A Year Gone...
When I first moved here, I wrote some spectacular emails home about the experience of having to do everyday things in a strange land. Now, I mostly just whine about it. How did it come to this? After reading some of the letters, I made a little commitment to myself to whinge less and write more about the neat things that I encounter as a foreigner (because there is still a ton of stuff that I find totally bizarre.)
The people of the island love their potato. Specifically, they love their potato cut into wedges or strips and then fried. I am, of course, referring to the "chip" or the "fry". I've come to prefer the British bit of lexis "chip" over the "fry". It just sounds more fun to me. And, since fries were always something a little naughty and fun that we ate when we were kids, I appreciate getting a little of that back in my adult life. Plus, it has lended itself so fantastically to slang term "Chippy" for the chip shop. There is nothing like chips from a chip shop. Now, maybe I'm just excited because the chip shop is "Classic British" like getting a shake at The Hamburg in is "Classic Americana".
Chip shop chips are made from actual potatoes. Cut up on site. You know, instead of from actual potatoes flash frozen in a factory in Idaho and then shipped in a freezer truck over I-80 to a supermarket near you. The chip shop that I seem to frequent most is an award-winning shop on Albany Road in Cardiff called, are you ready for this, The Albany Fish Bar. They almost always have a line. The chips come in two sizes, small and large, and they are reasonably priced. The chips are served wrapped in butcher paper, as is typical. They are AMAZING! Which I suppose is what happens when you eat fries made with actual grease alongside other foods instead of eating fries that have been seasoned with "natural flavorings". AMAZING!
But, what I really wanted to talk about is that chips go with everything here. Even things they probably shouldn't. Like, lasagne for example. That's right, you can walk into a pub and order lasagne and chips. Or, if you're Welsh fiance is making you dinner, you can sit down in your own kitchen and eat lasagne and chips. Its wrong, but its not as bad as it sounds. I've given up trying to talk him into a salad, lasagne and chips is just the way it is.
