Something like a long defunct skinned crawfish beset by wriggling worms.
Probably, you think of fish and chips as a prehistoric British attempt at fast food, unspeakable fried junkfish and limp fried potatoes wrapped up in discarded sheets of tabloid newspapers. With some vile vinegar concoction as a condiment. No wonder gin is still the most popular beverage in the U.K. Its anesthetic effect on taste buds is its chief selling point in this context.
But things are changing. Since Americans no longer have any taste buds either, settling instead for the ravishing weed induced hunger known as the Munchies, the American art of packaging is creating a huge new market opportunity for purveyors of fish and chips in this country.
Behold the beauteous wrapping. It’s better than eating, right, especially in the swankiest restaurants in New York and lesser parts of the USA.
A new kind of arms race is on. Started, perhaps, by the Wall Street Journal.
Who wouldn’t pay $39.99 for this?
Game over? Hardly. In what could be a major campaign scandal this year, Donald Trump has put together a consortium of U.S. fish and chips sellers to purchase the complete newspaper output of the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times as premium wrappers for the F&C entrees of Arthur Treachers, Applebee’s, and up-and-coming east coast titan Pat’s Pizza.
“This could well represent the kind of corrupt high-dollar bailout Trump supporters will not be able to stomach. This is by far the lowest election season exhibition of dirty politics I’ve ever been willing to look at,” said NYT columnist David Brooks, who was let go earlier today.
The deal may eventually expand to include the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Miami Tribune. Feelers from the Des Moines Register and the Providence Journal have already been rebuffed.
A Trump spokesman said, “It’s just business. It’s not about politics but dollars and cents. Nobody reads these rags anymore. They just want to be seen carrying them around tucked against their Burberries and Fendi briefcases. Why not have something tasty inside? The ones who won’t make it aren’t about political leanings. They’re about no elitist glamor. Some kinds of fish wrap people will pay a premium for. Others they won’t.
“We’ve been calling and calling the Manchester Union Leader, for example. But nobody’s picking up on their one land line. And National Reciew isn’t big enough to wrap a fish in. Get over it. And did we mention Barney is a Communist? Good. You never heard it from me.”
In a final comment, the spokesman noted that certain newspapers may experience staff and editorial reduction. And certain franchises may undergo a name change.
Just imagine the power of the slogan “Trump Yourself.”