National self Harm

Of all the baffling British traditions – queueing in the rain, celebrating wartime rationing as if it were a moral virtue, and thinking “Sorry!” is a valid response to being punched – vinegar on chips may be the most enduring act of national self-harm that’s somehow been rebranded as “flavour.”

Now, I’m no culinary snob. I’ll happily eat food off a wooden fork while sheltering from drizzle under a chippy awning. But let’s be honest: soaking perfectly good chips in vinegar is like pouring battery acid on a roast potato and pretending it's elevating the dish. It’s not seasoning – it’s sabotage.

The worst part? It’s rarely even real vinegar. What we’re actually subjected to is “non-brewed condiment” – a euphemism so sinister it sounds like something MI5 would pour on you to make you talk. It's not malted. It's not brewed. It's a Frankenstein’s monster of acetic acid and caramel colouring, dispensed from a sticky bottle with a crusty nozzle that could legally be classed as a biohazard.

And yet we lap it up, dousing our chips in this acidic affront with a zeal bordering on masochism. Why? Because we’ve been conditioned – like lab rats with Stockholm Syndrome – to believe that chips without vinegar are somehow incomplete. Heaven forbid you should want your food crispy instead of sodden.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the civilised world, people are putting truffle oil on fries, or aioli, or parmesan – things that suggest progress, refinement, perhaps even joy. But here? No. Here we assault our chips with the culinary equivalent of a slap round the head and then call it “proper.”

So the next time you’re at the chippy and they ask, “Salt and vinegar?” – have the courage to say no. Say it loud, say it proud. Let your chips be free – dry, golden, and not smelling like they’ve been pickled in a factory accident. That, dear reader, is true patriotism.