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Growing
up, fish & chips was a meal that was heated on a
baking pan. The fish cutlet came from a box, the
french fries from a plastic bag. A hearty mix
of mayonnaise, mustard and pickle relish accompanied
them. On occasion, tater tots could be substituted
for the french fries, but usually the tater tots merited
their own night and were matched with ketchup.
We also ate the odd plate of fish & chips at Long
John Silver’s or an English-themed pub, but it wasn’t
a meal that excited the Lewis boys like a trip to Wendy’s
or the all-you-can-eat tostada counter at The Sizzler.
When
I moved to England for a year in late 1994, my views
on fish & chips changed. I was living in a university
house of residence, subject to the whims of the hall’s
catering staff, which usually took this form:
----
Shot
glass of grapefruit juice
or
Cup of watery leek soup
----
White
roll
or
Slice of white bread
----
Boiled
meat with boiled vegetables
or
Boiled fish with boiled vegetables
or
Boiled vegetable casserole
----
Rhubarb
pie in yellow sauce
or
Mummified apple
----
If
the meat dish happened to be something inedible—like
if boiled fat was substituted for boiled meat—I was
out of luck because the vegetarian option was solely
for vegetarians or—on boiled pork night—for practicing
Muslims or Jews.
I
hope I don’t sound like a privileged, ungrateful lout.
I ate all the food I received, but I was playing for
a water polo team and needed a higher caloric intake
than a small portion of boiled meat and veggies provided.
After dinner, I often would hoof it to one of the many
take-out restaurants that catered to the still hungry
students. The near-by options were limited to cardboard
pizza, a chippie (serving fish & chips), KFC and
Pakistani food. The Pakistani food was outstanding,
but due to high demand, it took a very long time to
get served. I was resolved not to eat at KFC, so in
the first few weeks in England, I usually chose between
the chippie and the pizza stand.
The
chippie was cheap. Three pounds—about five dollars—bought
a mountain of fries and what seemed to be an entire
cod. The fish & chips tasted good, but were so greasy
that the paper holding them leaked oil like a '79 Pinto.
After eating, my face and hands glistened and my stomach
rumbled. It took three or four of these meals for me to vow
that, for the sake of my angry stomach, my fish &
chips days were over.
After
about five years, I lifted the ban, in part because
of the book The Basque History of the World,
by Mark Kurlansky. It’s a history of the Basque
people, whose culture thrived, in part, because of their
intimacy with cod. I decided that what’s good
for the beret-wearing, jai-alai-playing, bull-fleeing,
New-World-exploring, whale-harpooning, O-blood-circulating,
Guggenheim-building, cod-salting Basques is good enough
for me. Kurlansky also wrote Cod: A Biography
of the Fish That Changed the World, but a read
through that book would have been preaching to the choir.
I’d already vowed to eat the pale flesh of the cod family
more regularly.
I
began my new life respectably enough. At restaurants,
I swapped steaks or rack of lamb for grilled halibut,
cod or sole. Occasionally, though, when grilled fish
wasn’t available, I settled for fish & chips. At
some point in the late 90s, I dropped fast food from
my diet and fish & chips became a ruse to trick
my newly health-conscious mind into accepting french
fries. Even worse, I’d always lap up all of the tartar
sauce in the metal cup-thingy. I convinced myself that
the benefits of those omega threes outweighed the grease,
the mayo in the tartar sauce and the mercury in the
fish. I knew better, but soon I wasn’t “settling for”
fish & chips, I was craving them. It came down to
this: Me Want Fries. And also this: Tartar Sauce…Good.
I
fight a pitched battle with this desire for french fries.
Our trip through the Pacific Northwest presented a challenge
because seafood is the region’s culinary strength. Our
friends from the area and our travel literature were
unified in their cry to eat fish. I took this as a call
to eat fish & chips.
After
two days in Washington, I concluded that there is not
a substantial difference between a portion of fish &
chips in the Pacific Northwest and, say, a batch of
fish & chips at a Denny’s in Albuquerque, particularly
if your palette focuses on the fries and tartar sauce.
Feeling sheepish because I wasn’t making the most out
of my dining experience, I ordered halibut at expensive
restaurants on back-to-back nights. This created a new
layer of guilt because the $100 meals didn’t really
fit into our vaguely-defined trip budget.
The
second halibut meal—which included a side of fries and
mayo—prompted me to reevaluate my life and the role
of the cod family in it, or at the very least, in our
trip. Fish & chips were out, as was halibut if it
cost over $12 a plate. In other words, no more greasy
foods and expensive restaurants. On the way home from
the second halibut meal, I broached the subject with
my wife, Lynn:
“We
should cut back on the number of times we go to restaurants.
We should eat more vegetables and I think we’re spending
too much money on food. How about if we stop by the
organic market on Robeson St. and get some more groceries?”
This
was not a bold statement, since I was basically reiterating
her opinion on the matter from an earlier conversation,
when we decided to eat out only once a day. Her response
this time was obliging, but lukewarm, “OK, but we’ve
only been eating out once a day. Do you really want
to eat two meals a day in our room?”
