Time to appreciate the hard work behind a quality fish supper

I HAVE eaten my fair share of fish and chips. But until last week, I’d never pictured myself working in a chipper, surrounded by bubbling vats of hot oil and learning how to make battered fish.

Nor did I imagine there was much of an art to fish and chip making. Now that I’ve spent an afternoon working at Allegro Handmade Foods in Killarney and spoken to people who work in some of the best-known fish and chip shops in Ireland, I realise how wrong I was.

There’s a whole lot more to it, and with bad weather in recent years having led to the doubling in the cost of potatoes, along with the ever-increasing price of fresh fish, running a successful fish and chip business has become an even more difficult task.