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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/01/scotland-deep-fat-fryer-syrians-italians-fish-and-chips
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| Scotland loves the deep-fat fryer. Could Syrians change that? | Scotland loves the deep-fat fryer. Could Syrians change that? |
| (4 months later) | |
| Despite years of government propaganda for the raw carrot, the boiled cabbage and the steamed cauliflower, Scotland likes to excel with hot oil and fat. To quote the Daily Mail earlier this month, “A Scottish chippy is selling what may be Britain’s unhealthiest takeaway: a giant box of deep-fried foods that contains an artery-clogging 7,000 calories”. | Despite years of government propaganda for the raw carrot, the boiled cabbage and the steamed cauliflower, Scotland likes to excel with hot oil and fat. To quote the Daily Mail earlier this month, “A Scottish chippy is selling what may be Britain’s unhealthiest takeaway: a giant box of deep-fried foods that contains an artery-clogging 7,000 calories”. |
| The refugees who brought hope to a Scottish island | |
| The box, devised by the East West Spice restaurant and takeaway in Greenock, costs £10 and contains two pizzas, two hamburgers, chips, fish portions, sausages, onion rings, chicken nuggets and fritters – all of them deep fried – as well as a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru to wash it down. Gravy or curry sauce is an optional extra. Bahadur Singh, the East West Spice’s manager, said he “just thought it would be nice to combine the ideas and [produce] something which would appeal to everyone”. Singh insisted that the box had been devised for more than one eater. The wonderfully named Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said: “It is gross. They will say it’s a family meal so it’s not too much, but I would be extremely worried about the type of food this family were eating.” | The box, devised by the East West Spice restaurant and takeaway in Greenock, costs £10 and contains two pizzas, two hamburgers, chips, fish portions, sausages, onion rings, chicken nuggets and fritters – all of them deep fried – as well as a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru to wash it down. Gravy or curry sauce is an optional extra. Bahadur Singh, the East West Spice’s manager, said he “just thought it would be nice to combine the ideas and [produce] something which would appeal to everyone”. Singh insisted that the box had been devised for more than one eater. The wonderfully named Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said: “It is gross. They will say it’s a family meal so it’s not too much, but I would be extremely worried about the type of food this family were eating.” |
| Greenock is often the source of high-calorie stories – perhaps unfairly, because takeaways that sell munchy boxes and crunchy boxes are a feature of urban Scotland generally. The deep-fried Mars bar is said to have been devised in a Greenock chip shop. Fifteen years ago, health lobbyists raised the alarm when a new dish called the hoagie (chips, cheese and doner kebab, stuffed together inside a pitta bread) became a big seller among pupils at Greenock schools. In fact, a hoagie averaged a mere 1,224 calories: a bonne bouche compared with today’s big box of deep-fried delights. In the years since, a high-fat diet has changed from an officially regretted fact of life – sometimes even the cause of private shame and repentance – to a cult that takes pride in its heedless excess. “See how the grease runs down our chins. See how hard we are. See how ill we shall be. See how much we don’t care.” In these surroundings, binge eating and binge drinking go together, as ways for forgotten people to look defiant and untamable. | Greenock is often the source of high-calorie stories – perhaps unfairly, because takeaways that sell munchy boxes and crunchy boxes are a feature of urban Scotland generally. The deep-fried Mars bar is said to have been devised in a Greenock chip shop. Fifteen years ago, health lobbyists raised the alarm when a new dish called the hoagie (chips, cheese and doner kebab, stuffed together inside a pitta bread) became a big seller among pupils at Greenock schools. In fact, a hoagie averaged a mere 1,224 calories: a bonne bouche compared with today’s big box of deep-fried delights. In the years since, a high-fat diet has changed from an officially regretted fact of life – sometimes even the cause of private shame and repentance – to a cult that takes pride in its heedless excess. “See how the grease runs down our chins. See how hard we are. See how ill we shall be. See how much we don’t care.” In these surroundings, binge eating and binge drinking go together, as ways for forgotten people to look defiant and untamable. |
