A Chippy Tea

Rolling hills of long grass and shrubland give way to dunes of crisp, golden sand. Sand that singes your feet as you saunter across it. Heading towards the ocean, a cooling, salty breeze refreshes the skin and stings the eyes. As you leave the trail, heading towards the beach, the smell of farmland gives way to an earthy, umami scent of seaweed filling the olfactory glands. Sunlight dapples in the rockpools around you, as all manner of tiny crustacea play, untroubled by the day-to-day ways of people.

There is a glorious summer escape from the mundanity of life for those bipedal folk who roam the country, atop the food chain. Strolling down the beach, rounding a cropping jut at the foot of a cliff, the concrete harbour wall draw your eye to the middle distance, out towards a busy pier. The sound of jovial music swells as you draw yourself towards the promenade. The music is punctured by the screams and squeals of children running around amusement arcades, and the occasional ring-a-ding-ding of a jackpot alarm sounding out, as tickets galore ream out of the prize chute.

But you’re not here for that, no.

You join a queue of similarly sunburnt, lobster-backed tourists, awaiting their evening refreshments. A vinegary, grease filled, unctuousness assaults you nostrils as you begin to salivate through hunger. It's not long before the sun starts to descend below the ocean, but the heat of the day has barely waned.

It feels an eternity before you’re near the front of the queue, even though you’ve advanced at a pace. You order and eagerly await your meal. Carefully wrapped in grease paper, you exit the shop and eagerly scan around for a place to eat. You decide to sit atop the new sea wall, the stone still warm, but not unpleasantly so.

Placing the brown parcel on your lap you begin to unwrap the covering, being careful not to drop the bounty within. Unwrapping it, unveils a golden pescetarian feast. Fish & Chips. The Chippy Tea. A tender fillet of white fish battered and fried, alongside thick-cut chips (or fries), well-seasoned with plenty of salt, and enough malt vinegar to float a small canoe. An assault on the senses, the vinegar bringing forth tears of joy, and flaking fish that needs no cutting to get through. Each mouthful leaving a fine coating of grease on the throat.

The amount of chips, often asked for as ‘small’ needs a sherpa and picks to navigate the impressive mountain you’re inevitably served. There’s enough for a small family in this one meal, yet you can’t help but greedily scoff the lot. Bloated, and content.

Of course, like all good meals, this too, can be embellished - peas, pickled onions, a saveloy sausage. Gravy, Curry sauce, ketchup or tomato sauce. All acceptable additions to the Great British institution.

A meal, no matter where it’s had, or from what ‘chippy’, never fails to evoke stern memories of a summer’s holiday spent at the seaside. A holiday spent building sandcastles; made in a bucket from compacted sand, you thought it the Bastille. Crabbing in the pools made you feel like a mighty mariner, perhaps chasing your own Melville-esque saltwater saboteur. Running through the wash and surf after the family dog. Long days filled with laughter, luck and, a little bit of lunacy.

Maybe, that’s why this dish is so revered in Britain. It’s an intrinsic part of our greater collective entity. A communal nostalgia trip, to a simpler, more innocent time. Free of the traps of adult hood, of work, of taxes. Just a simple time warp to a bygone time we secretly yearn to keep hold of, and, perhaps, that’s the reason we re-visit it most Fridays.

The chippy tea. A British institution.