My Golden Moment as a Fish & Chips Fry Cook
I risked humiliation by accepting an invitation to prepare my own fish and chips at Ken's Fish Bar, one of London's best "locals". The reward was a deep appreciation of the fry cook's touch.
Some kids fantasise about filling the football boots of Lionel Messi or the heels of Taylor Swift, if only for a day. I imagined myself standing in the shoes of a fry cook at a London fish and chips shop.
I wasn’t fully aware this was a lifelong dream until December, when Ken’s Fish Bar in Herne Hill, South London invited me to step up to the deep fryers and cook my own fish and chips.
I blinked back the tear forming in my eye. I didn’t wish to diminish this act of kindness with cheap sentiment. I don’t get why, when people finally find themselves in the moment, as I had, the first thing they want to do is lose themselves in the moment.
“For as long as I can remember,” I confessed to the-real-Ken-whose-real-name-probably-isn’t-Ken, “this possibility has never ever crossed my mind. I can’t thank you enough for putting it there.”
Journalists are secretly envious of the people they cover, I’ve heard it said. It is an assumption I was born to disprove. Decades after becoming a food writer and years after moving from New York to London, here, at last, was my big chance to fulfil my destiny to make a name for myself or a fool of myself, it’s hard to say which.
Ken suggested I drop by any Tuesday, after 2pm, in the calm period after the lunch rush and before the after-school run. By my own calculations, the window of minimal disruption for the shop and least vulnerability for me was 18 minutes. Concerned as I was about the danger of cooking-oil burns, my clear and present worry was the risk of humiliation.
The British often bring their fish and chips home in a paper bag or a cardboard takeaway box. I consume my meal in situ, before it can turn soggy. The one thing I do carry home, on my person, is that unmistakable essence of fish and chips.
Research for my revised ranking of the Top 10 Fish & Chips in London had required me to visit up to three chippies per week. Upon returning from each outing my wife would have me strip down in the front hallway and not, I assure you, for amorous purposes. She wanted to load my clothes into the washing machine and me into the shower before the odour could spread.
The apple-scented shampoo she set aside for me proved helpful, or so I thought. But the squirt bottle of white vinegar she set on the bathtub rim, presumably as a deodoriser and degreaser? A bit excessive, it needs to be said, and misguided. She’s English. Didn’t she know that brown malt vinegar was the correct variety for fish and chips?
My brief work experience at Ken’s was most absorbing. The fishy fry smell got all over me. I feared my wife would load me, along with my clothes, directly into the washing mashine. Even so, it was the lasting stench of public embarrassment that concerned me more. I didn’t much mind when the real Ken called me “a sloppy cook” as he wiped up the trail of oil drips I’d left on surface of the frying range, nor did I raise much of a stink when my wife responded to this description with the measured satisfaction of a woman who’d just won the EuroMillions lottery.
“It’s true!” she affirmed. “You ARE a sloppy cook.”
The greater embarrassment was leaving a crack in my first cod fillet. I didn’t break a leg on my debut; I broke the fish. As I lifted it from the bubbling oil with the spider lifting tool and secured the fillet with fish tongs, I noticed it was sagging down the middle.
I used my bare fingers to support the just-cooked fish as I transferred it to the heated enclosure where cooked fillets are kept on display while any residual oil drains. That brave attempt to keep the fillet from splitting apart proved painful, messy and futile.
I was expecting a battering from my mentor, but he was sympathetic and took a share of the blame. Apparently I had allowed too much of the batter to drain off the fillet before lowering it into the deep-fryer. Ken hadn’t warned me the shop’s batter was on the runny side. What seemed like excess batter was not excess at all. The fish needed to go straight into the hot oil after dipping, amply coated with the thin batter.
There is a treatment for under-battered fish. Ken will dip his fingers into the batter and dribble some over the top of the fish as it fries, reinforcing its developing cocoon and administering extra crunch.
According to conventional British wisdom , the superiority of fish and chip purveyors can be ascertained by the freshness of their fish and the shop’s proximity to the coast. When you’re facing the Atlantic or the North Sea you’re connected to the fishing waters over the horizon, even if they’re 300 miles over that horizon. If you’re buying your fish and chips more than six minutes from the coast you might as well be in Nebraska.
Who am I to argue otherwise? It’s their pastime, not mine. I’m from New York, where the national dish is bagels, lox and cream cheese, not fish and chips. I know enough to know that the scenery can change our perception of a food. The associations, the memories, the customs, they all hold water. Regional preferences and personal habits matter, too. It’s easier to break a cod than it is to break a routine.
I subscribe to a different kind of localism, the one that involves not the proximity of the trusted chippy to the sea but rather its nearness to your home and your heart. The British have an affectionate term for such a place. They call it “my local”.
The fresher the fish the better. That goes without saying. But putting it all down to the perceived freshness diminishes the importance of expert operators who care. It disregards the craft, the attention to detail, the pride that goes into it. It dismisses cooking know-how and instincts. Those fry cooks are more than just Kens.
The Ken of Herne Hill insisted I not rely on a timer or a colour wheel to tell me when a batch of chips was done. He told me to squeeze a single chip with my fingers. If it’s soft, that means it’s done, you can bite into it. If it’s too firm to squeeze it needs to be cooked a little longer.
The making of fish and chips is in the touch and so is their consumption. For full enjoyment you must lose the fork and eat with your fingers.