Brixton has an energy, a palpable energy, that I love. From the stalls that line Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road, to the shop frontages that spill out onto the streets, there’s often a buzz as the traders go about their business, hollering out the specials, or just casually chit-chatting under the tarpaulin.

This neighbourhood may be attracting the unsavoury attention of developers and landlords, who prefer to see it in terms of profit and turnover, rather than communities and livelihoods. But for now, the markets keep on going, nourishing and sustaining the various communities that call Brixton home: West African, Caribbean, Latin American, and many others besides.

And then there are the outsiders like me, who come for a few hours at a time. Like I am today – making the most of a glorious summer’s day, and a momentary lull in the global pandemic.

So after months where home has been both a haven and a fortress, I’m venturing out of my hibernation, stretching out stiff limbs, breathing in air that seems unusually fresh, and reconnecting with the outside world.

How thrilling it is to meander again between the stalls, as they bristle with copious bunches of coriander and thyme, heaving with mounds of cassava and plantain. I gaze transfixed by geometric displays of grouper, snapper and tilapia, hanging curtains of saltfish, and trays that groan under the weight of oxtail, pig trotters, and goat.

And amid all the market bustle sits the outdoor restaurant, Fish, Wings and Tings – a bright yellow beacon with exuberantly painted decor and smattering of sunny patio tables.

*

Chef-owner Brian Danclair has devised a short menu, but one that casts its net wide over the Caribbean. His true allegiances however are revealed in the saltfish fritters. Trinidadian in style, they form a constellation of six perfect spheres, each orbiting a dipping-bowl of ginger and lime aioli.

I pick one up and give it a little pinch. I revel in its satisfying squidge and then the slow spring back as I release. I feel quite cheeky, and take a certain pleasure in that, before glancing around self-consciously and raising it to my mouth.

Suddenly, the sun disappears… The yellow tables vanish… The clouds dissolve into one amorphous ceiling of magnolia… The vibrant colours drain from the decor, replaced by an assortment of beiges and browns.

The reggae beats that were radiating from the patio speakers fade into distorted crackles, and from the resultant snowstorm, a surprisingly jaunty melody emerges, one that swells into a string chorus that speaks of warm summer meadows.

Before I could work out why I’m hearing The Archers theme, now emanating from a little silver box radio on a kitchen counter, the outline of the young black male waiter before me begins to blur, and then shrinks before my eyes. I stare in bewilderment.

In his stead, a little elderly white woman materialises, with wispy white hair and a knitted cardigan wrapped around her shoulders; a pair of oversized reading glasses hang from a chain draped around her neck. She is standing by a stove, from where emerges that very same aroma of fried fish that I was experiencing just a moment ago.

I know that smell. And I know that woman. For she is my late, dear, Grandma Beryl.

*

I blink in amazement. Is this a dream? Maybe it’s all an inevitable consequence of being confined indoors for so long…

Either way, Grandma proceeds to spoon out the balls of gefilte fish from the pan; a hiss of oil accompanies each scoop, the orbs perfectly spherical and their shells delightfully brown and crisp from the fry. She rolls them delicately onto a plate lined with kitchen-roll patterned with yellow sunflowers.

‘Not yet, dear,’ she warns. ‘They’re too hot.’

Her voice. I haven’t heard it for so long. Her gentle Mancuian lilt, always soft, always kind…

After waiting for what seems like ages, I lift one up, and tentatively take a bite. A bellow of steam puffs up through the ruptured shell, tickling my nostrils with waves of sea and salt.

The insides are all warm and fluffy, and I take great delight in nibbling my way playfully around the sphere, periodically dipping it in a little dollop of chrain – or “Grandpa’s jam” as we used to call it – a fiery Ashkenazi condiment of beetroot and horseradish.

Grandma looks on approvingly, before offering a gentle reproach. ‘Slow down, or you’ll burn your tongue! I don’t know Aaron, honestly!’

I take a deep breath in, and when I open my eyes again, I find the sun shining brightly, a sea of yellow tables spread around, reggae beats booming from overhead speakers, and my thumb and finger pinching a saltfish fritter, all perfect save for a little bite.

‘Good?’ smiles Brian, the chef-owner now standing before me.

‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Very…’

*

Returning from my reverie, I still find myself mesmerised by these fish balls, as though they’re props in some conjurer’s trick: the uncanny resemblance in flavour and aroma to those of my childhood leaves me perplexed and amazed.

They may hail from different parts of the world, and are formed from quite distinct ingredients, yet right here, right now, my mind is conjuring up all kinds of connections between them, as though these balls are quantumly entangled, their histories and fates closely aligned.

But I shouldn’t get too ahead of myself, not just yet, for there are some clear differences between them too.

Whilst fried gefilte fish are brown and opaque, these Trinidadian fritters are like little crystal balls, with glimmers of emerald scallions and scarlet scotch-bonnets flashing tantalisingly through their gossamer shells. (The notion of any sort of chilli in Grandma Beryl’s kitchen meanwhile feels so incongruous as to feel quite ridiculous.)

Then there’s the striking discrepancy in texture. Freshly fried gefilte fish are generally light and feathery affairs, consisting primarily of fish, with just a relatively modest addition of egg, minced onion, and matzo-meal.

In contrast – as Brian now explains, having ambled up to the bench opposite – Trinidadian fish fritters begin life not as fish, but as batter: a glorious thick melange of flour, water, and baking powder, into which fish flakes are then stirred. Their consistency is therefore dense and glutinous, a real surprise for me, and a quality I find deeply satisfying and moreish.

