WEBVTT - How Did Fish & Chips Become England's National Dish?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.040
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:11.399
<v Speaker 1>Lauren folk Bomb here. The irresistible combination of a thick

0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.640
<v Speaker 1>hunk of battered cod resting atop amount of steaming hot chips,

0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.120
<v Speaker 1>known as French fries in America, is the quintessential British

0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.439
<v Speaker 1>comfort food. Whether eaten on a plastic lab tray in

0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.520
<v Speaker 1>front of the telly or picked from a paper cone

0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.319
<v Speaker 1>on the way home from the pub, a meal of

0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:27.760
<v Speaker 1>fish and chips is a serving of deep fried comfort

0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.520
<v Speaker 1>with a sprinkling of salt and vinegar. At the dish's

0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.280
<v Speaker 1>peak popularity. In the late nineteen twenties, there were thirty

0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.080
<v Speaker 1>five thousand fish and chip shops in the United Kingdom

0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.000
<v Speaker 1>that is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Today there's

0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.040
<v Speaker 1>still ten thousand, five hundred chippies in the UK, serving

0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.520
<v Speaker 1>three hundred and sixty million meals of fish and chips

0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.960
<v Speaker 1>every year, the equivalent of six servings of fish and

0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.600
<v Speaker 1>chips for every man, woman and child. The golden fried

0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.520
<v Speaker 1>combo is so deeply entrenched in British culture that it's

0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.400
<v Speaker 1>hard to imagine a time when there wasn't a fish

0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.080
<v Speaker 1>and chip shop in every neighborhood, but travel back a

0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.360
<v Speaker 1>mere two hundred years and you'd be hard pressed to

0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.920
<v Speaker 1>find fried fish or chipped potatoes anywhere in the British Isles.

0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.280
<v Speaker 1>The delicious duo came together in the mid nineteenth century,

0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.760
<v Speaker 1>thanks in large part to the culinary contributions of immigrants.

0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.680
<v Speaker 1>The practice of breading and frying fish is credited to

0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:21.199
<v Speaker 1>Jewish communities originally living in Spain and Portugal noticed Sphardic Jews.

0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.399
<v Speaker 1>The Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula thrived there since

0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.319
<v Speaker 1>the eighth century, much of it under Muslim rule. The

0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.080
<v Speaker 1>situation changed dramatically in the fifteenth century. The first the

0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.040
<v Speaker 1>Spanish Inquisition, outlawed Judaism, sending Spanish Jews fleeing to the

0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.320
<v Speaker 1>neighboring Portugal. Then, in nineteen forty six, the Portuguese King

0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.800
<v Speaker 1>Manuel the First married Isabella of Spain, who insisted on

0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.360
<v Speaker 1>the conversion or expulsion of Jews from Portugal to Some

0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.000
<v Speaker 1>Jews chose to remain in Spain In Portugal, many of

0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.560
<v Speaker 1>them feigning conversion but continuing to practice in secret, but

0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:56.640
<v Speaker 1>others chose to flee to other parts of Europe where

0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.080
<v Speaker 1>they could live freely and Wherever the Sphardic Jews travel,

0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.320
<v Speaker 1>they brought their rich culinary traditions. The Jewish immigrants to

0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.880
<v Speaker 1>England took to selling fried fish in the streets from

0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.160
<v Speaker 1>trays hung from their necks by leather straps. As early

0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.080
<v Speaker 1>seventeen eighty one, a British cookbook author refers to the

0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.440
<v Speaker 1>Jews way of preserving salmon and all sorts of fish,

0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 1>and Thomas Jefferson, after a visit to England, wrote about

0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.920
<v Speaker 1>sampling fried fish in the Jewish fashion. Even today, some

0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.600
<v Speaker 1>hints of the Jewish origins of British fried fish remain.

0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.600
<v Speaker 1>The sign hanging above Buba's Fish and Ships outside of

0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.880
<v Speaker 1>London advertises varieties of fish in mazzomel, batter and grilled.

0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.720
<v Speaker 1>But it wasn't until the mid nineteenth century the Jewish

0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.400
<v Speaker 1>style fried fish fully made the cultural transfer from the

0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.200
<v Speaker 1>streets of East London to the broader British populace. And

0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.280
<v Speaker 1>for that, says historian panicoas Panayi, you can thank the railroad.

0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.280
<v Speaker 1>He said. The Internet is revolutionary, but the railway changes everything.

0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:55.960
<v Speaker 1>Now you can transport fresh fish from the sea to

0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.920
<v Speaker 1>anywhere in Great Britain within a few hours. That's when

0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.520
<v Speaker 1>fried fish really takes off. Meanwhile, nobody is entirely sure

0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.760
<v Speaker 1>how fried potatoes became a staple part of the European diet.

