Fish and chips. I remember when I was a kid, me and my family used to head to our local chippy on the estate in Battersea once a week. There was no better feeling than knowing you were going to get home with your freshly battered cod, fresh cut chips and put something on the telly. I feel like most of us have a similar story we can relate to. It might not be fish and chips for everyone, it could be an Indian or a Chinese, but most of us have those memories.
Now where did this British tradition begin? Did we actually invent it or merely take ownership of it as a nation. The origins of one of the UK’s favourite foods are vague. Some think that the Portuguese Jewish community first deep fried fish in the 15th century. As the Spanish Inquisition outlawed Judaism, many of them fled to the UK bringing along their culinary traditions with them. The modern day fish and chips that we all know and love seems to have started around 200 years ago in the East End of London, with deep working class roots, and the rest as they say is history. At the height of it’s glory days, there were over 35,000 fish and chip shops in the UK.
