‘Food glorious food’ should be ‘chips, glorious chips’.
And in my book, the best chips come from the chippy.
It’s probably because they are twice cooked, chef speak for part cooked and then finished off when needed.
But long ago when I was just a lad, chip shop chips were head and shoulders above today’s offerings.
Chips used to be fried in beef dripping, rendered down animal fat.
In domestic terms, it’s what drips from the beef when it’s roasting. This dripping in the roasting tin was what cooked the roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings.
And then, when it had cooled and solidified, the dripping could be kept and used for frying, or it could be spread on to bread sprinkled with a shake of salt and fed to starving kids like me.
This home-made beef dripping used to be spread on to a thick slice of bread, or toast, sprinkled with salt, and fought over.
It always had these brown bits that were scraped from the bottom of the roasting tin.
At one time, this was considered to be a real treat, but now, mention the ‘D’ word and people faint. For the record, any meat on my plate is eaten, including the fat.
I drink glasses of full fat milk and only ever use real butter.
My favourite cuts of meat are usually the cheapest (more fat), And as for pig’s trotters, if you’ve never tried, don’t condemn. Dreamland.
I should mention that as of three weeks ago, my cholesterol count was three.
I can remember the golden days when the only takeaway food came from the chippy.
No Big Macs or Domino pizzas when I was a lad. One of my weekly treats was the Friday tea time short walk from my grandmother’s house in Shaw’s Brow to Speer’s chip shop in Athol Street, for a basin full of chips.
Thick slices of bread and butter, help yourself to chips, and this week’s Beano. What more could a 10 year old want?
As the years moved on and household finances slowly improved an occasional treat was the first house at the pictures.
Two hours of Bob Hope or Roy Rogers and a tub of Ward’s ice cream or a choc ice on a stick. But the real treat was a greasy bag of chips, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper, to eat on the way home on the bus.
That was takeaway food as we knew it. And then it happened. The Chinese arrived with fried rice and crispy noodles. The first Chinese restaurant in Douglas came to Strand Street in the early 1960s, and life would never be the same again.
That first taste of Chinese was the beginning of an exiting new era for food in the island.
Takeaways began to take over, and that was the beginning of the end for the chippy. To the best of my knowledge the only chip shop left in Douglas is on Prospect Terrace (I would be pleased to be corrected).
It must be possible to eat ethnic food from the far corners of the world without leaving your own town.
In fact, you could probably eat ethnic food from the far corners of the world without leaving your house. Just open the phone book and order a takeaway.
I think I’ve just had one of those Eureka moments. If you are a Tesco customer, you could have your regular weekly shopping delivered to your door. All your instant meals, microwave ready.
Think of the time you would save for shopping on Amazon. You could play online bingo, buy lottery tickets and meet any number of like-minded soulmates on the dating sites.
Or you could shop around for a bargain, all inclusive holiday in Benidorm or Magaluf.
You could play bingo every night before you went to the karaoke. And it would be a treat to eat some proper food. A nice curry or an all day breakfast with extra chips.
Do you know, I’ve just had a good idea. How about opening a pork pie shop in Ayia Napa. Does anyone know the Greek for ‘hot gravy’?