants of a town whose name has always been associated with fish (even its football team is called 'The Mariners') decided that haddock was the superior species of the two. There isn't a huge difference between cod and haddock but the difference is there. The texture of haddock is slightly softer and more yielding, the flakes of flesh somewhat smaller, and the taste is perhaps a little sweeter and more pronounced. And I loved it. Most Fridays I would be sent on the short walk to one of two local "chippies" to fetch our family order of deep-fried delight, and I was always happy to do so. I loved everything about the fish and chips experience. I loved the layout of the shops, the queue around the walls (and often out of the door) of the small room fronting the gleaming silver fryers. I loved gazing into the glass cabinets displaying the golden battered fillets, fish cakes and individual steak-and-kidney pies. I loved the big jar of pickled onions on top of the counter, even though I never ate them. I loved the plastic salt and vinegar bottles. I loved watching the gruff  blokes in charge of the frying, as they agitated the frying baskets, stirred the contents and emptied big silver buckets of uncooked chips into the sizzling fat. I loved watching them dip each individual raw fillet into thick, creamy batter before dropping it into the bubbling fryer. I loved the plump, matronly ladies with their casual friendliness as they swiftly and expertly wrapped the orders: "Alraht, duck? Piece and six and a carton o' peas, is it?"

Piece and six... it's funny, I only remembered that expression as I started to write this post. In those times of slow inflation it seems there was a period of several years where the haddock - your "piece" - cost exactly one shilling (5p) and your single bag of chips cost sixpence (2.5 p). So you didn't ask for fish and chips, or haddock and chips; you asked for a "piece and six". I remember this very clearly now but it seems odd, because once chips went up to seven pence I don't recall asking for a "piece and seven". Maybe we did. I know that once inflation started to bite in the seventies the order became "fish and chips", and the type of fish was simply assumed to be haddock.

Fish and chip shops offered other goodies apart from the "standards" like fish, fish cakes and chips. Hot meat pies were almost as popular as the fish, perhaps moreso when the cost of fish soared during and after the Cod War. These satisfyingly unhealthy creations came in three main varieties: steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, and meat and onion. The palate-blisteringly hot contents were encased in a moist flaky pastry crust which sat in a tinfoil base. I had a period of obsession with these pies but my first and most enduring love was for the fish. We also had more exotic options such as a variety of "fritters" - pineapple, mushroom, onion - which simply involved dipping said items (cut into rings in the case of pineapple and onion) into the same batter used for the fish and frying them into crispy, fat-laden little delights.  Cod roe was another favourite of mine: a simple patty of firm, grainy roe given the same dip-and-fry treatment as most of the other items on the menu. There was sausage in batter. Even better than this were the sausage and fish patties: a layer of sausage meat or fish flakes sandwiched between layers of sliced potato and (you guessed it) dipped in batter and fried.

Let me say right here and now though that we never experienced the horror of the deep-fried candy bar. Such a monstrous concept would have been treated with the revulsion it deserves. I believe this disgusting development originated in Scotland where I understand it survives to this day (unlike most of the Scots who eat it, who are doubtless keeling over with cardiac explosions in their droves, if there's any justice.) It saddened me greatly to see the otherwise quite wonderful "A Salt and Battery" - Manhattan's loving recreation of a classic British chippie - succumb to the Caledonian madness by including this crass, inauthentic creation on their menu.

Next, let us consider the mighty chip. I hope it is now widely known throughout the once-oblivious expanse of America that when Brits say "chips" we are not referring to those wafer-thin slivers of sliced potato which come in plastic bags and are sold at your local convenience store. We call those "crisps". The British chip is more like the French fry, although it is about as similar to a French fry as American Cheddar cheese is to the genuine British article. French fries are thin, fairly evenly cut, pale yellow in colour and just ever-so-slightly crisp on the outside. A good French fry is a fine thing, but the British chip is significantly different from it in several ways; ways which can cause consternation and distress in the uninformed tourist. The chip is, on average, larger and fatter than the fry. It is far less predictable in shape, possibly because everything that comes out of the chipper - skinny edge pieces and random misshapes - is used. Above all, it is soft and slightly greasy. This is not a criticism. The yielding flesh of a traditional chip is delicious precisely because it absorbs quite a bit of the fat or oil it was cooked in, and when sprinkled liberally with vinegar and a little salt provides a taste and texture that are not merely unlike those of the French fry but, in my opinion, vastly superior. I will concede that the French fry is  (because of its comparatively bland uniformity) more versatile as a side dish, but when paired with something as hearty and robust as a piece of thickly battered, deep-fried fish, it is simply too flimsy and foppish to hold its own. You need the plump pugnacity of the British chip.

There was something else. Something not fried. Not golden. Not crisp. Not fatty. Something which stewed and simmered in its own special pan, usually somewhere at the back of the shop, perhaps adjacent to the till. Something served, via a gloop-encrusted ladle, in insulated paper or polystyrene cups. I am speaking, of course, of the Grimsby guacamole: the much-maligned and misunderstood mushy peas. Let me first say a word or two about what mushy peas is not. Right there I have given you a clue by using the singular form. I did not say "...what mushy peas are not". This is because "mushy peas" is a thing, not a collection of things. It is an entity in its own right. This may come as a surprise to anyone whose idea of mushy peas has been based on the completely bogus form of the dish which one finds in cans quite falsely bearing the name. What's in those cans is nothing more than standard processed peas that have been bashed around a bit.

