Fish and chips, wrapped in newspaper
Eaten with mayonnaise, salt and pepper, lemon
The development of the steam powered trawler brought fish from all over the North Atlantic and Iceland, then the steam railways ensured fast distribution of produce around Britain. The earliest purpose-built fishing vessels were made in Leith in 1875 when they converted a drifter to steam power.
The origins of British fish and chips were uncertain. Originally Western Sephardic Jews, who settled in England in the C17th, liked preparing fried fish. The fish was coated in flour and dipped into a batter i.e flour mixed with water, or even beer. London’s East End Jews sold fried fish from their shops.
The potato came to Britain from the New World in the C17th by Sir Walter Raleigh. While there was disagreement between France and Belgium about where chips were invented, fried potato chips have long been popular in Britain. William Kitchiner's book The Cook's Oracle (published 1817) included the earliest known recipe for potato chips which first took off in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Who brought the combination together to create this essentially British dish? Some said the first fish and chip shop was opened in the East End of London in early 1860s by the Eastern European immigrant Joseph Malin who sold Jewish-style fish fried. Others believed that in 1863 entrepreneur John Lees was selling fish and chips out of a Mossley market hut in Lancashire i.e it was the cheap, staple food of the Industrial North. Lees sold fish and chips from a wooden market hut and later moved the business to a proper shop.
Whichever came first, both sites helped people decide that putting fried fish & chips together was a tasty combination; the national (working class) dish of fish and chips was born! Soon fish and chip shops were small family businesses, often run from the front room of the house and commonplace by the late C19th. It must have worked - by 1910 there were c25,000 fish and chips shops in Britain.
The fish and chip shop was invaluable in supplementing the family’s weekly diet during WW2, once ministers of the crown ensured that fish and chips would never be rationed! So long queues quickly appeared when people heard that a chip shop had fish!! Fish and chips were a valuable source of protein and iron. The problem was the oil, such that fish and chips were censured by healthy food experts. [So I warmly recommend grilled and not fried].
Freshly cooked hot fish and chips, eaten on the beach
Fish, chips and mushy peas; very British! Freshly cooked hot fish and chips were smothered in salt and vinegar and wrapped; great when eaten out-of-doors on a cold, wintry day! Servings were wrapped in old newspaper to keep prices down. This practice survived as late as the 1980s when it was pronounced unsafe for food to come into direct contact with newspaper ink.
In 1999, the British averaged six servings for every man, woman in the country. There are now 10,500 fish and chip shops across the UK i.e 8 for every one McDonald’s outlet, so Fish and Chips are the nation’s favourite take-away. To move away from its working class origins, shops smartened up and the selected pieces come from better quality fish.
Australia
Athanassio Comino arrived in Sydney from the Greek island of Kythera in 1873. And after arriving in Australia as a sailing ship sailor, Comino worked in a Balmain colliery. He was walking down Sydney’s Oxford St when hunger drew him to a fish and chip shop operated by an Welshman. He saw the chance to start a business and, in 1878, started his own in Oxford St. The 1870s date sounds reasonable, given that fish and chips had become popular in Britain in the 1860s.
As well as the fish and chips, Comino serviced Australians’ love of oysters, expanding his business into a chain of oyster saloons. Brother Ioannis migrated to Australia in 1884 to join him and, after Athanassio’s death in 1897, expanded the Cominos Empire. Family members followed the brothers to Australia and into the seafood business. Ioannis became known as the Oyster King and the Comino name was attached to businesses across NSW and Qld.
After the excitement of Federation in 1901, when Australia was developing its own identity, fish and chips became one of the most popular meals. The peak of their popularity was during the interwar years when there must have been a fish and chop shop on every street. For many working class families, the shops functioned as an affordable escape from the monotony of bread, dripping, jam and tea, as in Britain.
The tradition of buying and sharing wrapped bundles of battered fish and fried chips is deep-rooted in Australian culture. Many families had picnics on the beach, children’s birthday parties or Friday night family dinners. In Australia today, there are c4000 fish and chip shops, as well as this meal being an essential menu offering in many Australian pubs and restaurants. The most popular fishes nowadays are more expensive: barramundi, snapper, trout, flathead, john dory, blue grenadier, hake, gemfish, red emperor, salmon and ling.
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22 comments:
I remember fish and chips lunches in primary school in the 1950s - hot, easy to buy without my parents, wrapped up on news paper. Yum.
Train Man
I also remember that era very well. Money was limited, so I was very impressed that lunch cost only 1 shilling for the fish and 3d for the chips :) On the days when other friends didn't have enough money for a proper lunch themselves, they could always have some of my chips.
Why did Catholics eat fish on Friday? Do they still now?
