Awful Library Books

Frying Tonight: The Saga of Fish & Chips
Priestland
1972

Submitter: In this book Gerald covers every aspect of the great British invention – Fish & Chips. He takes us on a journey from the 1880’s, the days of the ‘Fish Dinners for the Poor’ campaign, then on past the ‘Great Cruelty to Eels Trial’ of 1909, to the banning of the serving of them, wrapped in newspaper. He debates the mystical properties of fish and discusses whether chips could possible be an aphrodisiac.

He tells of the launching of Fish & Chips upon the unsuspecting people of the United States. In 1936, after the introduction of ‘English Fish Bars’ in many American cities, The Fish Trades Gazette announced: ‘It’s a wow! You wanna step down to 130 East 45th Street and see a little bit of England in the form of a Fish & Chip shop? It’s a cinch! New Yorkers who have discovered this dandy eat are sure spilling a bibful about it. It’s the works!  I was certainly wowed to learn that a Mr Salt opened his first Fish ‘n Chip shop in Sausalito, near San Francisco and served up the ‘finger-food’ in specially printed hygienic replicas of a front page of The Times!

Holly: This book is alive and well in libraries all over the world. (Ok, maybe not “well,” but definitely in existence.) Unless it circulates, I can’t imagine why most libraries have it 41 years later. If it circulates, by all means keep it. Otherwise, rest assured that the history of fish and chips is widely available elsewhere.