This is not "mushy peas". It is something created by a marketing idiot who probably heard the term "mushy peas" and thought it sufficiently descriptive in itself to tell him everything he needed to know about the form and flavour of the product. Wrong. Very wrong. Almost as wrong as I was about what to expect on my plate when I first ordered sweetbreads. Mushy peas is made from dried marrowfat peas which have been soaked in a solution of bicarbonate of soda until they are soft, and then simmered for about four weeks (I exaggerate slightly) with a little sugar and salt until they form a lovely grey-green (not bright green) paste which looks like it might have leaked out of one of a slime-coated alien's more alarming orifices.

I'm not selling this very well, am I?

Look, it's probably an acquired taste, I grant that. But a healthy dollop of that magnificent gunk enhances a plate of fish and chips in ways it's hard to explain without turning the complexion of the uninitiated a similar colour to the substance under discussion and sending them reeling and retching in pursuit of a bathroom. So I'll stop trying. But I wish I could get even one American to trust me enough to give peas a chance. Either I'd have the satisfaction of watching them get it, or that of seeing whether they made it to the bathroom in time. Jolly good fun either way.

I have tried, you know. I have tried with the American closest and dearest to me: Ann. She loves fish and chips. She loves a lot of traditional British food. She loves ploughman's lunches, British beer, Anglo-Indian food, British cheeses, Yorkshire pudding and the Roast Beef of Olde England. She is - as those of you who have read her posts on this blog will know - an incredibly adventurous eater. Yet she will not touch mushy peas. She recoils in horror from its green and pleasant glory. The only other Brit favourites to cause the same abject terror in her American soul are black pudding and haggis - culinary gems, both. This is a source of great disappointment to me, but I have not yet given up hope that I will one day manipulate her into just the right level of drunken carelessness to rectify this unfortunate situation. Should this ever happen you can be sure one (or more likely both) of us will post about it.

I still enjoy fish and chips a lot, and whenever I visit the old home town I am always delighted to rediscover that it continues to provide some of the best examples of the dish anywhere. These days my visits to the chippie are a nostalgia trip, but as a child they were a lifesaver, and that's probably not even much of an exaggeration. The fish may have been encased in batter and cooked in unapologetically unhealthy types of fat but it was still fish, and there was little else I ate in those days that was as good for me. Pass the HP!

(Previously) Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Life Support          

(Next) Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: The Perfect Chip

Comments

[Manggy]

I was shifting in my seat a lot reading about your opinions of Yorkies and your interpretation of justice for the Scottish :) But still, I enjoyed this piece (peas?). For some reason I am now putting on the fakest English accent ever and saying to myself, "Come on, they're just peas!!" Which is what you should tell Ann, not that I have ever tasted or seen mushy peas.

I have yet to prepare fish and chips for myself. I've had a few F&Cs prepared here, but the batter slips off them and the inside surface of the resulting "bread" is so gluey that I'm thinking something was amiss that maybe I could fix at home. Also, I have only seen malt vinegar once (and it was just this last weekend, on vacation)-- on an island thousands of miles away from here (HP Sauce sounds good, though). I could have tried F&Cs prepared by an actual Englishman here in Manila but it was at a pub that was so seedy (and probably full of tourists and their temporary concubines) that I had to skip the "authentic" experience.

[Jack]

Ha - you shouldn't take my comments about Yorkies and the Scots seriously, Manggy. My sister is married to a Scotsman and Yorkshire is my favourite county in England! It was traditional when I was a kid to mock the "Yorkies" because so many of them came to Cleethorpes for their holidays: something which we felt didn't speak well of their taste, considering how desperately many of us who actually had to live there couldn't wait to get away from it. :-)

[PaulR]

A great post on fish and chips (Piece and Six). For some ignorant reason I assumed that you, Jack, were a native Londerner. Through the good offices of Google Earth I was able to view Cleethorpes and Grimsby.

In our household each child was allowed one "don't have to eat food." The same rule was imposed upon myself and siblings as children. Although my septuagenarian memory is a little faulty, I recollect that Ann was allowed to pass on peas. If true, that may contribute to her reaction to mushy peas. There are two or three eateries in the Tucson area that serve, what we think, are decent fish and chips.

[Ann]

Manggy, that expression om my face in the photo is exactly how I look when faced with mushy peas... and black pudding and haggis. They may be "just peas!!" but I don't want 'em.

Dad, I believe that early on I did eschew peas, but I started eating them when Mom started making that eggplant casserole-- so that I could claim eggplant as my "don't have to eat" food.

[Sophie]

Great entry! But I'd love to see a recipe for fish and chips some time as well! We should make them sometime, haven't had fish and chips since I sampled your's at Bondi's.

[JennDZ_The LeftoverQueen]

That is one beautiful piece of fish! Delicious and crisp!

Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll!

[Maryanne]

Great Post! I think you should make the real Fish & Chips next time you visit although buying fresh fish in Arizona can be a challenge!

[Leigh]

I understand the fear of mushy peas...it took a lot of convincing for me to try them but I am glad I did because they are, surprisingly, great and not really mushy the way I thought of "mushy." Jack, this post was such fun to read.