8. Fish and Chips (Part the First)
Our dauntless YouTubers are still on the loose, searching for yet another unmissable British meal. It’s getting on for dinner time, after all. And what is more British than “Fish And Chips”? Well, maybe quite a lot.
The history of Britain’s iconic dish is a tangled one involving Sephardic Jews; Charles Dickens; Winston Churchill; George Orwell; Prince William, and Belgian (or was it French?) influences.
Also, despite being a relatively simple dish of deep-fried fish with potatoes, there are many variations to be taken into consideration at every stage of the process.
FISH
So, let’s start with the fish.
It is believed that the practice of deep frying fish originated among Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who settled in England (via Holland) in the 16th century. They probably coated their fish in flour, in a similar manner to the modern Spanish dish pescado frito. At some point, some of these people started selling the fried fish in London. In Oliver Twist (1837-39), Charles Dickens mentions “a fish warehouse” in a list of shops to be found a poor, disreputable area of east London – a place where impoverished immigrants have settled for centuries before eventually settling into better areas and leaving their first English homes to the next wave.
QuoteConfined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief; here, stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars.
Dickens - Oliver Twist, chapter 26
In 1845, Alexis Soyer published his Shilling Cookery for the People, which features a recipe for "Fried fish, Jewish fashion". Jewish fashion, according to Soyer, means using a flour and water batter.
It is not recorded what variety or varieties of fish Dickens’s “warehouse” was selling, but the famous Billingsgate Fish Market was nearby, so they were spoiled for choice. The market operated informally in the 16th and 17th centuries, before being officially issued with a charter in 1699. By the time Dickens was writing Oliver Twist, Billingsgate had expanded to become the largest fish market in the world. The market still exists, but in 1982, was relocated to a new 13 acre (53,000 m2) building complex, further east.
The original open air Billingsgate Fish Market in the early 19th century
Technically, pretty much any fish could be used for fish and chips, but the modern preference is for a white fish with large, firm flakes. By far, the two favourites are cod and haddock (related fish). Cod wins outright in England; haddock in Scotland, partly because it is plentiful in Scottish waters so, is sustainable, unlike cod which is considered to be “vulnerable”. Haddock also makes for excellent eating.)
Be sure to specify what fish you want. For example, by law, any fish sold as part of “cod and chips” must be cod. Same with all named fish; it must be that fish. If the menu just lists “fish and chips”, it can be any fish – often inferior types such as basa which are cheaper for the shop, but probably not for you.
BATTER
The fish in fish and chips is traditionally battered. Some fish and chip shops offer breaded fish as an alternative, but usually only in those establishments which have seating. Most fish and chips shops offer take away only.
The batter is usually a simple flour and water batter, perhaps with baking powder added. Many places boast about their secret batter recipe. Often the secret is that there is no secret! Beer batters etc. are rare.
COOKING MEDIUM
Traditionally, fish was fried in beef fat (dripping) and many still say that is the best. Including me! But health concerns and that it is unsuitable for fish-eating "vegetarians" and some religious groups, means its use is declining and more standard vegetable oils used instead.
THE CHIPS
At the same time as the East End of London was beginning to see the introduction of fried fish, it appears the chip showed up. Dickens again gets credit, this time for being the first to use ‘chips’ in the relevant sense. The word had been used to mean batons of fruit earlier. Dickens is the first to use it specifically to refer to potatoes.
QuoteHunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.
Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities -Part 1, Chapter 5. Published 1859.
Fried chips of potato seem to have first arisen in Belgium and not France as previously thought. So, the American term “French fry“ is probably a misnomer. (For the answer to the eternal question "What is the Difference Between French Fries and British Chips?" see this article from BBC America.)
Also, there is evidence that chips arose to replace fish when rivers and coastal seas froze over in winter, preventing fishing. People took to carving potatoes into shapes and frying them to resemble fish. I don’t suppose anyone was fooled.
Potatoes used for chips in fish and chip shops today are always the floury varieties which give a chip which is crisp on the outside but fluffy in the centre, as opposed to the more waxy varieties which are useless. In Britain, the Maris Piper variety is, by far, the most common. Some favour King Edwards.
Today, most chips in fish and chip shops are double fried in the same oil or fat as the fish; in fish restaurants, they may be triple-fried.
FISH AND CHIPS
When, where and by whom fried fish and fried potatoes were combined into one dish is disputed. There is strong evidence that a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin, opened a fish and chip shop in east London, in or around 1860. But there is equally strong evidence for the first fish and chips being served by a Mr John Lees from a Lancashire, north England market stall in 1863. Then again, there may have been others before that who remain unrecorded in any known documents.
Whatever, the meal soon caught on and by 1910, there were 25,000 fish and chip shops in Britain. In his Road to Wigan Pier (1937), George Orwell said that the reason the working classes in England didn't rise up and embrace communism was that the dish kept them happy, averting revolution.
Winston Churchill refused to ration fish and chips during WWII - not because fish was plentiful - it wasn't (fishing at sea was dangerous; the fishermen were as likely to catch a torpedo as a shoal of fish) - but as a morale booster. A sort of propaganda, if you like.
So, that deals with the fish and with the chips. The story is all over? Nowhere near. The complexity is only just beginning.
To be continued.
Image Credits
Fish and Chips Neon Sign in London; image by Victorgrigas; licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0
Billingsgate Market - Public Domain
