Great British Fish and Chips – or is it?

Threading Together

A childhood memory is going to buy fish and chips or a bag of fritters, from Pitts – a typical fish and chip shop in the seaside town of Harwich, where I was born.  I can still hear the sizzling sounds as the batter-coated fritters and fillets of fish hit the deep pans of simmering oil.  The chips went into another pan, and were constantly swirled around with a huge wire paddle, until crisp and golden. Our portions were wrapped in white paper, then in multi-layers of newspaper – a tantalising smell emanating from the warm package that I quickly carried home!

I had started this piece, when I visited the Turner Contemporary Gallery in August, where I unexpectedly discovered ‘The Great British Fish and Chips’, an on-going project by writer Andrew Humphries and illustrator Olivier Kugler – what a bonus!

I discovered that whilst fish and chips is now seen as an iconic British dish, its origins actually lie elsewhere.  The idea of frying fish as a way of cooking, is rooted in Britain’s refugee and migrant Jewish communities, and the notion of fried chipped potatoes was introduced by refugees and migrants from Belgium and France.  Fish and chips first appeared during the mid 19th Century, and it is fitting that Fish and Chip shops are frequently run by migrant families, particularly Italians, Greek and Turkish Cypriots and Chinese.

So……without global trade and migration, our iconic Great British Fish and Chips would not exist.  With this knowledge, I had to add the title and the question mark to the border of the plate.

Gwen Hedley: A collage of cloth and newspaper and photo-transferred image with free-machine embroidery.