| On a fine day, I can glimpse the outskirts of Greenock, on a hill a few miles across the Clyde from where I write, on the island of Bute. I had relatives who lived in the contiguous town of Port Glasgow, and I remember my uncle telling us once, in the days before this kind of information appeared in books, that rioters had smashed the windows of several cafes in the two shipbuilding towns after Italy declared war on Britain, in June 1940. The cafes included ice-cream parlours and chip shops and were, of course, all owned by Italians – families who were soon to suffer internment and exile, as well as death by drowning when the ship taking many Italian internees to Canada was torpedoed. My uncle and, I am sure, most other residents abhorred the rioters. The Italians were well liked, having given the Scottish working class their first notion of cheerful eating out, even if that was only fish and chips eaten off waxed paper or ice-cream between two wafers. | On a fine day, I can glimpse the outskirts of Greenock, on a hill a few miles across the Clyde from where I write, on the island of Bute. I had relatives who lived in the contiguous town of Port Glasgow, and I remember my uncle telling us once, in the days before this kind of information appeared in books, that rioters had smashed the windows of several cafes in the two shipbuilding towns after Italy declared war on Britain, in June 1940. The cafes included ice-cream parlours and chip shops and were, of course, all owned by Italians – families who were soon to suffer internment and exile, as well as death by drowning when the ship taking many Italian internees to Canada was torpedoed. My uncle and, I am sure, most other residents abhorred the rioters. The Italians were well liked, having given the Scottish working class their first notion of cheerful eating out, even if that was only fish and chips eaten off waxed paper or ice-cream between two wafers. |
| These, at the time of their introduction, were treats, but they had a powerful influence on everyday Scottish taste. People of the late Victorian or Edwardian generation, such as my father, never looked on a boiled potato with any great fondness once they had tasted a chip; haddock cooked in milk offered no competition to the same fried in batter; and yesterday’s steamed dumpling could hardly compare to a melting combination of milk and sugar topped with a dash of raspberry sauce, splotched like red ink on a white blotter. Why did the defences of the native diet crumble so easily in the face of the new food – of which the Italians were the missionaries rather than the inventors? The answer may be that, to a greater extent than in other European countries, the native diet had already been weakened – diluted, if you like – by the cheap imports secured by free trade. | These, at the time of their introduction, were treats, but they had a powerful influence on everyday Scottish taste. People of the late Victorian or Edwardian generation, such as my father, never looked on a boiled potato with any great fondness once they had tasted a chip; haddock cooked in milk offered no competition to the same fried in batter; and yesterday’s steamed dumpling could hardly compare to a melting combination of milk and sugar topped with a dash of raspberry sauce, splotched like red ink on a white blotter. Why did the defences of the native diet crumble so easily in the face of the new food – of which the Italians were the missionaries rather than the inventors? The answer may be that, to a greater extent than in other European countries, the native diet had already been weakened – diluted, if you like – by the cheap imports secured by free trade. |
| In any event, most Scottish towns and big villages soon had their cafe-owning Italian families. In Bute, the big name for nearly a century has been Zavaroni, a little empire founded by Cesare Zavaroni around 1920, which, before Rothesay began its steep decline as a holiday resort in the 1960s, had at least six cafes and 24 ice-cream barrows on the island. Cesare’s father worked as a stonemason in a Ligurian commune, Borghetto di Vara, that was rapidly losing people to emigration when Cesare left it in 1906, and by 2011 his descendants found themselves in a similar kind of place – an island where the population had dwindled since the second world war. Today, three Zavaroni outlets remain on the streets facing the bay – a remarkable persistence – and Rothesay wonders what the future holds. | In any event, most Scottish towns and big villages soon had their cafe-owning Italian families. In Bute, the big name for nearly a century has been Zavaroni, a little empire founded by Cesare Zavaroni around 1920, which, before Rothesay began its steep decline as a holiday resort in the 1960s, had at least six cafes and 24 ice-cream barrows on the island. Cesare’s father worked as a stonemason in a Ligurian commune, Borghetto di Vara, that was rapidly losing people to emigration when Cesare left it in 1906, and by 2011 his descendants found themselves in a similar kind of place – an island where the population had dwindled since the second world war. Today, three Zavaroni outlets remain on the streets facing the bay – a remarkable persistence – and Rothesay wonders what the future holds. |