Joe
The practice of eating fish is related to the day Catholics typically abstain from meat: Friday. This is the day that Christ died, so abstaining from the shedding of blood seems appropriate. Friday, the sixth day, was also the day that God created animals, so abstaining from meat is a symbolic stay of execution for cows, pigs, and sheep, just as the cross saves Catholics from eternal death. USCatholic.org
The practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays is centuries-old, but in 1985 the Catholic Church in England and Wales allowed Catholics to substitute another form of penance in its place, if they wanted to.
I love fish and chips from a chippie but I only ever buy them when I'm in the north preferably from Charlie's Chippie in Urmston Manchester where my mum used to live. Traditionally they were cooked in lard and not oil which Mum said was the only way to cook decent chips.
Fish and Chips is an unbeatable combination, whatever its origins, whatever its history.
It's a simple, easy to prepare dish - ideal for everyone's taste, for everyone's pocket. No wonder it has become universally loved and appreciated.
Very interesting, thank you, Helen!
In the Beamish Open Air Museum a lad in a hall with old Art Deco machines convinced me to try his 'fish and chips' - they were utterly delicious (though of course not a health treatment) because they still were prepared with lard. And the machines so stylish!
You can't beat a portion of fish and chips. I always loved to eat them from the wrapper when the outer wrapper was newspaper. What lovely memories.
It isn't quite the same eating them from a cardboard or polystyrene box.
Yes, Friday night childhood fish and chips were de rigueur for us.
4000 fish and chip shops in Australia against 1028 McDonalds in 2022. That's a pleasing statistic.
Fun60
Your mum loved lard because of the richer taste. But because fish and chips were almost the only food not rationed during and after WW2, she probably remembered that meal with even greater pleasure.
DUTA
Talking of being popular universally, the Portuguese claimed ownership originally :)
Then I asked my local fish and chips shop owner, a Greek lady, who said that Greeks got almost all their protein from fish, so it was definitely a Greek patent.
Britta,
I have never been to Beamish alas but seeing it concentrates on the early-mid 20th century, I wish I had visited before I wrote this post. The North is clearly where the experiences are richest.
CherryPie,
I love the photo of the children along the beach wall, casual, relaxed and loving their fish and chips. No cutlery, no serviettes and no adult supervision!
Andrew
I realise this is going to sound a bit hypocritical, but I loathe the idea of children being encouraged to eat unhealthy takeaway food from endless American chains :( Australian children will never learn to cook proper food themselves at home, will learn dismal American vocabulary and will hide their poor diet from their parents.
Fish and chips only had one problem .. being a bit fattening.
Most of the maternal side of my family (including my father) were in the Fish & Chips trade. It is generally thought that the first UK fish shop was opened in Central London in the 1870s by a Jewish immigrant. It is presumed that cold fried fish was eaten on the Sabbath because it could be prepared the day before.
When we went to a fish shop in Cowes on Phillip Island we didn't recognise any of the fish on offer! But we had a portion of Flathead Tails and chips and loved it. We also enjoyed Peter Doyle's in Sydney and I like Morton Bay Bug but Leah doesn't seafood.
In the north of England fish is usually fried in lard but my father used Mazola corn oil!
bazza
your family was very wise, working in an industry that people loved. Imagine if they made or sold ladies' stockings and suspender belts, products that died without a trace in 1968. Or black and white tvs.
Talking of shabbat, I asked my beloved grandmother why we ate fish and potato every Friday night, thinking she would quote some Vilna Gaon wisdom. But no. She made cheese cake and sour cream for sweets every week, so the rest of the meal had to fit in :)
bazza
re the north of England, clearly everyone agrees with you. In a relatively small country geographically, why were fish and chips so important? and why lard? Was the north colder, or closer to the fishing waters, or more working class?
If we ever moved back to the UK, I would love to live on the south coast of Kent, Sussex or Dorset, facing the ocean :)
Leah was born and bought up in Bournemouth which, until the children came along, she would happily have returned to. One of our twin grandsons is at university in Falmouth, Cornwall. We are going there in October but, as the crow flies, it's further from London than Paris!
bazza
great choice of a home town! When we lived in North London and Herts, Bournemouth was a weekend holiday destination that looked fantastic. The pier, beach and cove were just perfect and the art gallery-museum were great fun. The cathedral was impressive of course, but the magna carta connection was a wonderful surprise. And the synagogue looked handsome.
Hi Hels - it's going to cost a diamond tiara for a plate of chips very shortly!! Life is interesting to put it mildly - I love how over times foods have changed ... eg oysters in the 1800s so cheap, yet now so expensive ... perhaps they'll be cheap soon - sadly I doubt it ... they've been fished out. Cheers Hilary
Hilary
oh no :( The whole history of fish and chips was so that working class families could have hot, nutritious food without having to put the children down a coal mine to pay for it.
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