So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

dh66 said:

Fish. That's been dipped in batter and fried in oil. Throw in some potatoes and you've got fish & chips.

Granted, Americans have a predilection for frying things, but they didn't invent the concept.

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As much as I love fish'n'chips I've never really considered it as seafood. I had images of fried oysters or sea urchins.

What about fried-potatoes and croquettes??

Croquettes ? isn't that dried dog food ?

@Lean'n'mean
They were a typical gastronomy-thing in the german 90s.

Lean'n'mean said:

As much as I love fish'n'chips I've never really considered it as seafood. I had images of fried oysters or sea urchins.

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I've never heard of anyone frying up sea urchins, but you don't have to go very far around here to find fried oyster. Also shrimp, crabs, scallops, clams, crawfish tails....folks'll batter up damn near anything and fry it in grease. I'm not saying by any stretch that all of it is good, but somebody's eating it.

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Andalusians, particularly Sevillans and Malagans, are absolutely mad for fried fish. Lots of little walk-ups where you can get a single piece of battered and fried cod to an entire basket of piscaliciousness.

dh66 said:

Fish. That's been dipped in batter and fried in oil. Throw in some potatoes and you've got fish & chips.
Granted, Americans have a predilection for frying things, but they didn't invent the concept.

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The story of the humble chips, or fries, goes back to the 17th Century to either Belgium or France, depending on who you believe. Oddly enough, the chip may have been invented as a substitute for fish, rather than an accompaniment. When the rivers froze over and nothing could be caught, resourceful housewives began cutting potatoes into fishy shapes and frying them as an alternative. Around the same time, fried fish was introduced into Britain by Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain.

The fish was usually sold by street sellers from large trays hung round their necks. Charles Dickens refers to an early fish shop or “fried fish warehouse” in Oliver Twist (1839) where the fish generally came with other carbohydrates – sometimes bread or baked potatoes but there was no sign of the golden battered fare yet…

Who was it who had the bright idea to marry the fish and the chips together? Some say it was a northern businessman called John Lees. As early as 1863, it is believed he was selling fish and chips out of a wooden hut at Mossley market in industrial Lancashire. Others claim the first combined fish ‘n’ chip shop was actually opened by a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin in East London around 1860.

Winston Churchill called them “the good companions”. To each other, yes, but also to the British public. They sustained morale through two world wars and helped fuel Britain’s industrial prime. Cheap, easily accessible, tasty, filling and comforting this was a dish that has been feeding the masses since the 1860s and still continues to do so today. George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) put fish and chips first among the home comforts that helped keep the masses happy and “averted revolution”.
During World War II, ministers bent over backwards to make sure fish and chips were one of the few foods that were never rationed.

Fish & chips hold fond memories for me. As a small boy I would spend my long school breaks at my grandmother's place. She lived over the shop, a fish and chip shop. How vividly I can remember the morning being taken up with preparation, peeling, 'eyeing' (removing blemishes, discolouration and any other marks that spoiled the cosmetic appeal,) and soaking. The potatoes soaked in a large tub, not unlike a bath tub, in a weak solution of wine vinegar.

Once the potatoes were chipped their shelf life didn't last too long, so the 'chipping' took place when the shop opened and the cooking pans turned on. Using a hopper style, hand cranking machine, a bucket of chips could be ready in just a couple of minutes.

Local fishermen would bring in a fish called Whiting, they could never get much for them at market, the Whiting were caught in the trawl net along with everything else. Grandmother bought them up quite cheaply. Later I learned that granny, and many other retailers, looked after the very poor. I remember a small girl who would come in and ask if their were any scratchings. Scratchings was the name given to the odds and ends that came off the fish and potatoes in the cooking process, it was mostly the batter that had dripped from the fish prior to cooking. That child looked shabby, as in worn out clothes, but she was always of a clean and scrubbed appearance. Granny would give her quite a bag full of the smaller chips as well as three of four Whitings. This would feed her and her family. Retailers in those pre-supermarket days did much the same, things like bananas that might be discolouring, or veg with a yellowing leaf, but still nutritious. She was such a kindly woman, my granny, I learned a lot from her.

