Fish and Chips

Fish and chips pairs white fish — usually cod or haddock — coated in a light, crisp batter and deep-fried until golden, with thick-cut fried potato chips. It is traditionally finished with salt and malt vinegar and served with mushy peas, tartare sauce or a lemon wedge.

Once wrapped in newspaper and eaten by hand, it remains the definitive British takeaway, sold in 'chippies' from coastal promenades to inland high streets.

The dish came together in Victorian Britain, when fried fish sold by Jewish immigrants in London met the fried potato chip spreading through the industrial north. The first fish and chip shops opened in the 1860s, and cheap, filling portions quickly made it working-class staple.

So central was it to British life that fish and chips was one of the few foods never rationed during the Second World War. Today it is woven into national identity, especially by the seaside, where eating chips from paper with a wooden fork is a rite of passage.