What could be nicer on a fine summer’s night than a bag of fish and chips? This writer’s earliest memory of buying fish and chips was in Fermoy on Barrack Hill where Joe Flynn did a roaring trade for a good number of years. This would have been in the early 1960s and some time towards the late 6os (or early 70s), the Fenton family opened a chip shop on MacCurtain Street. This was a .must visit’ and took us away from Joe’s for a period. A cycle from the pictures in The Ormonde on Rathealy Road to be followed with a bag of chips wrapped in newspaper with a reasonable sprinkling of salt and vinegar was for us, the real deal! As an ‘extra’, fish was an option or we might go for crubeens (pigs feet) when the notion took us – sheer bliss!

When we progressed to the motor car, we could venture as far as Mitchelstown and there, the regular haunt was Myles’s on Church Street where the fare was only heaven. Bob’s Place may have come a bit later at Lower Cork Street with some great fare also.

And nothing much has changed. Fish and chips remain a great fast food favourite and if, for some reason you haven’t tried them in a while, re-discover that special treat. There are some great outlets offering the old reliable and indeed much more besides – so call to your local chipper today and savour the ever-wonderful fare of fish ‘n’ chips!

‘One and One’

It is more or less accepted that fish and chips originated in England in the middle of the 17th century. Here in Ireland, the first fish and chips were sold by an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Cervi, who mistakenly stepped off an America-bound ship at Cobh (then called Queenstown) in County Cork and walked all the way to Dublin. He started by selling fish and chips outside Dublin pubs from a handcart before securing a permanent spot in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street). His wife Palma would ask customers ‘Uno di questa, uno di quella?’ This phrase (translating as ‘one of this, one of the other’) entered the vernacular in Dublin as ‘one and one’ and is still a way of referring to fish and chips in Dublin.

First in UK

There is a plaque in Oldham near Manchester that marks the first chip shop in Britain. The dish became popular in wider circles in London and South East England in the middle of the 19th century. Charles Dickens mentions a ‘fried fish warehouse’ in ‘Oliver Twist’ which was first published in 1838.

In 1860, the first fish and chip shop was opened in London by Joseph Malin while a Mr Lees pioneered the concept in the North of England, in Mossley, in 1863. The rapid development of trawl fishing in the North Sea, coupled with the development of railways which connected the ports to major industrial cities during the second half of the 19th century, meant that fresh fish could be rapidly transported to the heavily populated areas. Hence, fish and chips became the stock meal among the working classes in Great Britain.

Labelling

In the UK and Ireland, the Fish Labelling Regulations 2003 [6][7] enact directive 2065/2001/EC and generally means that fish must be sold with the particular species named; so ‘cod and chips’ now appears on menus rather than the more vague ‘fish and chips’.