Short Stuff: Fish n' Chips

How did these two wonderful strangers meet up and become best friends? The answers lie within today's short stuff. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh,
there's Chuck, there's Blinmey, old bloody old Jerry, and this
is short stuff everyone. I get you every time, Buddy.
I don't think there's a single short stuff intro that
I haven't made you snicker. They're also silly. I love it.
I'm glad you like it. So we're talking about chippy's. Yeah, man,
So apparently chips what we call in America French fries

(00:27):
what they call him France just fries um are called
chips because it's short for chipped potatoes, which is just
cutting up a potato and frying it. Apparently that's chipping it,
which I don't know. Does that explain cream chipped beef?
Like do you cut up beef and fry it and
then add it to like a creamy sauce? Is that
where that comes from? I don't think it's fried, I think,

(00:49):
or is it? I don't. I'm asking, buddy, Uh, well,
you have the light bulbleabo of your head. I thought
that meant you had an idea, not a question. No, no, no,
that's a question mark. Okay, I have a light bulb
in the shape of a question. Mark. I think chip
beef is just the the quality of the beef is

(01:09):
sort of chipped off. I don't think it's fried. It
might be wrong. I like that that. Okay, well, we're
not talking about cream chip beat far are we now
talking about fish and chips. We're talking about chippies, fish
and chips. That chippy is a fish and chip shop. Uh.
They're synonymous with the United Kingdom, of course, and I
ate fish and chips every time I've been over to

(01:30):
the United Kingdom. You're sure you probably had a little bit.
I never have, really, I know, I feel like a
total jerk, but the researching this made me definitely guarantee that,
well next time. Well, I mean, there are plenty of
great things to eat in the United Kingdom that are
known in the United Kingdom, like tika masala. Sure right,
did you have any of that? Yes? Okay, plenty of that.

(01:51):
But fish and chips they hit their boom in the
late nineteen twenties. There were about thirty five thousand chippy's
in the UK. Uh now there are about ten thousand
and change, and they served three hundred and sixty million
meals a year in the UK. Of fish and chips
that's equal to three hundred and sixty million big mac meals.

(02:13):
That's right, And you might be thinking to yourself, this
has probably been going on since the dawn of time
over there, they've been frying up fish. But no, no,
it was only a couple of hundred years ago. You
would have to go back and ask for fish and chips,
where they would just look at the cross side, oh
oh sort, what a right right, and kick you out
of the shop because it was a tannery. It was

(02:36):
a tannery. But it all goes back very interestingly to
Sephardic Jews, all the way back apparently to the at
least the eighth century in Spain, where um safari two's
lived and thrived and worked and played and observed the
Sabbath or shabbitt or Sabbath it's in there um, which
meant that they were not allowed to cook from sundown

(02:59):
Friday a sundown Saturday. They're already eat, they just weren't
allowed to cook. And I believe that's still the case.
So um the Sephardic Jews of Spain said, you know what,
I'll bet if we took some fresh fish and we
battered it lightly and fried it, it would taste really
good still, you know, by Saturday afternoon. They were right.

(03:19):
They were right, and so frying fish took off and
it became basically synonymous with Sephardic Jews, and they started
to travel far and wide. Um. They were pushed out
of Spain and then later Portugal, once Spain and Portugal
got married and so um, they started to travel the
world and wherever they went with them, they took this
fried fish recipe with them everywhere, that's right, and they

(03:42):
would sell it on the streets in England, um with
little like uh, it's sort of like the the cigarette
lady would come around back in the day cigars cigarette
exactly selling it on like a tray with a strap
around their neck. Um. Which, by the way, Portland, Maine,
on the sidewalk, you can get oyster shucked from a cart.

(04:04):
I did not see that. Like, just walk up and say,
just give me a couple of oysters. It's like shuck
about type of thing. Do it right, now, here's some money.
I would just follow that guy around the I can't
say I had the best saltwater taffy I've ever had
in my life that I purchased on the coast of Maine.
Oh really, oh, just not even close. And I had

(04:25):
eight lobster rolls between Boston and Portland, Maine over four days.
That's nice, man. And uh, because I wanted to kind
of find my favorite and I did. That's good. Where
was it? It was at the Sea Salt Gourmet Shop
in Cape Elizabeth. Okay, it's delicious. We did you get
a T shirt? And the worst one I had was
in the airport? Oh? I combat that's like playing slots

(04:48):
in the Vegas airport. Is this not the same? I
was flying out and I was like one more yea.
So it's just like slots in the Vegas airport. So
Jewish immigrants are selling these in England. Even Thomas Jefferson
vis it at England and wrote about fried fish in
the Jewish Fashion And it took trains and railroads to
really spread it out of London and far and wide

(05:10):
throughout the UK because all of a sudden you could
get fresh fish uh two far away places really fast.
And it was a pretty big hit. It was a
big hit. But again now we're still just talking about
fried fish. The Chips haven't made an intro yet, so
we're going to um leave you hanging for now as
it were, Um, wondering will the chips ever come? We'll

(05:33):
find out right after this message break. So I'm dying

(05:57):
to know. Have the chips come? The chips are coming,
finally could So it's funny to think of because you
think of potatoes is like super Irish. Um, you think
of chips is super English. But they were actually South American.
I mean, like the potatoes that we know and love
today weren't really brought to Europe until the maybe the
end of the fifteenth century, from the earliest explorers of

(06:19):
South America. Yeah, and people weren't eating them up, like
they were hard and weird and everyone's like, I can't
even eat this stuff. It's not even edible. So it
took you know, Belgium's popular for their fries, yes, because
they do it right. They do do it right. And
that's where the whole fried potato things started. Well, actually

(06:39):
in Spain in the sixteenth century. Um, but then they
brought them north to what was called then Spanish Netherlands,
which is now close to modern day Belgium. And here's
the deal. They would cut these things up into fish
shapes and fry them. These fishermen would, which is like
the cutest thing ever to do, and thisteenth century it is.

