Natalie Tan

Simmer Down, Issue #38 09.21.2021

crack the casing and slosh on the malt vinegar

Catching the last weeks of summer always carries an air of finality. Although it comes around every year, each summer season becomes a series of golden moments that feel like they can’t be replicated, even though that’s not entirely true. I’ve spent numerous nights between June and September standing outside Earnest Ice Cream at 9:30pm lapping up fluffy scoops of spruce bud and sour cherry goats cheese ice cream nestled into malty waffle cones, and tipsily stepping out into the mild air after two strong cocktails and a beer, my bare legs flashing between the spools of my friends’ bicycles as we walk to the bus stop. These past few years, however, seem more unlikely to be repeated, thus I consider them more momentous, spent on the canal sides of Amsterdam with a goblet of dark amber ale in one hand and a spiced bitterballen in the other, at busy corners of Borough Market noshing on Bread Ahead donuts that rain granules of sugar down my front, stomping through dead empty streets in Farringdon after a long dinner in a pair of Doc Martens and a spaghetti strap mini dress that just cradles my food baby, and sitting in pubs gulping terracotta-toned Pimm’s and lemonade while absolutely demolishing a massive plate of fish and chips.

As a Cantonese and Pacific Northwest babe, I grew up eating many forms of fried fish–starch-coated pan seared hunks of salmon served with mayo and rice, whole pompanos made crispy in a wok with ginger and scallions before being drenched in sweet soy, and lacy slabs of pale white fish dotted with stark black eyes–but none evoke a sense of summertime breeziness and the salty-aired seaside quite like fish and chips. There are memories I can’t place, but exist at picnic tables in front of snack shacks on a west coast beach, strips of fried fish and thin fries in cardboard takeaway containers, packets of ketchup squeezed on the side and unused sachets of salt and pepper strewn on the table. My cousins and my oldest friend are there. Maybe I’m wearing denim capris, maybe I can’t bear to let go of the sand clinging to my ankles.

Pacific Northwest fish and chips can’t compare to what’s served at any chip shop in the UK. The fish–usually cod or haddock–is fried in whole fillets, cooked until caramel brown, with extra shards of batter adorning the outsides that provide extra crunch. Made effervescent by soda water or beer, the exterior is not heavy whatsoever. It barely exists on the juicy tender flesh it encases, but has an indescribable deeply fried flavour that fills your palate only when batter and fish are enclosed in your mouth and become amplified by your elated exhalations. The chips must be salty, cut thick and uniformly blonde, with a fried brittle surface that once broken leads into that which is fluffy and sweet. A healthy dose of malt vinegar seems to emphasize this fried taste while providing a sharpness that is a welcome addition to every unctuous mouthful; tartar sauce provides relief. Eaten for over half a millennium, the fish half of this dish was brought over by Western Sephardic Jews who settled here from Portugal in the 15th century, escaping religious persecution. Chips were paired with it almost four hundred years later, upon the rise in popularity of fried potatoes in the mid-1800s. Sitting at one of the few tables in a chip shop, one can observe the flow of service, customers streaming in through the door with their regular orders, steadily answering the long practiced, rapid questions fired at them: salt? Vinegar? Tartar sauce? Peas? Anything else? The technique of frying the fish is hypnotic, how the fillets are evenly coated in the cream coloured batter and slowly dipped into the oil with a slight wiggle to prevent sticking–the action seems to somehow hold this, and many other similar, histories of migration and the ability to adjust to new conditions, carrying them on through centuries of sheer repetition.

On the last day of summer in 2019, my friend and I took a tourist-style trip to Greenwich. It was my first time, so we took the TFL river services down the Thames there, and walked between stony sun cast columns towards the National Maritime Museum, and up a steep hill that has been a site for an optimal view of London for centuries of its iterations. We paid to enter the Royal Observatory and stand on the Prime Meridian, which seems supremely cheesy, but in reality feels akin to meeting a mystical being you’ve heard about your whole life. During the peak hours of hot sunlight, we sat in a pub, with two Pimm’s cups abundant with cucumbers and mint, and fish and chips with piles of peas embellished with Maldon sea salt in front of us. The slight bitter herbaceousness of our drinks cut through the denseness of the moreish meal, opening up our palates for more bites, and we remarked that the combination was especially perfect for the end of summer. I happily ate everything on my plate, but I don’t think I placed that meal in particularly high regard in the moment–it was simply a delicious well prepared meal on a fun day out between sailing on the river and looking at museums with informative clock displays, unknowingly on the precipice of a phase in my life where I would become steadfastly obsessed with prescribing a sense of tragedy to the progression of time.

We spent a day at Chiswick House and Gardens two weekends ago, sneaking pictures of its lavish interiors and promenading through its massive vegetable garden. It was another overcast day on this 90% dreary summer, so we were sunscreen-less and equipped with rain jackets, which backfired on us when the sun decided to show up. Starving by the end of our explorations, we discussed lunch on a bench next to the pond by the grand house, our voices muffled by our face masks, the roaring of a man made waterfall, and three unruly kids drying their calves with huge lime green leaves after wading through the dirty water. We decided on a pub and got to it via a very sweaty walk along the Thames and sat in an outdoor booth where, without a second thought, we ordered (you guessed it) fish and chips and glasses of Pimm’s–which we declared, again, was on the occasion of the end of summer. Extra large white plates arrived, holding single long fillets of deeply browned battered haddock nestled on top of golden chips, accompanied by ramekins of tartar sauce and minty mushy peas. As we pondered aloud when the last time was that we ate this, or freshly fried food in general, I used my knife to shatter the batter before shaking on an amount of malt vinegar equivalent to a torrential downpour. After scoffing down the meal almost in its entirety, we languished for a while on the edge of a shared food coma. I put my jacket back on as clouds rolled in overhead, yet the seating area continued to get busier with people reuniting, drinking, laughing, catching the last dry weather before it inevitably rained that evening. Amongst my feelings of delight brought on by the food and the chatter in the air, I wasn’t quick enough to bar the intrusive thoughts that crept in, telling me that my story here was interrupted midway, and this will be my last summer in London for a while. I mindlessly jabbed at the remnants of my mushy peas, their vibrancy still intact, and wondered whether years ago I should’ve opened my heart up to love, as frivolous and distracting and antithesis-of-me as it would’ve been, to cover all my bases in an effort to stay.

My dad always jokes that in front of every pub in this city is a sign that says, “BEST FISH AND CHIPS IN LONDON.” I saw this very sign on Saturday as I walked across the Millennium Bridge from the St. Paul’s Cathedral side towards the Tate Modern. It was the only hot and sunny day this weekend, and the sparse outdoor seating of the (probably grossly overpriced) pub at the foot of the bridge was fully occupied. Spending time in the glory of the final days of summer–however you see fit–is like saying farewell to a friend on their annual visit, and while you fully understand that circumstances will keep you apart for a while, it still hurts when you let go.

Next time I see summer, everything will be different. I kept my head pointed left on that passage to the Tate, so I could stare at Tower Bridge until it seared itself into my memory.