Port-passing Rules

Another way you can set off English class-radar bleepers is to pass the port the wrong way. Port is served at the end of a dinner – sometimes, among the upper classes, to men only, as the women follow the old-fashioned practice of ‘withdrawing’ to another room to drink coffee and talk girl-talk, leaving the men to their male bonding. Port must always travel round the table clockwise (if it were to go anti-clockwise, the world would end), so you must always pass the bottle or decanter to your left.

Even if you somehow miss your turn, you must never ask for the port to be passed back to you, as this would mean port travelling in the wrong direction, which would be a disaster. Either wait for it come all the way round again, or pass your glass along to the left to catch up with the port and be filled for you. Your glass can then be passed back to you without danger, as port can travel anti-clockwise if it is in a glass: the taboo on passing to the right only applies to port in bottles and decanters.

No-one has the slightest idea why clockwise port-passing is so important. The rule serves no discernible purpose, other than to cause embarrassment to those who are not aware of it, and, presumably, a peculiarly English sense of smug self-satisfaction among those who are.

The meaning of chips

The SIRC research report on The Meaning of Chips dealt with a food issue of great national importance. Ninety percent of us are chip eaters, the majority indulging at least once a week, and the chip is a vital part of English heritage, but little was known, until the SIRC study, about our relationship with the chip, its role in our social interactions, and its place in the cultural Zeitgeist.

Chips, Patriotism and English Empiricism

Although chips were invented in Belgium, and are popular (as French-fries, frites, patate frite, patatas fritas, etc.) in many other parts of the world, we found that English people tend to think of them as British or, rather more specifically, English. ‘Fish and chips’ is still regarded as the English national dish. The English are not normally inclined to be either patriotic or passionate about food but we found that they could be surprisingly patriotic and enthusiastic about the humble chip.

‘The chip is down to earth,’ explained one of our focus-group participants. ‘It’s basic, it’s simple in a good way, which is why we like the chip. We have that quality and it’s a good quality . . . This is what we are – no faffing about.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that a chunk of fried potato could so eloquently express the earthy empiricism and no-nonsense realism that I had tentatively identified as defining characteristics of Englishness, so I was grateful to him for this insight.

Chip-sharing Rules and Sociability

Chips are also an important social facilitator. This is the only English food that actually lends itself to sharing, and that the unwritten rules allow us to share. When we are eating chips, you will often see the English behaving in a very sociable, intimate, un-English manner: all pitching in messily to eat with our fingers off the same plate or out of the same bag, pinching chips off each other’s plates – and even feeding chips to each other. Normally, even with foods that are supposed to be shared, such as Chinese or Indian, the English stick to the practice of each person ordering his or her own dish. But chips seem to promote sociability, which for many English people is part of their attraction – perhaps because we have a greater need than other nations for props and facilitators that encourage ‘commensality’.