Park benches and dimly lit cars

Some call it ballast

Very occasionally on this blog you'll stumble across a food or drink related item. *Very* occasionally. And nine times out of ten the chances are it’ll be either a new dish I’ve discovered or an exciting new beer. I’ve always loved dining out (nearly as much as I love cooking) and I always get a thrill when I find restaurants or new beers, new pubs and new breweries. But today’s post is as far removed from fine dining as it’s possible to get. It’s all about an often (and by often I mean always) overlooked delicacy (and by delicacy I mean ballast) that, I’ll wager, you won’t see talked about it in any of the Sunday glossy supplements or the million and one foodie programmes currently doing the rounds on terrestrial telly.

Chips and curry sauce is a very British 'dish'. Served in fish and chip shops up and down the land, you've probably given anyone in your local chippy who has ordered this in the queue ahead of you a sideways glance and, maybe, even a silent tut under your breath. It's the poor relation looked down upon by haddock and steak pies. Even Savaloys. But, hey, am I bothered? To my mind, it's the food of Kings. There comes a point in the evening when it's too late for dinner, too late for a sit-down. That's when the chips and curry sauce are calling.

It's perhaps a good thing that the exact consitiutional makeup of the curry sauce is not known (not to me, anyway) which probably helps explain why it's a dish best consumed in semi-darkness: park benches or dimly lit cars being my dining areas of choice. Enjoy!