National Fish and Chip Day took place on 4th September in 2020. During Sean Dunderdale’s morning show on BBC Radio Lincolnshire there was live broadcast from Marina Fish and Chips in Chapel St Leonards. The outside broadcast presenter, Harry Parkhill, helped develop battered haslet for the menu. Back in the studio, Sean phoned one of the Chip Fiends for an interview. Here is the transcript:
Sean: Let’s speak to someone who knows a few things about chippies. You may have come across them, The Chip Diaries on social media (Twitter… they’re on Insta as well). It’s a review of fish and chip shops all over the country. Well one of the reviewers is with us now… morning Chip Fiend!
Chip Fiend: Hello!
Sean: Where did well, chip shop-wise in Lincolnshire?
Chip Fiend: Burton Road is really good in Lincoln, Elite on the Bail, and Marina of course, who you have been speaking to this morning... where else? There’s loads, quite a few in Skegness as well.
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| Burton Road |
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| Elite on the Bail |
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| Marina |
Sean: And what do you look for with the Chip Diaries? Any chip shop at all, or is there a special way you work out which ones you are going to go to?
Chip Fiend: Well it’s really to do with supporting small, local businesses. If we are on our travels anywhere we don’t really go to fast food chains, so we prefer to go to a chip shop. You know you are going to get fresh ingredients, and people who own chip shops work really hard so we like to support them.
Sean: You’ve been doing this for a few years now haven’t you? When did you start this?
Chip Fiend: It was about six or seven years ago I think.
Sean: And what was the idea behind it then? Was it just to support chip shops or was it because a few chip shop fans got together and said, “this’ll be a great idea”?
Chip Fiend: Yeah, it’s because we are big fans of fish and chips, it’s our favourite food, like it’s probably lots of people’s favourite food and we just thought “let’s keep a diary of everywhere we have been to”, and then if we post it on social media people can either read the reviews and it might help them to decide where to go, or they can just read it for fun, you know, and go on a chip tour with us.
Sean: And what, for you, makes the perfect fish and chips?
Chip Fiend: It’s got to be quite fresh. We like to go to a chip shop and they fry the fish for us. We don’t mind waiting five minutes. Fish that has been standing for a while starts to go chewy and fibrous. Soggy batter, we’re not really keen on that. So something that’s quite fresh, piping hot, hand cut chips, peas that they have soaked themselves and cooked – tinned peas we don’t like those. If they make their own tartar sauce as well, that’s a bonus.
Sean: Fantastic, you’re making me hungry just thinking about it.
Chip Fiend: laughs
Sean: Thank you for joining us this morning. Are you going anywhere this weekend? Anywhere planned?...
Chip Fiend: Oh we are definitely going to have chips tonight. There’s a few of us and we are dotted around the UK but I’ll probably go to The Cods Scallops in Nottingham, that’s chip shop of the year, that is.
Sean: We need to take that title back to Lincolnshire definitely! Thank you for joining us this morning. You can check out the Chip Diaries, they’re on social media, as I say, reviewing chip shops around the country, they might – you never know if you own a chippy – they might come to your chippy at any moment. So don’t give them soggy batter. And homemade peas and tartar sauce you’ll get scored higher for that!
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