Many many moons ago I had a girlfriend in Hereford who swore that the only proper way to get Fish & Chips was if they were wrapped in genuine newspaper. There was a small shop up the road that sold them in exactly that manner where we would frequently get them. Has that now been legislated out of existence in England? Or do some shops still sell them that way? Fond memories.

Tiki Tom said:

Many many moons ago I had a girlfriend in Hereford who swore that the only proper way to get Fish & Chips was if they were wrapped in genuine newspaper. There was a small shop up the road that sold them in exactly that manner where we would frequently get them. Has that now been legislated out of existence in England? Or do some shops still sell them that way? Fond memories.

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It is all polystyrene lidded trays here now. However, when I first moved to the UK in the 1980s they still dished out fish & chips in newspapers. I still remember the soggy mess that resulted, especially if you added vinegar to your chips as I always do. If that wasn't bad enough, the ink from the newspaper covered your hands as well. You had to be weary about lying the bundle on your lap or else your pants would be damp and stained! Not a good look! Not so fond memories for me, sadly!

Tiki Tom said:

Has that now been legislated out of existence in England? Or do some shops still sell them that way?

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I believe it has been banned since newspaper ink is toxic.

dh66 said:

but somebody's eating it.

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Yep !

The real newspaper-wrap is forbidden by modern hygienic-regulations, since many years. It's paper or even fake newspaper (Blackpool, etc.), now.

Tiki Tom said:

Many many moons ago I had a girlfriend in Hereford who swore that the only proper way to get Fish & Chips was if they were wrapped in genuine newspaper. There was a small shop up the road that sold them in exactly that manner where we would frequently get them. Has that now been legislated out of existence in England? Or do some shops still sell them that way? Fond memories.

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Pre-1980s – To keep prices down, portions were often wrapped in old newspaper – a practice that survived as late as the 1980s when it was ruled unsafe for food to come into contact with newspaper ink. 1990s/2000s – Once the newspaper was deemed unfit to come into contact with what we were consuming, high-end restaurants and pubs wrapped their fish and chips in ‘designer’ newspaper: as a nostalgic nod to earlier times. Designer newspaper was clean, new wrapping paper with old newsprints printed all over it. The 1990s was full of working class people hitting the big time in all industries such as art, music, TV, film and so suddenly mainstays of working class life – such as fish and chips – had now become cool and trendy. Now, there’s a trend emerging to serve fish and chips in disposable newspaper cones. And at fish and chip shops, it’s just grease proof paper. Full circle you could say. Many a customer would buy their fish and chips, asking for the wrapping to be left open. To do this the wrapping had to be done in a conical shape.

Section 13 of the Food Act 1984 (c. 30) allowed the minister to cause legislation and regulations to be made regarding food quality, food safety and specifications for food matters. That then spawned a long and regulated list of food-related statutes. I cannot speak for other fish and chip retailers, but my grandmother always wrapped the fish and chips in new plain wrapping paper, the final wrap was in newspaper but not for a cost saving, it was a good insulator for keeping the food warm when travelling home with it.

Lean'n'mean said:

Yep !

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Is that an elephant seal in sunglasses?

The better fish-and-chips here have always been served in a paper tray printed with a red and white checkerboard pattern, lined with a sheet of foil or waxed deli paper. Fish and chips served at a carnival or fair will often come in a pressed-pulp bowl that looks a lot like a dog dish, but nobody in their right mind eats fish sold at a carnival or fair.

The foam clamshell box was popular for a while, but foam packaging will be illegal in my state as of 2021, which is just as well -- I was never a fan of it anyway. The point of fish and chips is to eat it fast, before the grease and vinegar soak thru the container.

LizzieMaine said:

The better fish-and-chips here have always been served in a paper tray printed with a red and white checkerboard pattern, lined with a sheet of foil or waxed deli paper...

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Yup.

LizzieMaine said:

... but nobody in their right mind eats fish sold at a carnival or fair...

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Double yup.

