40 Fun Facts About Fish and Chips

Which British prime minister of the Second World War affectionately called fish and chips "the good companions"?

Winston Churchill's government kept the dish off the ration throughout the war, making it one of the few foods Britons could still buy freely.

Which chocolate bar became a Scottish novelty after a Stonehaven chip shop began deep-frying it in batter in the 1990s?

The deep-fried Mars bar drew so much press that The Lancet commissioned a survey, which found about a fifth of the Scottish chip shops that replied were selling it.

Australians joke that speakers from which country seem to order "fush and chups" because of a distinctive short vowel?

New Zealand vowels are the giveaway, and the teasing runs both ways: to Kiwi ears, Australians seem to ask for feesh and cheeps.

Until hygiene worries ended the habit, what did British chip shops traditionally wrap takeaway fish and chips in?

Old newspapers went on the outside to soak up grease and keep the food hot, usually over an inner layer of clean white paper.

Which soft chip-shop side dish, soaked overnight and then simmered, is sometimes jokingly called Yorkshire caviar?

Mushy peas start as dried marrowfat peas, and most tinned versions are dyed green because the natural colour is a murky grey.

Which day is the traditional night for fish and chips in Britain, a habit rooted in Catholic abstinence from meat?

Friday was the day Catholics gave up meat, so fish took its place, and many canteens still put fish and chips on the menu every week.

Britain's supply of chip-shop cod was at stake in the Cod Wars, fishing disputes fought against which country?

Iceland won every one of the disputes, and the 1976 settlement kept most British trawlers out of a 200-nautical-mile zone around its coast.

Which Charles Dickens novel mentions a "fried fish warehouse", an early sign of the trade behind fish and chips?

Oliver Twist appeared in the 1830s, about two decades before the first known shops began selling fried fish and chipped potatoes together.

Whose fish and chip shop in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, earned a Guinness record by serving 10,000 portions in one day?

Harry Ramsden started out in 1928 and set the record in 1952; the chain that grew from his shop later reached Hong Kong and Walt Disney World.

Which drink often replaces water in fish batter because its carbon dioxide gives the coating a lighter texture?

Beer brings bubbles and an orange-brown colour, and cooks argue over whether lager, stout or bitter makes the tastiest batter.

On a British chip shop menu, "rock salmon" or "huss" is a trade name for which kind of fish?

Dogfish of several species hide behind the label, and overfishing has left one of them, the spiny dogfish, classed as vulnerable worldwide.

In American English "chips" usually means the thin crunchy snack that people in Britain and Ireland call what?

Crisps is the British word, yet fish and chips keeps its original name in America, even though the chips on the plate would otherwise be called fries.

Which Victorian transport network sped fresh North Sea fish to industrial cities, making fish and chips a cheap staple?

Railways linked the ports to the mill towns just as steam trawlers began landing white fish in quantities never seen before.

Which mayonnaise-based sauce, usually sharpened with capers and chopped pickles, is the classic partner for fried fish?

Tartar sauce gave steak tartare its name, not the other way round: the raw beef dish began as steak à la tartare, meaning served with the sauce on the side.

The American fish-and-chips chain Long John Silver's takes its name from a pirate in which Robert Louis Stevenson novel?

Treasure Island supplied the name when the chain began in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1969, with early outlets styled after Cape Cod buildings.

Which white fish do chip shops in Scotland generally favour, while most shops in southern England lean towards cod?

Haddock was judged best eaten fresh, so it stayed close to the Scottish ports, while cod, which improved over a few days, was sent south.

Before vegetable oils took over, which animal fat did British chip shops traditionally use to fry fish and chips?

Beef dripping still has loyal friers who argue it beats oil, but the switch made chip-shop chips suitable for vegetarians and for some faiths.

Most traditional fish and chip shops in Ireland are run by families whose roots lie in which other European country?

Italy, and one small area of it: the trade began in 1880s Dublin with Giuseppe Cervi, and many chip-shop families trace back to Frosinone province.

Fans of which English football club sing an anthem praising the greasy chip butty to the tune of a John Denver hit?

Sheffield United fans took up the chant in the early 1980s, after a supporter reworked a song first written by a fan of nearby Rotherham.

Which Jewish immigrant is credited with the first recorded fish-and-chip shop, opened in Bow, East London, around 1860?

Joseph Malin is said to have started as a boy, hawking fried fish and chipped potatoes from a tray; the family shop then traded for over a century.

