A Chip on My Shoulder

I’m at home killing some time before a flight to my parents’ for a couple of days home-refuelling. I have some extra time to kill after missing the flight I was booked on this morning, and having just about overcome the wanting-to-head-butt-myself phase, can now indulge in the I-can’t-wait-to-eat-such-and-such phase! I must admit that in this respect, every British stereotype applies – pies, pasties, fry-ups, and of course, the iconic fish and chips.

Whenever I mention this, my non-British friends and family either laugh, or make some kind of “I just don’t get it” comment, and this is fair enough. There are many Swedish flavours I have yet to acquire a taste for, and I fully appreciate the importance of the “taste of home” factor. But I do believe that British cuisine gets an unfairly bad press, and our beloved chip is no exception. In “A Cooks’s Tour”,  American food writer Anthony Bourdain described the supper served on a visit to a Glaswegian fish and chip shop thus: “The fish was great, the chips, as everywhere in the UK, were needlessly substandard, limp, and soggy. Few chip shop owners bother to blanch their fries in low-temperature oil before frying, so they are never, ever crisp.”

Now this is a fair point. Chips shops are rarely entirely crisp. But I feel part of the problem comes from the idea that “chip” is simply the UK-English word for a French fry. The distinction is far more subtle, and the words are not so simply interchangeable. It’s not simply a case of us brits “failing” to get our chips crisp – we cook them using a different method, and as such they are a totally different dish. This is one reason why they taste better with vinegar, and why fries are better complemented by ketchup. If you are expecting a fry when ordering a chip, you are bound to therefore be disappointed.

But this does not mean that either is superior. Of course, one may develop a preference, but to simply think of one as the poor relation of another, or one as being simply “the right way to do it”, is missing the point slightly.

This also leads me to thinking of an oral presentation I was required to give as part of my Swedish studies. We had been set the task of describing something that is done in a different manner in our home country and in Sweden, and compare the two. Some described different Christmas or new year celebrations, others weddings, others visiting a restaurant. I examined the process of making a cuppa.

The swedes love their tea, but favour the fruit-flavoured/herbal blends, and specialist tea purveyors are scattered everywhere. Milk is very rarely added, and honey favoured over sugar. I love this, and have an impressive selection of teas at home (in a very fancy wooden box labelled “tea” in gold, no less!). I find them very refreshing and light and love the variety of flavours.

On the other hand I love a brew – the classic British builder’s tea, strong and milky, and above all else from a TEA BAG. I became very protective of this institution when my lovingly crafted powerpoint presentation attracted disapproving frowns and mutterings of “dish water,” and tried to explain that if you think of them both as the same drink, comparisons will always hit a dead-end. It doesn’t have to a case of either/or, as they have their own qualities that make them appropriate for different situations. There are times when only milk and two sugars will do!

We have no problem recognising the vast array of ingredients, cooking techniques and traditions the world over for their own individual merits, so why leave out the basics, those which we take for granted and are brought up on? Eat with your mind as open as your mouth, and you may just be pleasantly surprised.

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