Fish'n'Chips

For years I thought that fish 'n chips were fish and chips, never questioning the egg and beer batter or the white fish meat of the fish 'n chips I was fed by my parents from the local fried fish shop in Kelso, Washington. Cap'n Yoby's was the only fish 'n chips place I had ever gone to. In fact, as a child, I thought that it was the only one my parents had ever gone to, as well. Never was I led to believe that each meal I ate from that place was anything different from any other fish 'n chips place. Especially, as it never occurred to me that there were other fish 'n chips places. That is, it never occurred to me to question fish 'n chips until one autumn morning, over a bag of left-over fish from the night before..

I asked my parents (who, coincidentally, met at Cap'n Yoby's when they were two lonely twenty year olds) an innocent question about fish 'n chips from other restaurants. Judging from their expressions, I gathered that I had just entered the land of the she's-still so-young-and-inexperienced she-doesn't-know. As a child, you get that look a lot.

My father narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and answered my question with a question. "Why? Have you been playing with that new kid, again? He's from Britain, right? He's just homesick. He's too confused to know how good he's got it here in Kelso."

My mother's eyes grew sad as she looked at me and said, "My poor innocent child, you have so much to experience. That's the problem with being young. You just don't know what you have until you've lived a little." With that, she placed the last piece of fish on my paper napkin. As I sat there wiping the container of tarter sauce clean, I wondered what the big deal was. It was just a piece of deep fried fish.

As I grew up and left my little town, I tried fish 'n chips in the places I traveled. Different areas used different kinds of fish, the breading was different, the side dishes were different, the fries were different, the tartar sauce was different, even the way people ate them in some places was different (with a fork! Delicately dipping bits of fried fish into the tarter and then sprinkling it with lemon or malt vinegar!). Trying to keep an open mind, I thought to myself: they just don't taste as good as at home because it's not what I'm used to. Or, because I'm homesick. Or, because I've never tried cod before.

Little did I know that, being a native of Washington state, I was being held under halibutarian rule.

Just recently, I met someone who also liked to eat fish 'n chips, an East Coaster. She had been far and wide and had tried fish 'n chips from many a different country and in many a different place. The subject came up as she was expounding on how good the fish 'n chips were at the Red Lion in Bellevue, Wa.. I agreed. They were pretty good. But, my favorite fish 'n chips, I said, are from Cap'n Yoby's in my hometown.

- "Of course, they are." She said. "Those are the ones you grew up with. When you eat there, you re-eat every memory you have from your whole life. They will always taste the best, even if they are terrible."
- "That's what I was thinking, too." I said.
- "Well, where are these fish 'n chips?"
- "What?"
- "Well, where are they?" She wanted to know.

So I showed her. And you know what? She said that they were the best fish 'n chips she'd ever had, and that I was one of the luckiest people in the world to grow up in a place with fish 'n chips like that minutes away from my house.

After some consideration, with such strong and enthusiastic support from an outsider, I concluded: About a mile west of Exit 39, off of Interstate 5, in Kelso, Washington, there lives a tired and run-down drive-in fish 'n chips shack in an old garage haunted by ghosts of an era long forgotten. You can feel these ghosts on a Friday night or on a Weyerhaeuser payday. The go-go girls are dancing in the lobby and the cars are lined up around the block. And, if you look closely, on the right arm of the wooden bench inside the front door you'll see the initials LG + CC with a heart carved around them. Those belong to my parents, and once you see that, then you'll know that you're at Cap'n Yoby's, the home of the best fish 'n chips in the world.

- Taffy O'Rae Gallagher