0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.440
<v Speaker 1>We do know that it took a really long time

0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.960
<v Speaker 1>for fried potatoes or potatoes of any kind to make

0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.280
<v Speaker 1>their way to England. The exotic tubers, first brought to

0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.320
<v Speaker 1>Europe by explorers and conquerors coming back from South America

0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:23.079
<v Speaker 1>in the fifteen hundreds, were considered inedible for centuries. In Belgium,

0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.079
<v Speaker 1>the story is that fried potatoes also originated in Spain

0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.680
<v Speaker 1>in the sixteenth century and were brought north to a

0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.160
<v Speaker 1>region called These Spanish Netherlands, which is near modern day Belgium.

0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.480
<v Speaker 1>There in the seventeenth century, fishermen who struck out at

0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.440
<v Speaker 1>sea would carve potatoes into fish shapes and fry them

0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.440
<v Speaker 1>up for a stand in supper. Panaii is the author

0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.560
<v Speaker 1>of Fish and Chips, a history. During his research, he

0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.280
<v Speaker 1>wasn't able to pinpoint the precise arrival of fried potatoes

0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.640
<v Speaker 1>to England, but it was definitely much later than the

0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.520
<v Speaker 1>Belgian accounts. He believes that frying potatoes didn't really take

0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.400
<v Speaker 1>off in Great Britain until the eighteen sixties, which is

0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.280
<v Speaker 1>right around the time that we see the very first

0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.880
<v Speaker 1>fish and chip shops, so when exactly these two fried

0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.640
<v Speaker 1>friends get together. There are competing claims for being the

0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.160
<v Speaker 1>first British fish and chip shop. A Jewish immigrant named

0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.760
<v Speaker 1>Joseph Mallins is believed to have opened his chippy in

0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.960
<v Speaker 1>a London neighborhood in eighteen sixty after selling the classic

0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.760
<v Speaker 1>combo in the streets for years. And up north near Manchester,

0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.160
<v Speaker 1>the fish and chip stand owned by John Lees in

0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.960
<v Speaker 1>the town of Mossley was already doing brisk business by

0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.680
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty three. Panayi says that by nineteen hundred fish

0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.280
<v Speaker 1>and chips were a staple food in the UK. Their

0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.799
<v Speaker 1>widespread appeal was about cost and convenience as much as flavor.

0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.160
<v Speaker 1>The advent of industrial scale troll fishing in the North

0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.080
<v Speaker 1>Sea meant inexpensive fresh fish could be sent by rail

0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.440
<v Speaker 1>to all corners of Great Britain to feed hungry factory

0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.599
<v Speaker 1>workers and their families. By nineteen ten, there were twenty

0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.359
<v Speaker 1>five thousand fish and chip shops in the UK, and

0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.359
<v Speaker 1>they even stayed open during World War One in an

0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.440
<v Speaker 1>effort to boost morale at home. Prime Minister David Lloyd

0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.640
<v Speaker 1>George made sure that fish and chips stayed off the rationalist.

0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.080
<v Speaker 1>The same practice was observed during World War Two, when

0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.920
<v Speaker 1>Winston Churchill famously referred to a hot meal of fish

0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:13.400
<v Speaker 1>and chips as the good companions. According to the National

0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.520
<v Speaker 1>Federation of Fish Fryers, which is a real thing. British

0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.880
<v Speaker 1>soldiers storming Normandy beaches on D Day would identify each

0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.239
<v Speaker 1>other by yelling out fish and waiting for the response chips.

0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.600
<v Speaker 1>In the modern multicultural UK, there's plenty of competition for

0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.360
<v Speaker 1>the national dish. Chicken Tica Masala makes a strong claim,

0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.240
<v Speaker 1>but London born Panyani says that fish and chips is

0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:40.120
<v Speaker 1>still regarded as a culinary symbol of Britishness. Some chippy

0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.479
<v Speaker 1>traditions have changed over the years. For example, during the

0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.840
<v Speaker 1>war years, paper rations meant that fish and chips were

0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.080
<v Speaker 1>served in cones of yesterday's newspaper, and that practice went

0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.440
<v Speaker 1>out of favor in the nineteen eighties. And traditionally fish

0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.440
<v Speaker 1>and chips were accompanied by salt and malt vinegar, but

0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.640
<v Speaker 1>younger generations have turned to curry, sauce and even ketchup,

0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.159
<v Speaker 1>which Panayi says he't dream of doing. In northern England.

0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.839
<v Speaker 1>The classic side dish at the chippy is mushy peas,

0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.280
<v Speaker 1>a gray green concoction of well boiled field peas that

0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.560
<v Speaker 1>tastes much better than it looks or sounds, and any

0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.919
<v Speaker 1>chippy worth its salt will throw in a sprinkling of

0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.320
<v Speaker 1>scraps for customers savvy enough to ask, those, of course,

0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.000
<v Speaker 1>are the crispy bits of loose batter floating around in

0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:28.640
<v Speaker 1>the fryar. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and

0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.200
<v Speaker 1>produced by Tyler clayg. Brain Stuff is a production of

0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.680
<v Speaker 1>iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more this and lots

0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.039
<v Speaker 1>of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works

0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.679
<v Speaker 1>dot com and for more podcasts from my heart Radio

0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.599
<v Speaker 1>because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:42.719
<v Speaker 1>listen to your favorite shows.