Gastro-nostalgia: England

There are three main components to humor about the English: the sex, the teeth and the food. Now the sex has been somewhat refuted by any number of parties, from the Beatles, to Eddie Izzard to the mass proliferation of mainstream sex shops Babes in Toyland can only dream of. And the food too, in all its varied forms, is not damn bad either. In fact I think on any given day when I lived on Mile End Road, studying at Queen Mary College, on the rough (and it really was, too) East end, I ate better than when I actually try and eat well here. On that road, in roughly three city blocks you had Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Thai, a roast chicken place, three or four traditional pubgrub places, and a fish and chip shop, the prescence of which still brings a tear to my eye and a drool to the corner of my mouth.

I had probably the opposite experience, as a child than most--most of my fish was raw, looking quite red and defeated on a plate or occasionally my mom would whip up something that looked at me as if accusing me with its cold dead eyes. Bless her, but seafood was not her fore; the fire alarm was more often than not our kitchen timer and our oven never really recovered from the Bass Charring of '99. And as far as Americana went in Vegas at the time, seafood meant something rather ominous and fried at Long John Silvers.

Now I'm not saying that the fish and chip shop on the East End was about to clear your arteries and save your blood pressure, but what it was, was utterly delicious. And reeking all over of tradition, too--all sorts of people, students like me, businessmen, geezers off the street would stop in and order up something that could in the best twist, be paid almost entirely with loose change from my pocket (ah the money has a bit of the Proustian in it too; pound coins are both convinient and just the right heft). And then you see your golden filet of whateveritwas get wrapped expertly end on end in butcher's paper and popped into a bag with french fries, all groaning with the mass weight of steam, grease and attitude. If you point quick enough the "chef" would douse the fish with liberal amounts of malt vinegar and salt and you would take the bag home and consume the thing til the paramedics intervened.

Here in New York there is no such ubiquity and though I like me a good slice (review of Ben's forthcoming except to really GET Ben's I realize you have to be pretty much drunk, which is why I don't know exactly where it's located in the Village) I still think fondly and very very hungrily in the middle of the night of London, and its vast array of food purposefully unhealthy, made for speed and drink, and horrible dentistry. What?