A group of retired men known as the Heclers of Holt have indulged in a culinary quest to find the pub within a twenty-mile radius of their village offering the best ham, eggs and chips.
The group of 15 Holt men have been awarding the Three Chips certificate to pubs in West Wiltshire since 2012. This year, the group awarded the Longs Arms in Steeple Ashton after it achieved a score of 12 out of 15 points.
“When we all started getting old and retiring, we moaned that you could not get any decent pub food anywhere and we sat down and decided what constituted good ham, eggs and chips,” says the group’s chief ‘Eggsecutive,’ Bob Mizen.
The gold standard against which offerings are judged is: two free-range eggs, thrice-cooked chips, ham carved from the bone, condiments, ambience and service.
Bob said, “We have five criteria that score up to three points each, so your maximum score is up to 15, and nobody ever makes that because the perfect one is impossible, of course.”
Points can be deducted for: broken eggs that are undercooked or overcooked, undercooked or pre-formed frozen chips, wet, machine-sliced ham, condiments in sachets and uncalled-for ‘rain forest’ (salad) on the plate.
“We have had some awful ones in the past where eggs have been broken, which is my personal dislike,” explained Bob. “We won’t go anywhere where they don’t have it on the menu and the pubs know we are doing this when we arrive. They do not know the criteria by which we are judging the dish; we just say we are on a quest to find the best ham, eggs, and chips in West Wiltshire.
“It takes about two or three years to do a round because all 15 people each need to have a go. We did try looking at an alternative to ham, eggs and chips but we come back to that every time because it is a good old pub staple.”
Bob said that none of the pubs the group has visited have achieved all 15 points, “If we found the perfect one, we would have to say, ‘Let’s all wind it up and go home,’” explained Bob.
The Longs Arms were presented with the Three Chips award last month, when the group revisited to taste the ‘award-winning’ ham, eggs and chips again.
“There is a film called Goodbye Mr Chips. There are three famous actors who have played Mr Chips, including Martin Clunes, Peter O’Toole and Robert Donat; all their faces are on the certificate. The award is a play on this,” explained Bob.
