The Possible History of Fish and Chips

Source: Wikipedia (Andrew Dunn) 

The Portuguese gave us fried fish, the Belgians invented chips but 150 years ago an East End boy united them to create The World's Greatest Double Act 

They're a British institution as well as a national money-spinner, but how much do we really know about fish and chips?

For most of us, the classic combination of battered fish and chipped potatoes deep-fried in beef fat or vegetable oil is as English as the cup of tea that washes it down.

But just as tea originates in India or China, fish and chips is partly Portuguese and partly Belgian. 

The British can take credit for uniting these two Continental imports and creating a coupling that is loved the world over.

Today, Britain's 10,500 fish and chip shops have an annual turnover in excess of £650million.

This multi-million-pound industry, which currently accounts for a quarter of the white fish and more than ten per cent of the potatoes we eat, grew from humble beginnings.

One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1860, on the streets of the East End of London, 13-year-old Jewish boy called Joseph Malin had the bright idea of combining fried fish with chips.

Joseph's family were rug weavers. To increase the family income they had begun frying chips in a downstairs room of their house.

It was Joseph's idea to combine the chips - at that point a novelty in London - with fish from a nearby fried fish shop.

He probably first sold them from a tray hung around his neck as he walked the streets, and afterwards opened a shop in Cleveland Street, within earshot of the bells of St Maryle-Bow church.

Fried fish already had a long history in London. In a letter written at the end of the 18th Century, future American President Thomas Jefferson described eating 'fried fish in the Jewish fashion' on a visit to the capital.

Battered fried fish had first arrived in London 200 years earlier with Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain.

The Marranos were Sephardic Jews fleeing religious persecution.

They brought with them a way of cooking fish that would eventually become as British as Sherlock Holmes.

By the 1830s, the imported novelty had established itself firmly as a favourite among London's poor. 

It was tasty, cheap and filling and could be eaten hot or cold.

A Jewish trickster called Sarah Russell, who would later achieve notoriety as a quack beautician, sold plaice and sole dabs coated in turmeric-flavoured batter and fried in salad oil from a shop in Clare Market in Westminster, which at the time was one of London's roughest neighbourhoods.

Its narrow streets were lined with slaughterhouses and popular with pickpockets and prostitutes. 

Russell sold her fried fish either on its own or with jacket potatoes. Her customers included fellow Jews, who ate the fish cold on the Sabbath, and local good-time girls who paid a halfpenny a time for hot potatoes baked over a fire in a large brass can.

The filthy alleyways and dingy dens of Russell's Clare Market are the world of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, first published in 1837. Dickens' novel mentioned the new trend for 'fried fish warehouses'.

In 1846, a Jewish cookbook published in London included a recipe for fried fish.

Eight years later, A Shilling Cookery For The People by French chef Alexis Soyer contained the first printed recipe for 'fried cooked potatoes'.

The seal of respectability came when Victorian cook Eliza Acton, the forerunner of Mrs Beeton, suggested eating fried fish with vinegar to sweeten the taste.

No one knows exactly how and where chips first originated. The most popular story credits a poor Belgian housewife from the Meuse Valley with their invention.

In the winter of 1680, the river froze. Unable to get hold of any fish for her family, she cut potatoes into fish shapes and fried them instead.

 Over many years her improvisation began a trend, especially in the North of England, where a rival tradition disputes Joseph Malin's claim to have invented fish and chips.

In Lancashire, John Lees is celebrated as the creator of Britain's favourite dish. He began selling fish and chips in a wooden hut at Mossley market in 1863.

Today, in Tommyfield in Oldham, a blue plaque put up by the town council commemorates Lees' frying of the first British chip and the start of fish and chip shops and fast food in Britain.

Whatever the truth, fish and chips was quick to catch on. The new inventions of the Industrial Revolution helped fish and chips to become a favourite meal of the Victorian working classes. 

Railways, steam trawlers and new icing equipment allowed supplies of cheap, fresh fish to reach most of the country.

Different regions had their own preferences: hake in Lancashire, haddock in Yorkshire and dogfish in the North-East.

By 1910, there were more than 25,000 fish and chip shops across the country. It was a far cry from Joseph Malin's tray and John Lees's wooden hut in the marketplace.

There was more to come. By the Twenties, when fish and chips reached the peak of its popularity, Britain could boast more than 35,000 chippies.

A poster produced in 1926 by the Empire Marketing Board to encourage people to eat more fish proudly proclaimed: 'More than half the catch is sold as fried fish.' Training camps for the Territorial Army in the Thirties had special catering tents for cooking fish and chips.

In 1931, a chip shop in Bradford was forced to employ a doorman to control the queues at the busiest times of day.

In The Road To Wigan Pier, written in 1937, author and journalist George Orwell described the living conditions of the poor in northern England.

The main factor he considered essential to the happiness of the masses was fish and chips.

Orwell made lofty claims for the humble fried supper. Among them was his certainty that it was fish and chips that had safeguarded Britain against revolution.

He considered them chief among the 'home comforts' which acted as a panacea to the working classes.

'Britain's sixpenny suppers helped win the World War of 1914-18,' announced The Northern Daily Telegraph.

During the Second World War, the Minister For Food, Lord Woolton, exempted fish and chips from rationing.

Special trains ensured that the nation's fish supplies kept moving. The Government recognised that military success overseas needed to be reinforced by high morale at home.

So fish and chips, which Winston Churchill once described as 'the good companions', remained on the menu.

Despite the wartime reduction in the quantity of fish available, brought about by the disruption to British fishing, chippies stayed open from 1939 to 1945, although many resorted to early closing times when they ran out of ingredients.

On December 20, 1928, in Guiseley in West Yorkshire, a man set up a striped wooden hut beside a tram stop. His name was Harry Ramsden.

Despite Guiseley's remoteness from the sea (it is more than 60 miles inland), Ramsden had decided to sell fish and chips.

The wooden hut was a success and, three years later, he opened a fish and chip 'palace' in the town. 

Modelled on The Ritz in London, with wooden panelling and chandeliers, Harry Ramsden's fish and chip 'palace' is still the largest fish and chip shop in the world.

On a single day in 1952, it served 10,000 portions of fish and chips, earning itself a place in The Guinness Book Of Records.

The rising cost of fish since the war, married to current fears about sustainability and growing levels of obesity, threatens Britain's fish and chip industry.

So does the increase in alternative forms of fast food. Burgers, kebabs, curry, Chinese takeaways and pizzas all currently outsell fish and chips.

In addition, last November the Food Standards Agency (FSA) targeted fish and chip shops as part of a programme to make Britain healthier.

The FSA pilot scheme, launched in 80 fish and chip shops, aims to encourage chippies to create chunkier chips that absorb less fat.

The National Federation Of Fish Fryers has hit back, demonstrating that fish and chips has a lower fat and sugar content than any of its fast-food competitors.

For the moment the public is voting with its feet. Fish and chips has risen in popularity during the current recession.

Today almost 300 million portions are sold in Britain each year - the equivalent of five servings for every man, woman and child in the country.

Source: Daily Mail