Fried fish is thought to have reached England with Jewish families from which region, where it was a Sabbath dish?

Spain and Portugal were home to the Jewish cooks who fried fish in oil for the Sabbath, because it stayed light and tasty when eaten cold the next day.

Which author, writing about northern England in the 1930s, ranked fish and chips chief among working-class comforts?

George Orwell made the point in The Road to Wigan Pier, his 1937 account of working-class life, treating such cheap comforts as a cure-all for hard times.

In which Scottish city do chip shops traditionally offer "salt and sauce", a thinned brown sauce, in place of vinegar?

Edinburgh's chippy sauce is brown sauce let down with vinegar or water, while the rest of Scotland mostly sticks to salt and vinegar.

Dundee City Council claims chips were first sold in its Greenmarket in the 1870s by an immigrant from which country?

Belgium was the homeland of the seller, Edward De Gernier, and the country still argues with France over which of them invented the fried chip.

In Wisconsin and Upstate New York, a plate of battered cod or perch with fries is usually sold under which name?

Fish fry nights took root in Wisconsin because so many of its settlers were German and Polish Catholics who gave up meat one day a week.

In Scottish and Northern Irish chip shops, which word added to an order, as in "fish ___", means it comes with chips?

Supper works for anything on the menu: in Scotland a battered sausage supper or a pizza crunch supper also arrives with a pile of chips.

In northern English chip shops, what name is given to the crunchy pieces of fried batter once handed free to children?

Scraps began as a by-product skimmed from the fryer, and the name changes by region: they are gribbles in the West Country and screeds in Cornwall.

Which warm chip-shop sauce, usually poured over the chips for a small extra fee, topped a 2020 YouGov poll in Wales?

Curry sauce was the pick of one in three Welsh chip eaters, and across the UK it ranked among the top three toppings after salt and vinegar.

In Australian fish and chip shops, the popular boneless fillet sold as "flake" comes from which kind of sea creature?

Shark, usually the gummy shark, became the Australian chip-shop standard because its mild white flesh has no bones, only cartilage.

Non-brewed condiment, the cheap liquid shaken over chips in many British chip shops, is mostly water and which acid?

Acetic acid gives the sharpness, but because the liquid is never brewed, a 1949 court ruling stopped its makers from calling it vinegar.

Which bright red, highly seasoned sausage, normally boiled, is sold in fish and chip shops around Britain?

Saveloy is thought to take its name, by way of French, from an old word for pig's brains, the meat the sausage was traditionally made from.

In London's Cockney slang, a chip-shop "wally" is the nickname for which pickled accompaniment to fish and chips?

Gherkin is the answer: the large pickled kind sits in big jars on the counter of southern English chip shops, alongside the pickled onions.

Which potato variety, the most widely grown in the UK since 1980, is a favourite for making chip-shop chips?

Maris Piper fries well because it is high in dry matter and low in sugars, and it was bred in Cambridge to resist a major potato pest.

For a record 55 kg serving of fish and chips in Birmingham in 2018, chefs battered one giant fillet of which fish?

Halibut supplied a raw fillet of nearly 28 kg, about half the weight of the finished serving, with the chips making up most of the rest.

Waste cooking oil from Britain's fish and chip shops has become a useful raw material for which vehicle fuel?

Biodiesel made from old frying oil caught the eye of the German firm Petrotec, which announced plans to produce the fuel in the UK from chip-shop waste.

The town of Kristiansund, where fish and chips has been street food since the 1940s, is in which Nordic country?

Norway's Kristiansund calls the dish fishan, and the port was for years the country's largest exporter of dried salted cod.

Which American chain bought the frying recipe of the family shop in Bow, London, billed as the world's first chippy?

Arthur Treacher's, named after an English actor typecast as the perfect butler, peaked at 826 outlets in the late 1970s before nearly all of them closed.

The British government protected fish and chip supplies in the First World War chiefly to keep up what at home?

Morale was the worry: ministers made the supply a priority to keep families in good heart, mindful that hunger was wearing down civilians in Germany.

In Dublin, which phrase for a portion of fish and chips grew out of an early chip-shop owner's question to customers?

One and one echoes Palma Cervi, who asked customers in her own language whether they wanted one of this and one of that, and Dubliners kept the phrase.

Which Greater Manchester town's Tommyfield Market has a blue plaque claiming it as the birthplace of fish and chips?

Oldham's rival claim centres on John Lees, who went on to sell fish with chips from a wooden kiosk in nearby Mossley in the 1860s.