| We are coming to the end of our 19th summer here, and the question is always the same: is the town getting better or worse? On the one hand, a wet fish shop and two banks have closed since last year, and the pier remains an ugly muddle of security fences and warning signs that forbid anyone to fish or swim. On the other, Rothesay’s seaside pavilion is being refurbished at enormous expense (£14m) and, if all goes well, will reopen next year; many hopes have been pinned to its success. | We are coming to the end of our 19th summer here, and the question is always the same: is the town getting better or worse? On the one hand, a wet fish shop and two banks have closed since last year, and the pier remains an ugly muddle of security fences and warning signs that forbid anyone to fish or swim. On the other, Rothesay’s seaside pavilion is being refurbished at enormous expense (£14m) and, if all goes well, will reopen next year; many hopes have been pinned to its success. |
| Myself, I place my faith in the croissant and the strawberry tart – and, just possibly, in the baba ghanoush, the mujadara and the Arabic salad. The Syrian refugees who came to Bute late in 2015 weren’t the first migrants after the Italians to import a cuisine: Rothesay has two Chinese takeaways and an Indian restaurant (another recently shut up shop). But they are, I suspect, the first to produce cooking superior to most places on the mainland nearby. Bute has never had croissants like those from Bashar Helmi’s recently opened patisserie – in fact, other than prepacked from the Co-op, it never had croissants at all. The pastry chef is Helmi’s son-in-law, Mohamed Helmi, who ran a patisserie in Damascus for 16 years. I bow to nobody in my admiration for the Electric Bakery’s pancakes and potato scones, but it has to be said that Helmi’s pastry is of a more sublime order. | Myself, I place my faith in the croissant and the strawberry tart – and, just possibly, in the baba ghanoush, the mujadara and the Arabic salad. The Syrian refugees who came to Bute late in 2015 weren’t the first migrants after the Italians to import a cuisine: Rothesay has two Chinese takeaways and an Indian restaurant (another recently shut up shop). But they are, I suspect, the first to produce cooking superior to most places on the mainland nearby. Bute has never had croissants like those from Bashar Helmi’s recently opened patisserie – in fact, other than prepacked from the Co-op, it never had croissants at all. The pastry chef is Helmi’s son-in-law, Mohamed Helmi, who ran a patisserie in Damascus for 16 years. I bow to nobody in my admiration for the Electric Bakery’s pancakes and potato scones, but it has to be said that Helmi’s pastry is of a more sublime order. |
| On Thursday, I sat with Bashar Helmi in his patisserie as he told me about his life. Cesare Zavaroni’s father had been a stonemason; his had been a carpenter in Darayya, a Damascus suburb that had once made most of Syria’s furniture. He himself had prospered as the owner of a factory that made children’s clothes. He was arrested because he had money, he said, and was kept in a space measuring five metres by four that held 73 other prisoners, three or four of whom died every day. The money that had made him a target also got him out, and then he and his family had found refuge successively in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. “Everyone who did not have money, dead,” he said. | On Thursday, I sat with Bashar Helmi in his patisserie as he told me about his life. Cesare Zavaroni’s father had been a stonemason; his had been a carpenter in Darayya, a Damascus suburb that had once made most of Syria’s furniture. He himself had prospered as the owner of a factory that made children’s clothes. He was arrested because he had money, he said, and was kept in a space measuring five metres by four that held 73 other prisoners, three or four of whom died every day. The money that had made him a target also got him out, and then he and his family had found refuge successively in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. “Everyone who did not have money, dead,” he said. |
| It was odd to listen to his story while eating something as sweet and innocent as a strawberry tart. A different kind of oddness came earlier when I bought salad, falafel and baba ghanoush from his cousin Rayan’s takeaway. “Would you like lemon dressing on your salad?” his cousin asked. I told him it was the first time I had ever been asked that question in a takeaway on Bute or anywhere else in west Scotland. It might be a sign that the munchy box is at last in retreat. | It was odd to listen to his story while eating something as sweet and innocent as a strawberry tart. A different kind of oddness came earlier when I bought salad, falafel and baba ghanoush from his cousin Rayan’s takeaway. “Would you like lemon dressing on your salad?” his cousin asked. I told him it was the first time I had ever been asked that question in a takeaway on Bute or anywhere else in west Scotland. It might be a sign that the munchy box is at last in retreat. |
| • Ian Jack is a Guardian columnist | • Ian Jack is a Guardian columnist |
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