Fish and Chips
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40 free Fish and Chips trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Fish and chips is often called Britain's national dish, yet almost everything about it is argued over: who first sold the two together, which fish belongs in the batter, what the chips should be fried in and what goes on top. It fed mill workers, came through two world wars and travelled to every corner of the English-speaking world. This quiz covers the whole story. Expect questions on the dish's immigrant roots and rival birthplaces, the Victorian technology that made it cheap, wartime politics, chip-shop sides, sauces and slang, famous shops and chains, and the local twists you will find from Canada to Australia. The questions start easy and get harder, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works for a pub night, a classroom or anyone who simply fancies a chippy tea.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which British prime minister of the Second World War affectionately called fish and chips "the good companions"?
Winston Churchill
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.
Q 02Which chocolate bar became a Scottish novelty after a Stonehaven chip shop began deep-frying it in batter in the 1990s?
Mars bar
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.
Q 03Australians joke that speakers from which country seem to order "fush and chups" because of a distinctive short vowel?
New Zealand
New Zealand vowels are the giveaway, and the teasing runs both ways: to Kiwi ears, Australians seem to ask for feesh and cheeps.
Q 04Until hygiene worries ended the habit, what did British chip shops traditionally wrap takeaway fish and chips in?
Old newspapers
Old newspapers went on the outside to soak up grease and keep the food hot, usually over an inner layer of clean white paper.
Q 05Which soft chip-shop side dish, soaked overnight and then simmered, is sometimes jokingly called Yorkshire caviar?
Mushy peas
Mushy peas start as dried marrowfat peas, and most tinned versions are dyed green because the natural colour is a murky grey.
Q 06Which day is the traditional night for fish and chips in Britain, a habit rooted in Catholic abstinence from meat?
Friday
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.
Q 07Britain's supply of chip-shop cod was at stake in the Cod Wars, fishing disputes fought against which country?
Iceland
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.
Q 08Which Charles Dickens novel mentions a "fried fish warehouse", an early sign of the trade behind fish and chips?
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist appeared in the 1830s, about two decades before the first known shops began selling fried fish and chipped potatoes together.
Q 09Whose fish and chip shop in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, earned a Guinness record by serving 10,000 portions in one day?
Harry Ramsden
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.
Q 10Which drink often replaces water in fish batter because its carbon dioxide gives the coating a lighter texture?
Beer
Beer brings bubbles and an orange-brown colour, and cooks argue over whether lager, stout or bitter makes the tastiest batter.
Q 11On a British chip shop menu, "rock salmon" or "huss" is a trade name for which kind of fish?
Dogfish
Dogfish of several species hide behind the label, and overfishing has left one of them, the spiny dogfish, classed as vulnerable worldwide.
Q 12In American English "chips" usually means the thin crunchy snack that people in Britain and Ireland call what?
Crisps
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.
Q 13Which Victorian transport network sped fresh North Sea fish to industrial cities, making fish and chips a cheap staple?
Railways
Railways linked the ports to the mill towns just as steam trawlers began landing white fish in quantities never seen before.
Q 21Fried fish is thought to have reached England with Jewish families from which region, where it was a Sabbath dish?
Spain and Portugal
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.
Q 22Which author, writing about northern England in the 1930s, ranked fish and chips chief among working-class comforts?
George Orwell
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.
Q 23In which Scottish city do chip shops traditionally offer "salt and sauce", a thinned brown sauce, in place of vinegar?
Edinburgh
Q 14Which mayonnaise-based sauce, usually sharpened with capers and chopped pickles, is the classic partner for fried fish?
Tartar
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.
Q 15The American fish-and-chips chain Long John Silver's takes its name from a pirate in which Robert Louis Stevenson novel?
Treasure Island
Treasure Island supplied the name when the chain began in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1969, with early outlets styled after Cape Cod buildings.
Q 16Which white fish do chip shops in Scotland generally favour, while most shops in southern England lean towards cod?
Haddock
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.
Q 17Before vegetable oils took over, which animal fat did British chip shops traditionally use to fry fish and chips?
Beef dripping
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.
Q 18Most traditional fish and chip shops in Ireland are run by families whose roots lie in which other European country?
Italy
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.
Q 19Fans of which English football club sing an anthem praising the greasy chip butty to the tune of a John Denver hit?
Sheffield United
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.
Q 20Which Jewish immigrant is credited with the first recorded fish-and-chip shop, opened in Bow, East London, around 1860?
Joseph Malin
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.
Edinburgh's chippy sauce is brown sauce let down with vinegar or water, while the rest of Scotland mostly sticks to salt and vinegar.
Q 24Dundee City Council claims chips were first sold in its Greenmarket in the 1870s by an immigrant from which country?
Belgium
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.
Q 25In Wisconsin and Upstate New York, a plate of battered cod or perch with fries is usually sold under which name?
Fish fry
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.
Q 26In Scottish and Northern Irish chip shops, which word added to an order, as in "fish ___", means it comes with chips?
Supper
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.
Q 27In northern English chip shops, what name is given to the crunchy pieces of fried batter once handed free to children?
Scraps
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.
Q 28Which warm chip-shop sauce, usually poured over the chips for a small extra fee, topped a 2020 YouGov poll in Wales?
Curry
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.
Q 29In Australian fish and chip shops, the popular boneless fillet sold as "flake" comes from which kind of sea creature?
Shark
Shark, usually the gummy shark, became the Australian chip-shop standard because its mild white flesh has no bones, only cartilage.
Q 30Non-brewed condiment, the cheap liquid shaken over chips in many British chip shops, is mostly water and which acid?
Acetic
Acetic acid gives the sharpness, but because the liquid is never brewed, a 1949 court ruling stopped its makers from calling it vinegar.