England’s favourite takeaway dish for a long period of time, fish and chips has always been a typical English food. All English communities, especially the working class, have found themselves in love with fish and chips as it provides them with tasty and healthy sustenance after long working days.
Central to the fish and chips is of course the good old fish and chip shop. They arrived for the first time in Northern England though I don’t remember exactly when. Today there are thousands and thousands of fish and chip shops all over England, making it probably the most popular food dishes loved by everyone, both the English and foreigners alike.
In addition to this, fish and chips have also become incredibly fashionable at many of the top restaurants in England and a handful of celebrity chefs have made no secret of their love for this fantastic English food tradition.
Wherever you travel in England, you tend to find that cod, haddock and plaice are by far the most popular fish. However, certain regional variations are also quite popular with whiting in the Midlands and skate seen everywhere in the south of the nation. More exotic varieties of fish such as hoki, red snapper, and even small shark can also be found now on menus.
In England health conscience is important and for this reason the tradition of deep-frying has been regarded as a rather unhealthy option, and even strains on haddock and cod stocks in the sea mean the fish and chip shops might soon need to bring in other types of fish.
Despite such difficulties, it would be inconceivable to see our cooking selection without fish and chips, and the traditional English dish has certainly found favour amongst a lot of overseas visitors.
To be perfectly honest with you, I reckon there is nothing more typically English than walking along the beautiful seafront taking in the nice view and eating fish and chips out of newspaper. And even though on a whole English food might not be the best in the world, fish and chips is surely something that can do justice for English food.
Though I come from a country famous for nice food, I have to admit that I did fall in love with England thanks to fish and chips when I first visited the country. Now that I am back home, I miss them nearly everyday, and as a result the first thing I will definitely do when I go back to England is pop into the nearest chippy.
Fish and chips is definitely an English icon. It would be a surprise if you can find this elsewhere in the world. Even in my hometown Bangkok, when the first and most well-known fish and chips shop in town was opened, they even failed to include curry sauce on the menu! The newspaper print was also photocopied which was bizarre.
I haven’t travelled much but to the best of my knowledge such a thing doesn’t exist elsewhere even in America it’s just French-fries. Everyone just knows that fish and chips is a true English food without a shadow of a doubt.