Broadway Fish Bar, Broadway Market

Framed history of Fish and Chips. Also history of Cod

F. Cooke, Pie and Mash Shop, Live Eel Importer, opposite Broadway Fish Bar

Sunday. Closed. I walk past the window; the bottom right corner, by the counter, catches my eye. A paper bag, torn in half to form a single, square sheet of off-white paper, serrated along one edge, betraying its bag – origin. Written on it in black marker pen
SAT GIRL
WANTED
ASK INSIDE
At each corner of the poster there is a splodge of bright green pie liquor, flecked with dark green parsley, which glues it firmly to the window.

Ming Hai

The man goes in to the back room, through the coloured ribbon curtain, to make the chips. I wonder what elaborate fantastical machine he has out there for making the chips. The dividing wall has the look of a screen – it is sky blue, decorated with delicate bounding dolphins. It looks flimsy and gold tinged.

The menu goes beyond fish and chips. Also rice, spring rolls, rice and curry sauce. I think how there’s a tidiness to that: fish & chips + Indian influence = chips & curry sauce + Chinese influence = rice + curry sauce = back to (kind of) rice & curry.

Wrapped

I had a craving for chips, proper chip shop chips, cut from real potatoes unlike their more widely available and substandard counterpart the French fry. We had just been swimming and my belly felt the ache of a black hole ready to be filled. The closest shop was Simply the Best Fish Bar on Hackney Rd, I’d passed it many times on the way to visit Clare but never before ventured inside. Two men stood behind the counter the one who took my order had dark hair hidden under his chef’s cap and thick black eyebrows. He smiled at me kindly as I asked for a large portion of chips, wrapped and a can of coke. I watched in amazement as with out even looking he grabbed a can of coke from the impeccably arranged row of different canned beverages behind him. Tossing the can over his head with the lightest flick of his wrist the can stayed in the air as he scooped chips in to a bag, as it came in to land he caught it in his left hand placing it lightly on the counter and continued scooping chips in to the bag. He looked up at me for salt and vinegar distribution clearance, I gave the nod. He then took several layers of newsprint and with the grace of an origami master wrapped the fat sweaty chips in to a neat bundle. His hands moved in double time. He spun round and whipped a bag off the hook on the wall behind him, returning unfazed and centred he smiled at me holding out the bag of masterfully wrapped chips. With one last impressive flourish of his expertise he threw the coke can between his legs and over his head guiding it gently in to my right hand.

Chip Story

One time, when I was little, I went round to my friend Ginny's for tea, after school. I remember sitting at a small table, round the corner from the kitchen, just us two. We were having chips, and, unexpectedly, Ginny stuck two chips up her nose. I can still visualize it. I felt completely traumatized. I can't remember anything else about the visit, except the dark of the hallway and that Ginny wore skinny tight black jeans.
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Poke of Chips

You don't get 'pokes' in London. I remember them in Penicuik (but I don't remember ever eating any chips). I just remember hanging around outside Penny Chip Shop. It was newly opened, big, bright and exciting. I don't know what I was doing there; I must have been too young to be supposed to go there, on my own, hanging around on the corner. I remember talk about the Casuals; which boy was a casual, and so on.
*Pokes are a kind of cone shape of paper to put the chips in
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Regional Specialities/Variations

Penicuik: Poke
Irn Bru
Deep-fried battered Scotch Pies (mutton, round, flat, straight sides, hole in the middle)
Winchester: Pea Fritters
Bradford: Bag of Scraps - bits of batter that have fallen off (Given away free)
Fish cakes - made with thin slice of potato, little fish, another slice of potato, squashed, battered then fried
Never peas
No skin on fish

Haggerston Fish Bar

This chip shop is pristine, very clean and ‘fifties looking. It has light blue (turquoise?) Formica, trimmed in shiny metal, like a ship - with beautiful detailed embossed bits. There is a shrine-like end corner with a display of pictures and photos. On the end wall, up high, facing me as I come in, is a suave, moustachioed, dark-haired and beautiful man in a black and white framed (large) photo, loving the camera. I ask the man behind the counter ‘Who is this man?’ He replies ‘That’s the owner. But not now. Twenty years ago.’
‘He looks like a film star’ I say.
‘Actually, there are two old friends of the owner, they come here and have fish and chips in the back room together (He points through the ribbon curtain to the back room). They were all film stars.’ (I imagine the scene, the three old dudes round the table in the private room, with three portions of Cod and Chips)
‘You wouldn’t know them, but they were famous in Turkey.’