talking about fish and chips
With all the Australians in my house (which my wife has assured me that she would love more of them to come and was happy with the ones that did) I’ve been talking a lot about fish and chips.
Sure they have fish and chips in the UK, but it isn’t the same. Just as if you were brought up on UK fish and chips the Aussie ones wouldn’t be the same.
All this started when my mate wore a chiko roll t-shirt.
A chiko roll is, well someone else has explained it better, “Some variation of a Chinese spring roll. It started off as a Chicken Roll and being Australian, was quickly reduced to a Chiko. But no chicken, just mutton, massively battered with bits of cabbage, carrot, animal fat, celery, onions, green beans, textured soy protein, cooked barley, salt, sugar, spices and numbers like 471, 635, 320, 450 and colours 102, 100.”
It should be said that over the years I can’t recall seeing anyone eat one of these.
But the chiko roll myth is way more than about food, it was about Posters. When I grew up every fish and chip shop had an old terribly sexist poster in their shop. Some had more. They were always badly laminated or falling apart, but they had pride of place in the fish and chip shop.
Chiko Chick
Going to the fish and chip shop or the mechanics was one of two places I would get my soft-core thrill. It was like Baywatch before there was a Baywatch. You can say whatever you want about those posters, but those girls always knew how to hold that roll.
So seeing the Chiko Roll girl on my mate’s chest took we way back to fish and chip shops I grew up in. Greek guys running it, calling everyone boss, dirty grease everywhere. Sweltering heat in the mostly non air-conditioned shop. Deciding between Flake or Whiting. And the Chiko Roll Girl sitting proudly on the wall grasping that phallic food that seemed like an even dodgier version of the dim sim.
It started a huge discussion that involved a 15 minute section where my mate and I both badly explained what a potato cake is to my wife.
For those who don’t know, the potato cake (or potato scallop) is a large thin piece of potato that is deep fried in batter. I’ve never truly seen the need for potato cakes, I’m already getting deep fried potato in the form of chips, do I really need more, and battered.
But many people do.
As my conversation with my other Aussie mate a few days later showed. His family would get a whole heap of potato cakes, as part of their Friday night order. I know a lot of families that had fish and chips as a Friday night special.
This was always a big thing in Australia, getting fish and chips on a Friday night can be an experience, the really clever people phone their order in. Everyone seems to be wearing moccasins or thongs (jandals/flipflops) and people always seemed to be holding their keys in their hands.
We never did, most of my fish and chips meals were when my mum was out.
Dad loves his fish and chips, and this was good as I loved dim sims and he loved potato cakes, so when he got meal deals, we would swap dim sims for potato cakes, although when my mother was involved she would ruin it, as she liked dim sims as well.
I’ll be back in Australia in November, and on that first night I shall eat fish and chips.
But for now, the two rather long and drawn out fish and chip discussions were more than enough.
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I also have never eaten a chiko roll or known anyone to eat them, but you’re right about the fish and chips not being the same over here. Here it’s cod or haddock. In Australia there was a whole menu of fish to choose from (usually badly scrawled on a blackboard behind the counter). Of course, we had a lot of fish available to us along the west coast there.
As for potato scallops, the only people I ever knew who ate them were vegetarians who didn’t want to miss out on the fish and chips experience. Except, of course, they were missing out on it (the fish being missing and all) and I recall attempting to explain this many times.
Never? You youngsters! Chiko rolls, dim sims and potato scallops were the student food of choice in the late 70s/early 80s and I’m pretty sure that applied all over and not just in New Texas. We’d hypothesised that dim sims must have been made from the remaining bits where there wasn’t enough stuff left to make a whole chiko.
Gather round, children so I can tell you of the days before McDonalds (there was a Kentucky Duck in our area but all we could afford were the chips and buns) and when Pizza Hut was considered high class gastronomy.
Cheers for the ingredients list. Although often talked about, no one I knew ever managed to find out what was actually in a chiko roll – I’d always assumed that all of these delights were vegetarian. Pies were for the carnivores and the wealthy, according to share house lore. We had heard tell of a magical holy grail of pies available only in the cold mysterious southlands: the Four’n'Twenty.
On a recent trip up the east coast of England we discovered the previously unknown delight of ‘scraps’. Basically the dags at the bottom of a deep fryer, bagged up and sold for a bargain price. Mmmm, scraps.
I never saw a reason to leave dim sims, a great melbourne invention, and go chiko rolling.
Dim Sims are probably the thing I miss most about Australia. I never cared for Chiko Rolls, they were full of dodgy looking mince and unappetising looking veggies. I was put off Chikos at an early age when I heard a story about a guy who found half a frog in one that he was eating. Potato Cakes were delicious, and I’m surprised that fish and chip shops in the UK don’t offer them. Aussie fish shops also did crab sticks fried in batter, they were nice too. Crab sticks are very common in the UK, but are never served fried in batter.
Nice to read about Aussie fish and chip shops. Would have to agree that naturally, Brits and Aussies will lament not being to eat “our” versions of fish ‘n’ chips while, though naturally the British version is far superior – I jest of course, all to their own.
Anyway, an answer and some questions. My wife and I too fell in love with dim sums. We had some spectacularly good ones in Rockhampton, Queensland, back in August 2010. If you want something you can buy in Britain, and which are quite similar, many mid range Chinese takeaway sell dumplings on the starter section of their menus. These usually ocme in pork, chicken, and sometimes vegetable. Our local in East London does a pretty good job of them, and I hope that if you have’t already been there and done that, you’ll get a pleasant surprise.
And the question: have you ANY idea where you might be able to buy Chiko sticks anywhere you’ve been to in the UK? I’m hoping somewhere in London might sell them for the many homesick Aussies living there. The reasons is simple: I really miss them having lived on a very limited food budget for a few weeks in Stanmore, Sydney, while backpacking. Many days, we’d just grab one before hitting the train opposite the takeaway as a kind of poor man’s breakfast.
Anyhow, good luck with the Chinese dumplings.