Eating Albion

… even at 11:30pm on Gipsy Hill.

Last Thursday, after beers and tequilas with Sarah, I found HMS me moored on the tall quay-like counter of the Express Fast Food fish and chip shop on Gipsy Hill. Being after 11, there were slim (and not very appealing) pickings on offer – see below – but the guy behind the counter kindly offered to cook me a piece of haddock fresh from scratch. It was going to be 5-6 minutes, so I waited.

This used to be a regular (and a bit shabby) chippy run by an old guy and his wife, but after something like 30 years, they sold up and some enterprising young Turkish guys took over. They added chicken and kebabs to the menu for the yoot, and spruced the place up a bit. While it’s never going to make the shortlist for the UK’s best chip shop, it’s not too bad when you’re a bit drunk and hungry. It’s like a million other chip shops and kebab shops throughout the land.
Waiting for my haddock, I took the time to read the old framed poster that hangs on the wall - the sciencey sort the newspapers all had a small arms race about last year – depicting different species of edible sea fish. You only see a handful of these in any shops nowadays. Chip shops mainly deal in the traditional species of fish that make up British fish and chips: cod, haddock, and occasionally rock salmon and skate. The Sea Cow in Dulwich have tried to update the fish and chip formula in a gastro-Dulwich way, but the reviews seem to be getting unkinder.

Anyway, what I found interesting about the poster is that each species had its Latin name, and then its name in a variety of European languages (well, languages from countries with a fishing fleet, anyway). At the top of the poster was Zeus Faber, which is called John Dory in English-speaking countries, but St Peter or St Peter’s fish everywhere else (apart from in France, where they also call it the chicken of the sea, bizarrely). I then tried to explain to the Turkish guy behind the counter about the whole ‘St Peter picking it out of the water‘ thing, which totally confused him.

Me: ‘… so some people think it’s called John Dory here because it’s a corruption of the French jaune and d’or - yellow and gold – but it’s called St Peter everywhere else.’

Him (bemused): ‘So what is called in Turkish?’

Me: ‘Er, it doesn’t say.’

He probably just wanted to close up and go home, not talk about the nomenclature of edible deep-sea fish. A guy wearing tracksuit bottoms, two earrings and a baseball cap came in with his girlfriend and ordered chips in pitta for her and saveloy and chips for him. Have a look at them saveloys, man! I’ve never liked saveloys – I had one once in the mid-90s when Blur released Park Life and everyone went through that weird southern-mockney phase, but I only did it to blend in. Never again… corned beef in a condom, deep-fried. Urgh. Mind you, I’ve had many a battered jumbo in my youth.

After Mr & Mrs Saveloy left, the guy behind the counter starts talking to me about other types of Turkish fish, and how when he was back home he’d often go fishing for skate. He does the ‘it was this big’ hand gesture thing, which I’m glad to see is universal. When I asked him how he eats it, he said pan-fried with a little oil, served with some vegetables. I told him about caper sauce and a bit of butter, which is a traditional way of serving it here.

By then my haddock was ready, and we both snapped back to the here-and-now of a late-night chippy in South London in January. I paid up and set off home.

Incidentally, according the the very good Chow.com, it’s called dülger baligi in Turkish.