A Question Of Taste

Here’s a story which made me scratch my head:

She proceeds to tear apart the battered fish and dip it into tartare sauce, and then grabs a handful of chips.

So far, so good.  The baffling thing?

Returning to the fish, Bella continues to eat with her fingers.

…which left her Brit readers appalled.

Bella’s unconventional approach of eating fish with her fingers took social media by storm, sparking debate among netizens. One observer posted: “I’ve never seen someone eat fish and chips with their hands.”

I’m sorry?  Eating F&C with a knife and fork is like eating pizza or a hot dog with a knife and fork;  you can do it, but why?  (As my old Zulu buddy Sipho Tshabalala once put it:  “How can you taste the food when you don’t touch it?”  And he’s quite right.)

Americans may be forgiven for not knowing this, by the way, because Over Here one buys fish and chips at a restaurant and eats it sitting at a table, where eating with one’s fingers is generally frowned upon.

But in the true British Empire fashion, fish & chips is street food.  You buy it through a chippy’s window on the street, it comes wrapped in paper (once newspaper, alas no more), and you eat it on the run, so to speak, holding the steaming bag of F&C in one hand while pulling it apart and stuffing it in your face with the other.  (This polystyrene thing, as in the above picture, is yet another clear pointer to the fall of civilization as far as I’m concerned.)

And it tastes fucking wonderful.  (My mouth is watering as I write this.)  Yeah, your hands end up all greasy (as do your lips) from the oil and vinegar — but that’s all part of the experience.

This modern obsession with cleanliness is stupid, by the way, and no more so than when consuming one of the great food dishes of the world.