(07:01):
But I don't think there has any connection whatsoever to
fish and chips, does it. I don't think so. I mean,
I think this historian said, basically, they eventually got to
Great Britain in the eighteen sixties and it just kind
of coincided with the Sephardic Jews selling these fried fish meals,
and it all just sort of went hand in hand, right,
So um again, they think that Sephardic Jewish fried fish

(07:24):
peddlers said, hey, man, I really like this idea of
frying um potatoes too. I'll bet this would go really
well with my fried fish. And there's a couple of
claims of the first fish and chip shop or chippies um,
one in London and one outside of Manchester in Masville
and where Masville as that spelled mz Ville Okay after Morrissey. Yeah,

(07:51):
I love it, but I think it's actually called Mosley Mosley, Yeah,
but Masville is what I call Mosley. Now I got
to Okay, so the one here Manchester was definitely like
kick in, but by eighteen sixty three, the one in
Londerhood Lounderhood, Mausville in Lounderhood. I love that in the

(08:14):
neighborhood in London. Uh. Bow, I don't know if it's
Bow or bow. But this was in eighteen sixty and
they claimed to be the very first one to sell
that combo and good old Lunderville yep, Lounderville and Masville.
So um, no, Londerhood under hood. You already it already
evolved again. So this is the eighteen sixties when the

(08:35):
definitely the latest that the first chippies were established. And
by the find which as far as I know, applies
only to the turn of the twentieth century, right okay, Um,
by by the turn of the twentieth century, the beginning
of the twentieth century. They they are just everywhere. I
think you said thirty five thousand, and its peak in

(08:57):
uh the nineteen twenties. Even by nine there was something
like thousand of them in the UK. And um, just
to keep morale going during World War One, I'm Prime
Minister at the time, David Lloyd George ordered that fish
and chips and everything associated with making fish and chips
be kept off the rational list. Yeah. They wanted to

(09:17):
keep people happy. Yeah, And I think it worked, and
so much so that in World War Two Um Churchill
did the same thing. Right, that's right, he said, you know,
keep this fish and chip thing going because they are
good companions. There's a little bit of Schwarzenegger in there.
It was so in that war at Normandy on D

(09:42):
Day apparently, and identify er. A secret code for the
Brits is they would yell out fish and they would
wait for a coded response. And I love how this
house Stuff Works articles has barely coded uh chips right
and be because Germans would figure it out and say
chips and sush. That was Schwartzenegger for sure. Sure it

(10:10):
was a little weak for Schwartzenegger. Here's the deal. I
like mine with Chartar sauce. I didn't see anything about
charter sauce in here. Oh yeah, I think that maybe
I don't know. I might be wrong, but that feels like,
even though it's a French thing in origin, an American bastardization.
But that's just me guessing, because nowhere in here did
I see anyone in the UK eating Tartar sauce. I

(10:33):
might be wrong, Uh, I think it might have been
in the image on this House Stuff Works article well
that means nothing. But there's also in the article there's
a blob of green um, which is apparently what you
will find it served with in the North England. Yep,
mashed peas, which, according to Dave Ruse, who wrote this

(10:55):
house Stuff Works article, um are way better tasting than
they look. Yeah. I had that in Dublin. I had.
I went to a chippy and got some peas. Also
obviously malt vinegar on everything. Yeah, I've come to like
that too. I remember growing up at Long John Silver's,
like I my family actually lived a Long John Silver's,
and I was like, this is gross stuff. And now

(11:20):
I'm like, I have I guess a refined palette or something,
because I just I do shots of that stuff. Yeah,
I didn't like it when I was younger either, or no,
I fully get it. Um, you gotta have your salt
as well. And apparently in the UK they love the
curry sauce and uh, we'll even go with the ketchup
every now and then. Yeah, and then what I always
think of fish and chips being served in because it's

(11:42):
a street food like through and through, even though there's
chip shops like it was originally from the streets. You
know what I'm saying. Um, and it would be served
and I think even in the chip shops too. It
would be served wrapped up in yesterday's newspaper, which originates
in World War Two where paper was in short supply,
so they somebody figured out, what, We'll just use yesterday's

(12:02):
newspapers to serve fish and chips in this kind of cone.
Found up in a cone, dumped some some chips, almost
said fries, I'm sorry UK. Also I'm sorry about Brexit, uh,
and then put some fried fish usually fried battered cot
on top and there's your fish and chips. But apparently
that went out in the Thatcher era. I'm sorry about
Thatcher too. Yeah. I wondered about people walking around dear

(12:24):
Old Lenderhood with uh like newspaper inc. Getting on their chip.
I wonder if that happened. I don't know. I'll bet
it did have to do with something with becoming a
little more health conscious, like this printer's inc. Soaking into
the hot oil that we're ingesting is probably not good
for And all of the third arms that children were
growing in the UK suddenly went away, right, you got

(12:47):
anything else? Uh? No, I'm just gonna shout out Gales.
That was the first fish and chip place that I
ever went in London back when I first went in
the mid nineties. And I am looking right now as
you can see it as still open and that is
in notting Hill and I didn't That was before the
moving notting Hill. So I was cool before country was cool.

(13:08):
We need to get your Gaels T shirt and uh,
what was the name of the lobster role place? Uh
s Salt with the letter C Salt gourmet shop. Oh,
that is cute. We need to get you those T shirts. Okay,
let's do it. Well. You can read a pretty interesting
article by Dave Rouse on how stuff Works about fish
and chips. Uh, and that means since I said that short,

(13:31):
stuff is over stuff you should know is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works for More Podcasts
for my Heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.