Palmerston Cafe
Fish and chips (colloquially known as a fish supper in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It typically consists of battered fish which is deep-fried and accompanied by chips.
The dish remains very popular in the UK and in areas colonised by British people in the mid 19th century.
History
Fish and chips became a stock meal among the working classes in Great Britain as a consequence of the rapid development of trawl fishing in the North Sea, and development of railways connecting ports to cities during the second half of the 19th century. In 1860, the first fish and chip shop was opened in London by Jewish proprietor Joseph Malin.
Deep-fried chips (slices or pieces of potato) as a dish may have first appeared in Britain in about the same period: the Oxford English Dictionary notes as its earliest usage of "chips" in this sense the mention in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (published in 1859): "Husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil". (Note that Belgian tradition, as recorded in a manuscript of 1781, dates the frying of potatoes carved into the shape of fish back at least as far as 1680.)
