HUNGRY GERALD

During HG’s hard drinking days with fellow New York journalists (1950-1954) HG often went to lower east side hole-in-the-wall Jewish bars when conventional bars closed  (HG presumes these after-hours bars paid off the police and other authorities). There was vodka, whiskey, brandy and other spirits. Surprise! The bar was topped with platters of cold fried fish showered with crushed garlic and a dash of Tabasco. Mystery! Where did this come from? Never saw it in conventional bars (Uptown and downtown). HG consulted Claudia Roden’s “The Book of Jewish Food.”  HG learned cold fried fish is a staple dish of Great Britain’s Jewish population. The preparation of Jewish style fried fish (filets dusted with flour, dipped in beaten egg, rolled in bread crumbs or matzo meal and fried in oil or chicken–or goose–fat) came to London with Jews exiled from  Spain in the sixteenth century. A Portuguese writer in 1544 noted this was a favorite dish of the refugees. Roden noted that the Jewish cookbook of 1846 suggested the fish be fried in olive oil. Fish fried “in the Jewish style” was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, says Roden. The popularity of Jewish fried fish led to the creation of ubiquitous “fish and chips” introduced by Jewish fishmonger Joseph Malin in 1860 at his London shop. The marriage–Jewish fish and Irish spuds–seems eternal. Malin is honored by a plaque in London’s fish market. So how did cold fried fish  get to illicit lower east side bars in New York? HG believes it got there when a Jewish bar owner or bartender tasted the tasty cold fish in London.