1964: The FIRST CHIP SHOP in DUNDEE | Tonight | World of Work | BBC Archive

there are things that fall so naturally into pairs that it's hard to think of one without the other in modern times for instance there are mods and rockers and whether you like it or not cigarettes and lung cancer and going further back one thinks of body and soul ham and eggs Gilbert and Sullivan and of something even more typically British if that's possible fish and chips Churchill called them the good companions they're more than a meal they're part of way of life a social Bond a symbol an ingredient particularly of Saturday night though any night can start or end in the bright sizzling friendliness with the frier shop this meal is such a British institution it's a bit surprising to learn that until about 80 years ago nobody in this country had heard of fish and chips for the good reason that apart from a few wealthy Travelers nobody had heard of chips boiled baked roast potatoes yes but not chips these had to come first from France and this is the place in dunde where they were first offered to delighted British customers there was an open space then where buses now wait and behind it where the cared hall now stands was the old Green Market and there in 1874 a Belgian named Edward AER and his French wife opened a stall selling old friends boiled peas and a strange new dish French chips now Mr De Jour that's how you pronounce the name now isn't it that's how you pronounce it you served in your grandfather's shop didn't you no I didn't serve in the shop oh it wasn't a shop it was just a a stall what kind of a stall well there was uh four petitions and open at one side and a big tpoon on the top and a little counter and a big braier two big pots on it full of fat and you put the another po inside here with the chips uh-huh and other side there you had the peas the peas were done in fat too were they no no no they were done they were done in the water yeah and you had the peas and the chips which made the Buster The Bu that was the Busters what did you charge for it there were a hpne and a penny and St for a mixture of peas and what did much did you get for a heap oh you got a good saucer in a saucer sa full so they didn't take it home the way they take no no they didn't take it home they went inside and sat on the bench and E it there maybe have another one that's a we one one or two or three now what was your job if you didn't serve well I used to go a Friday night to wait the Gas Works and get the cook on the bar and bring it right back back to the Green Market and then we used to clean the the potatoes on a big tub on a broom you peeled them no no you didn't peel them you just put them in there and you washed them white they were white and then how did you chip them well they had a machine and you just put it in and you draw this lever right down and that cut it up the chips old fashioned hand lever and it fell into the enel pill oh and you had to do this maybe oh forever and hours but it was a new thing you know how quickly did it take on well it took on very well must have doing very well when it come far and near now did did middle class people H use the shop patronize the shop at all well way back in these times there was only one class and that was a very poor class where and when did these good companions come together what genius arang such a happy and satisfying marriage nobody knows a 100 years ago on Saturday nights in London there would be at least 300 Street Traders selling lumps of fried fish and there were Street borrowers selling baked potatoes fish and potatoes so near and yet so far but when the custom for French chips spread as it did very rapidly very good surely it wouldn't be long before chip makers or fish fryer realized that they could cook both things at the same time in the same dish there's some evidence to suggest that it was in Lancashire where such a high proportion of the wives worked in the Mills and children too that fish and chips were first offered as a composite meal and then as I've said already there became a British institution but like everything else fish and chips have changed with the times once they were always served a rra for taking home in old newspapers and there are old customers still who maintain that Printers Inc added um naturely inimitable and subtle flavor to the dish nowadays you get it on a plate nowadays you denied very often the satisfying movement of slopping on tomato ketchup you take it delicate and more economically of course from a plastic dish nowadays you don't wrap it in your favorite newspaper and take it home all fragrant for the benefit of neighbors no you take it home in papy Mas plate and they've gone even further in the sophistication of this rugged old simple or steered dish you don't use the finest tool invented no you use this you see and you stab it so very nice and it keeps the fingers clean and they've gone even further so far that it hasn't reached the D yet nowadays you don't take it home even in this let alone newspaper you take it home in a carrier bag but they're still very [Music] good [Music]

Channel: BBC Archive

Views: 66,592

Keywords: bbc, archive bbc, classic tv, british tv nostalgia, bbc archive, archive, the bbc archive, nostalgia, legendary television, retro tv, vintage, fish and chips, fish and chips history, dundee, british food, fyfe robertson, fyfe robertson bbc, tonight bbc tv, history of food, chips, origin of fish and chips, traditional chip shop, dundee chip shop, dundee 1960s, shore terrace dundee, scottish chippy, scottish chip shop, history of chips, first chips in britain, fast food

Id: d7kas-jb-ms

Length: 6min 40sec (400 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2023