Sigh. In a couple of years a doctor will no doubt diagnose me with an incurable disease with these words: “I’m fairly sure, Mr Tiki, that your untimely end can be traced to a picnic lunch that you had with a kind and beguiling English lass under a dazzlingly blue sky on the grassy lawn in front of the cathedral in Hereford, England, eating Fish & Chips that was unsafely and even dangerously wrapped in newspaper. What were you thinking??”

Oh, if I could only do it all over again! (I would not change a thing. )

Tiki Tom said:

Sigh. “I’m fairly sure, Mr Tiki, that your untimely end can be traced to a picnic lunch that you had with a kind and beguiling English lass under a dazzlingly blue sky on the grassy lawn in front of the cathedral in Hereford, England, eating Fish & Chips that was unsafely and even dangerously wrapped in newspaper. What were you thinking??”

Oh, if I could only do it all over again! (I would not change a thing. )

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With me, it was a chicken, expertly cut up, served with thick French fries, bread by a street vendor with a kind
and beguiling German lass under a dazzling blue sky in a forested suburb of Thessalonikki, Greece, and a bottle of
Domestica. We had met in a bar, she asked if she could buy me a drink. Then offered a cup of coffee at her apartment.
If only I could do it all over again! I would not change a thing.

Tiki Tom said:

Sigh. In a couple of years a doctor will no doubt diagnose me with an incurable disease with these words: “I’m fairly sure, Mr Tiki, that your untimely end can be traced to a picnic lunch that you had with a kind and beguiling English lass under a dazzlingly blue sky on the grassy lawn in front of the cathedral in Hereford, England, eating Fish & Chips that was unsafely and even dangerously wrapped in newspaper. What were you thinking??”

Oh, if I could only do it all over again! (I would not change a thing. )

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Harp said:

With me, it was a chicken, expertly cut up, served with thick French fries, bread by a street vendor with a kind
and beguiling German lass under a dazzling blue sky in a forested suburb of Thessalonikki, Greece, and a bottle of
Domestica. We had met in a bar, she asked if she could buy me a drink. Then offered a cup of coffee at her apartment.
If only I could do it all over again! I would not change a thing.

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You can both claim mitigation. Admittedly TikiTom ran a number of health hazards, newsprint ink and soiled used newspaper, I wonder if the reader ever washed his hands having used the toilet?
But the mitigation is that as young men, you would have had carnal thoughts on your mind and from my own experience, that causes a blood rush from the brain to the groin, which in turn causes the hapless young man to behave as though his blood supply is not efficient enough to function both organs simultaneously. So in that state, health wanings/hazards are the last thing you would have been thinking about.

We have some articulated and talented wordsmiths here on The Lounge. Anyone want to hazard a guess at what, 'fronted non-finite clause' means?
A BBC presenter and professor who revealed she was left stumped by her nine-year-old's homework has since left fellow academics baffled after posting the impossible question online. Alice Roberts, who hosts documentary series Coast, took to her Twitter and shared a picture of the challenging task, which reads: 'There's a lovely example of a fronted non-finite clause on the bottom half of page 45. Can you find and copy it?'

The Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, wrote: 'Oh dear. Trying to help the nine-year-old with homework again....' After turning to Twitter, it turns out she wasn't the only one who struggled to find the answer.
'I'm a professional writer and editor of linguistics materials with a Masters in Applied Linguistics, and I have absolutely never needed to know what a "fronted non-finite clause" is,' wrote one, while a second penned: 'I'm also a writer, and I've coached students in academic writing too, and I haven't needed to know what that is either.' Professor Colin Talbot added: 'This grammar zealotry defeated me. Absurd. No-one except linguists needs to know this stuff.'

Happily one tweet did come up with the explanation, Michael Rosen wrote: 'Fronted adverbials are adverbs, adverbial phrases or adverbial clauses that are placed before the main clause eg "Happily, it's over." "In the end, it was over." "When the sun set, it was over,'
In response to Rosen's post, which has since been liked 1.3k times, many who have spent a lifetime working in the industry told how they were left stumped.

There's a slew of Twitter responses, which I won't bore you with, if you tweet you can see for yourself: @theAliceRoberts
Has anyone come across fronted non-finite clause?