Will You Get Chomping For Chip Week?

Yes, you’ll have salt and vinegar with that.

When we heard it was #ChipWeek, instead of thinking about food we somehow stumbled into a philosophical conversation.  Well, sort of.   The question that came up in the office was whether we prefer proper #chips or microchips.  (No French Fries here, thanks.)

Microchips have changed the world in amazing ways.  Computers and smartphones allow us to keep in touch with friends and family across the country and the globe.

But when we do meet up with our loved ones after a long time away, I bet chips play a part.  Indeed, I reckon the memories of the average British family are tied to chips.  And I think that’s why, on an emotional level, proper chips win.

Didn’t everyone have a favourite chippy growing up?  A place your dad found and which he’d swing by after work, bringing home a piping hot, salted-and-vinegared meal for the family.

And don’t we all have a ‘relative chippy’?  The one takeaway or chip shop you always made sure to visit when travelling to see family.  For me it’s The Acropolis in Ormskirk.  Its blue neon sign stood out in Lancashire’s fog and promised a hot meal on a cold night.

(When I told my mum about Chip Week, she remembered a Chinese takeaway in Bethesda in North Wales.  Soft chips eaten while sitting on a stone wall, surrounded by the craggy beauty of slate quarries and green valleys.)

And, for families across the UK, there was always a bank holiday trip to the seaside.  Amusement arcades, being buffeted by the wind on the promenade, taking a seat in those covered shelters when the rain whipped in, eating cod and chips next to blue-rinse pensioners with tartan flasks of tea.

So if you want to foster relationships in the office, to build collective memories with colleagues, then go and get fish and chips together. (Splurge out, maybe chuck in a couple of meat pies, a saveloy or two and, if you’re feeling exotic, a spring roll.)

And if all this has got you salivating, head over to the Chip Week website or follow @ThePotatoGirls on Twitter to hear about ‘the latest gossip and news from inside the Potato Council‘.