The Chippies

It seems that on every block of every street in Edinburgh you can find at least one chippie. Now, before you get the wrong idea, let me clarify; the term "chippie" is commonly used to refer to a fish and chips shop and not so much to a "loose woman".

I have yet to find a chippie that only serves fish and chips. In fact, my local chippies (there are two within a block of me) serve a bewildering variety of food, both fried and otherwise. Chippies these days are your one-stop fast food shop. You want fish and chips? Go to a chippie. You want fried haggis? Go to a chippie. How about a deep-fried sausage? Chippie. Mars bar, deep fried? Black pudding, White pudding or steak pie, all fried? How about chicken, nuggets, mushrooms, onion rings fish cakes or even pizza, deep fried? You guessed it, go to a chippie.

But lest you think that all they do is fry foods for a living, your chippie also offers foods cooked in other ways. Most of them also offer "American food"- burgers, cheeseburgers and chicken burgers. Nor does their international fare end there. You can get kebabs, pakora, doner, and wraps. Most even serve pasta and pizza.

So far, I have sampled food from four different chippies. I've had one bad pizza and from another place two very good pizzas. I had some really disappointing fish and chips (although there was enough there for two mediocre meals), some very tasty fried mushrooms (with garlic dip) and a pretty reasonable hamburger.

So, wrapped up in one shop, you have a peculiar mix of Scottish, British, Turkish, American and Italian food. What more could you want for a truly intercontinental meal...except maybe some veg?


Turkish Carry Out, the local Chippie