I
hadn’t crunched the numbers. Two meals a day of
crackers, cheese and carrot sticks didn’t sound too
good, especially if breakfast consisted of bread, cheese
and plums. Still, the memory of dipping fries
into mayonnaise, followed by paying a large tab, made
me zealous. I wanted Lynn to genuinely agree with
me. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea?!”,
I said, and then delivered what I thought would be the
coup de gras: “We could buy a crudités platter!”
Humoring
me, Lynn said without conviction, “That’s fine with
me.”
I
needed validation through enthusiastic support, so I
decided that now was the time to make my french fry
problem public: “Also, I’m going to stop eating french
fries. I’ve been eating too much fish & chips. I’m
going to stop ordering fish & chips. Instead, we
can eat meat and cheese and figs and nice bread.” (I
couldn’t think of the word charcuterie.) “And celery.
We could buy pre-cut celery.”
At
the organic market we purchased various charcuterie-type
items, fruit and a few snackable vegetables. We didn’t
buy figs, but to assuage the fish & chips guilt,
I bought Rye-Crisps and three pounds of non-fat organic
fig bars. Yum.
The
next day, I ordered fries at a restaurant in Whistler.
That’s just plain sad. For dinner, my penance was rye-crisps.
The
day after that, we took a ferry that hopscotched between
the Gulf Islands—the Canadian equivalent of Washington’s
San Juans. Our destination was Saturna Island, a secluded
artists’ colony off the coast of Vancouver. We choose
it because it was the least touristy of the Gulf Islands,
but it was perhaps a little too far off the beaten track
for a day trip. When we got off the ferry, either a
relative or friend greeted each of the dozen or so fellow
travelers who disembarked with us. They drove their
separate ways, leaving us standing alone in the tiny
street with four hours to kill.
We
planned to have a light lunch at the Saturna General
Store, which doubles as a café, and then take
a walk to a sheltered cove near the ferry dock. Our
leisurely one and a half mile walk from the dock to
the café took about a half an hour, including
time spent photographing the yucca plants that belonged
in Southern California rather than Southern Canada.
We had a nice, healthy lunch. I ate a delicate Dungeness
crab sandwich and Lynn had spanikopita with a green
salad. We split blueberry pie and the bill came in under
$30 Canadian. Factor in the walk and we had a guilt-free
lunch.
We
still had two and a half hours to kill, though. Saturna,
according to brochures, has plenty of sights to see,
but it’s not conducive to a short walking tour. Therefore,
we stuck with our plan to visit the sheltered cove near
the dock. After about a forty-five minute walk, we reached
the cove, traipsed around in the mud a bit, snapped
a few pictures and considered our options for the next
hour and a half.
We
probably could have explored on foot some more or bribed
a local into giving us a kayak tour, but I have a deeply-ingrained
need to be early for public transportation, whether
it’s a plane, bus or ferry. If we missed the ferry,
we would be stranded for the night and probably would
have to beg to spend the night in the lobby of one of
the B & Bs that we saw with “No Vacancy” signs.
Catching the ferry, therefore, was our top priority,
so we headed back to the dock, where we hoped to wait
out the remaining time while sipping on iced tea at
the dockside pub.
I’ve
never felt comfortable in the café culture that
allows you to buy one drink and sit for hours at a table.
I start feeling bad for the proprietor or worry that
another patron may sit down at my table and demand to
discuss Derrida or make me listen to Yo La Tengo on
her iPod. In the past, when serving as a designated
driver, this unease led me to order one soda after another—with
a pint of orange juice now and then for variety—because
I need a glass in my hand to prevent feeling like a
loiterer. Also, I could avoid uncomfortable small talk
with strangers by staring at the ice, seemingly contemplating
its “iceness.”
Anyway,
this mindset afflicted me at the dockside pub. When
I ordered our drinks, the bartender was gruff, which
reinforced my need to order something else after I finished
my syrupy iced tea. After half an hour of swirling the
straw in the dregs, I felt compelled to buy the $3.00
cup of minestrone soup. At a bar, nothing fulfills my
need to be a customer better than ordering food, even
if it’s just a cup of soup.
It
is pointless, though, to attempt to order minestrone
soup in an understaffed bar on a secluded island in
a country founded by the English. A pub with beer-themed
lights over its pool table and one food preparer generally
serves one type of soup: canned. Minestrone is a solid,
sometimes spectacular soup when prepared with inspiration.
From a can, it is a slap in the face of Botticelli,
Garibaldi, Ferragamo and the rest of Italian culture.
As
I waited my turn to order, I began having second thoughts
about the minestrone and searched the photocopied menu
stapled to a nearby post for a better option.
Clam chowder certainly wasn’t better. Nor was
chicken salad. A retiree jabbered on to the barmaid
about how she’d heard “great things” about the pub’s
fish & chips. The barmaid merely grunted,
which I should have taken as a sign of caution, and
turned to take my order. The barmaid raised her
eyebrows expectantly while I searched the menu vainly
one last time, trying to push the thought of “great
things” out of my mind. I wilted under the pressure.
When
I returned to the table and couldn’t look my wife in
the eye, she knew.
Mr.
Lewis can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.
Copyright
Jeff Lewis, 2004 |
