HIGH FRYERS
Fish and chips: a staple of high streets, back streets, villages and cities, a combo served at football grounds and fi ve-star hotels, something loved by young and old, on high days
and holidays, on Friday nights religiously, or on the way back from the pub. But is it a match made in heaven, or the highway to heart-attack hell? Something to be revered as the British national dish, and a street food to call our own, or low-grade fast
food that’s become more about gloopy sauce than brilliant batter?
Over the next few pages we share the results of our local quest for plain, good old seafood with a side-order of chopped potatoes. We tried to ignore the distractions of
saucing and vinegaring, and of cod-awful puns, as well as the reality that too much deep- fried food too often ain’t going to win you Commonwealth gold. We set out to sample and rate the best we could fi nd by way of deep-fried fi sh, batter and chips around the
streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh, visiting 20 different venues and, along the way, fi nding out a bit more about the essential elements that make up a great supper.
Research & reviews: Rob Fletcher, David Kirkwood, Keith Smith, Jay Thundercliffe Illustrations: Bronwen Bender