chips with everything

Here's another bit that didn't make it into the book. Well, some of it did. But most of it didn't. Which may be a sign that it's not worth bothering with. But that's up to you.

Enjoy. Or not...

Chips With Everything

Can anyone tell me why this has been the hardest section of the whole book to write? It’s been a real struggle and I don’t understand why.

Some sections have been easy. You know how authors, when they’re being interviewed, say stuff about the way the characters took over the book and started doing things the author didn’t expect. I always thought that was pretentious authorly nonsense until I started writing this. But now I know what they mean. Beans really took me over in the bean section. I was channelling beans. Beans flowed through me. (ha!) I am become beans, the accompanier of toast. It was a spiritual experience. But it didn’t happen with chips. Chips has been difficult.

A friend suggested that maybe I needed to find some distance; in the same way that Hemmingway needed to go to Cuba to write about Paris. (is that right? Or is it the other way round? Or was he just a big blagger who liked to travel?). Maybe I needed to put some emotional distance between me and chips in order to write about them with conviction. And he added, rather cruely, that that was unlikely to happen given how addicted I am to chips. Cruel but fair. Like penalties with the Germans.

Because chips are extraordinarily delicious. One of the most compelling and bewitching substances known to man. It’s such a beautiful thing (and perhaps evidence of the existence of God) that the humble, tedious potato can be transformed, by the simple addition of heat and fat, into this delightful piece of sensory heaven. And that’s a mystical process yet to be adequately explained by human science.1 Let’s face it, if fat and heat normally made for bewitching beauty the beaches of Benidorm would be very different places.

However you don’t need me just telling you that chips are delicious. You know that. What you want is a detailed and rigorous analysis of the role in the chip in the complex culinary-cultural construct that is the ebcb. (Don’t you? You don’t? Then you’re reading the wrong book pal. Can I perhaps refer you to one of my esteemed colleagues in the ‘real books about stuff that matters’ section?) So let’s think about that for a minute, and let’s see if we can squeeze in any torturous analogies with pompous rock ensembles.

Imagine your ebcb is made up of the members of Queen.

Roger Taylor (the drummer) is your bacon. Essential. Got to have it. Makes a difference if its bad but even brilliant drumming (or bacon) will only get you so far. You can appreciate a drum solo for about 30 seconds after that it goes rapidly downhill; likewise a meal that’s entirely bacon. (I know, I’ve tried the Atkins diet.)

John Deacon (the bassist) is your beans. Again, essential. Again, it’s got to be right; but it’s hard to screw it up and even a magnificent contribution is only so good.

Brian May (the guitarist and Anita Dobson spouse and look-alike) is the egg. It’s a bit flashy. It can do a lot of different things, and for a while it can make a real difference, but it can’t sustain your attention for long. Man cannot live on eggs alone. (I know, I’ve tried the Atkins diet.)

Freddie Mercury is the chips. Or was. He made the difference. He made them sound like Queen. Queen with George Michael sounded mostly like George Michael. Queen with that new old bloke from Free just sound like a band with some bloke from Free. The chips make the difference.

That’s the first Essential Law Of Chip Contribution To The EBCB Experience. Chips add variety. Chips make the difference. Chips help you tell one ebcb from another. And with familiarity and practise you’ll soon be able to work out where you are if you’re ever kidnapped, held in a darkened room and fed fry-ups from a local café. A good knowledge of chips, in that scenario, could lead to your rescue and the successful prosecution of your kidnappers. So it’s worth taking the time to copy this chapter onto rice paper and secrete it in your underware.

Personally I embrace almost every chip varient I’m presented with. I think the infinite variety is a testament to nature’s bounty; like all the uncategorised insect species in the amazon or the number of ringtones your children can download from the internet. But you will find Chip Fundamentalists all over the country telling you that some particular method is the one true method and all other chip techniques are a Path Of Evil which will inevitably lead to Some Non-Specific Badness. I don’t care though, I think there’s good in every chip. Microwave, oven, fried in fat, fried in oil, not fried much at all. The trick is to look for the positive and not dwell on the technology. Because chip variety is what keeps the ebcb fresh and we should cherish that; always looking for new chip variants, like Victorian explorers looking for new species to drive into extinction.

Comments

[Kaizer Billimoria]

Hello Sir,
I have been an avid follower of your ebcb blog. Congratulations on your publication. I shall lap up hte book once it comes to Bangalore, India.

Have a great day,
Kaizer.

[as]

Came via diamond geezer, I'm dreaming of a big juicy fry up...though the bacon bit can get tricky round these parts...

[Marty]

Hi Russell,

As a connoisseur of EBCB, you must have had your fair share of frozen chips within the platter?

Now I'm sure you can tell fresh from frozen...?!

My eyes (and mouth) are wide open to the fact that, of necessity, sometimes, these chips, of all shapes and sizes, were not caught fresh this morning.

But, you know what? A great cafe can do wonders with a bag of the frozen kind! It's all in the frying, of course.

I've often suspected frozen, and many times, I've enjoyed them immensely.

Freshly cut, odd shaped chips are undoubtedly far and away supreme, but I'll eat perfectly fried frozen chips with my EBCB anytime a proprietor choses to serve it.

Marty

[Ian Ridsdale]

Hi Russell

We love your site down here in New Zealand, not a bad place itself for the odd EBCB. The fellow Pommes and I in my office look forward with relish (no pun intended) to the latest serving of EBCB on your website, and recognise some of the places you have surveyed.

Your analysis of chips (above) is superbly written, can't think why you didn't want to put it in the book?

cheers

ian

[Andrew McGleish]

Wot,no Haggis?

anyway... there is such a thing as bad chips, although I've not had them for breakfast... take some lovely Pembrokeshire new potatoes, but don't boil them and serve with butter, instead, work them with your chip shop magic... and they turn into slimey, inedible abominations. The only excuse could be that the chip shop was in Pembrokeshire so maybe they were the only tatties they could get.