But still, for me there’s no escaping the similarity in taste (scotch-bonnet heat aside). Maybe it’s the specific combination of white fish and salt, fried up in such a way. Maybe my taste-buds are sensing something else, something less tangible, as though they’re little antennae picking up echoes from the past.

After all, when a dish gets passed down the generations, it picks up what’s been encountered and endured along the way. In so doing, the curves and contours of the respective balls are like the rings of a tree – the histories of their people moulded into their very fabric.

And although each fish ball tells its own story, specific and distinct, they also contain corresponding narratives of oppression and migration. And finally of salvation – for freedom has transformed what was a poor man’s fish into something much more celebratory.

*

Gefilte fish arose out of the East European Jewish shtetl. A dish born out of poverty, it was a means of making the most of all parts of the carcass, and bulking it out with more frugal ingredients.

Its name derives from the Yiddish for “stuffed”, reflecting its origins in the medieval Germanic practice of chopping up a carp or a pike, stuffing it back into its own skin, and then roasting it up.

Somewhere along the line, my Ashkenazi forebears decided against the faff of stuffing meat into skins, and instead rolled them up into little balls and poached them in a simple broth of fish heads and bones.

Typically a Sabbath dish, the fish would be bought live at the market, and then kept in the bathtub until Friday. The woman of the household would wrestle it out of the water, administer a quick blow, then gut it, chop it, and mould it into little balls. (A scene I find all too easy to imagine after seeing old photographs of my stout indomitable great-great-grandmother Rebecca…)

The dish found its way to Britain in the late 19th-century, on the backs of Jews who were fleeing persecution and pogroms. Already settled here were Portuguese Sephardi Jews – a community for whom frying fish was routine – and it was their influence that transformed gefilte from boiled to fried.

Nowadays, traditional boiled gefilte are often derided for their dismal soggy demeanour, barely enhanced by the ubiquitous crown of boiled carrot. Perhaps it’s also because there’s something of the old country in them too: sad memories and ghosts, best left forgotten.

But when deep fried, they are given a new life, a new future. Not unlike the Jewish communities who, like my family, found their way over to Britain over a century ago.

*

Distinct chains of history also feature in the origins of the Trinidadian saltfish fritter. Literal chains too – since in the telling of their story, one cannot escape the sinister shadows of slavery and colonialism.

African slaves were given saltfish by the plantation owners, who saw it as a cheap source of protein to fuel the strenuous labour in the fields. Providing them with fish also meant land needn’t be used up for livestock, but wholly devoted to the lucrative sugar-cane instead.

The land owners weren’t particularly fussed about quality either – a boon for the salt-cod producers of New England and Newfoundland, who were delighted to find a market in the Caribbean for their unwanted scraps, whilst reserving the prime fillets for insatiable European appetites.

In fact, the salt-cod producers, growing wealthy on the back of this new emerging market, reinvested their profits in Caribbean sugar, and started importing it to North America, alongside the salt they used to preserve the fish.

Whether sailing southwards with salt-cod, or northwards with sugar and salt, these same ships would often detour via West Africa, picking up slaves en route, thereby completing a grotesque triangle of trade built on slavery and exploitation.

And so along with the slaves came the many traditional dishes of West Africa to the Caribbean, including akaras from Ghana: fritters made with black-eyed peas. Over time saltfish was substituted for the beans – akaras became accras (or ‘fishcakes’ or ‘fritters’), and a new dish was born.

What was once a food of slavery, however, has since been reclaimed as a much-loved Trinidadian dish. A dish indeed that was very much part of Brian’s childhood, as he starts to relate to me now.

We continue to talk about our respective fish balls. They remind us both of different times, different places. And yet, if there is one place where the two fish balls intersect – it’s right here, in Brixton.

*

When the Windrush generation arrived in Brixton, back in the ’50s and ’60s, this neighbourhood was also home to a thriving Jewish community, many of whom had also set up shop in the area. There were kosher butchers and corner delis; an Orthodox synagogue stood proudly on Effra Road.

It’s all vividly depicted in the touching (if rather idiosyncratically-titled) film, Wondrous Oblivion, which tells the story of two neighbouring Brixton families – one Jewish, one Jamaican – united through their shared experience of immigration and racism, as well as an obsessional love for cricket.

By all accounts, it’s an authentic portrayal of the relationship between the communities at the time. Other reports recount too how the communities connected and supported each other, not least in the frequenting of each other’s stalls, stores, and businesses.

And it’s not hard to imagine a scene where, walking along a Brixton side street, you might have caught enticing smells of frying gefilte fish wafting from one home, and then of Caribbean fish fritters from next door.

Two fish balls, from two communities. Each with an indelible place in the heart of their respective culinary psyches. Each steeped in the history of their people.

Before I leave, Brian insists on filling our cups with his fiery homemade ginger beer – the coloured glasses shimmer green in the afternoon sun – and we make a toast, to those who have traveled and endured, to the communities who have come to this place and made it their home, and to our respective families from long ago.

*

A big thank you to Brian Danclair for generously giving his time, sharing his stories and discussing Trinidadian food. And to Jonathan Nunn, food-writer and editor of ‘Vittles’, for kindly reviewing a draft of this piece, and reminding me of Brixton’s Jewish past. I also learned much through Claudia Roden’s ‘The Book of Jewish Food’, full of evocative narratives and descriptions. Whilst for more on Trinidadian food, feel free to check out my previous article, ‘Dhal Puri Roti’.

Finally, this piece is dedicated to my great Auntie Stella, Grandma Beryl’s sister and a warm wonderful soul, who sadly died from Covid-19 whilst I was writing this piece.

‘Chopped & Fried’ Gefilte Fish

gefilte gefilte gefilte

Fish, Wings & Tings

gefilte