An article in the UK’s ‘Jewish News’ Francine Wolfisz has claimed that the origin of the iconic British street food that is Fish and Chips has jewish origins.
The article states:
‘Fish and chips became a marriage made in culinary heaven during the late 1800s. The British capital was first introduced to fish coated in flour and fried in oil by Jewish immigrants arriving from Portugal and Spain during the 16th century, although it was also popular with Jews from Russia and Poland arriving during the late 1800s.
Jewish News cookery writer, Denise Phillips, explains on the programme: “They had just come over from Russia and wanted to bring food with them that they were familiar with: Picked cucumbers, beetroots, herrings, smoked salmon and, obviously, fried fish.”’ (1)
This sounds authoritative until you read the caveat that is inserted below:
‘This was however traditionally served cold on Friday night and covered in breadcrumbs, rather than today’s more familiar batter coating.’ (2)
So in other words all the Sephardic jews may have brought to a fried fish to London – and I doubt they were the first as the Spanish Pescaito Frito (‘Fried Fish’) is more likely to have turned up in the English capital before Sephardic jewry showed up there in force – which wasn’t battered, but rather coated in breadcrumbs like an escalope and served cold not piping hot.
In essence then ‘Jewish News’ is declaring that Sephardic jews bought a recipe for fried fish in breadcrumbs that was served cold over from Spain and are trying to claim this was the origin of battered fish served hot. That is rather like claiming that jews wrote Megasthenes’ ‘Indika’ because one of the scraps of the text that has come down to us came via the jewish writer Josephus.
A similar contention has been recently made by Abbey Perreault at ‘Atlas Obscura’, (3) but once again there is no explanation let alone evidence of the suggested transmission. Both Perreault and Wolfisz link handling with causation without evidence and try to suggest that the handlers were the force behind the later event, which is frankly nonsensical gabble.
Anyway ‘Jewish News’ continues:
‘By the late 1800s, the first frying machines were being invented, causing a proliferation of street stalls selling chips.
But who brought fish and chips together? That was the brainchild of a Jewish immigrant named Joseph Malin, who owned a fried fish shop on Old Ford Road.
According to Pat Newland, 72, a restaurateur who learnt the trade while growing up in Hackney, recalls: “I believe there was a shortage of fish and so Malin began selling chips as well in the shop. When the fish became plentiful again, the people came back, but this time they wanted fish with the chips.”
Thus was born Malin’s, the world’s first fish and chip shop, in 1860.’
This is the nub of the issue: Joseph Malin opened up a fish and chip shop in the Old Ford Road in 1860. That seems all well and good until you realise that isn’t the settled fact that ‘Jewish News’ portrays it as, but rather misrepresents a long-standing debate.
To quote the BBC:
‘Some credit a northern entrepreneur called John Lees. As early as 1863, it is believed he was selling fish and chips out of a wooden hut at Mossley market in industrial Lancashire.
Others claim the first combined fish 'n' chip shop was actually opened by a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin, within the sound of Bow Bells in East London around 1860.’ (4)
The problem here is obvious: Malin is being claimed to be the originator of Fish and Chips in 1860, but there is also John Lees in 1863.
Lees’ sale of Fish and Chips in 1863 in Lancashire is well-established as Glyn Hughes has pointed out, but Malin only advertised ‘fish fried in the Jewish fashion’ not ‘Fish and Chips’ as Lees did. (5)
This makes it rather unlikely that Malin’s establishment was the first Fish and Chip shop or that he was the creator of the iconic dish, because we simply don’t have much evidence that he sold fish and chips as we understand it, but rather fried breaded fish served cold.
Indeed I rather doubt that either Lees or Malin were really the first to originate the concept, but are rather the first two examples. Since Charles Dickens referred a ‘fried fish warehouse’ in his 1838 novel ‘Oliver Twist’, (5) which suggests that ‘fried fish’ was a common enough foodstuff found in England’s capital.
While on the subject of the chip the BBC rightly points out that:
‘The story of the humble chip goes back to the 17th Century to either Belgium or France, depending who you believe.
Oddly enough, the chip may have been invented as a substitute for fish, rather than an accompaniment. When the rivers froze over and nothing could be caught, resourceful housewives began cutting potatoes into fishy shapes and frying them as an alternative.’ (6)
In other words: chips had been associated with fried fish since the 1600s.
Does that sound like it was a dish created by jewish immigrants as the ‘Jewish News’ claimed?
No: it doesn’t.
References
(1) http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/the-best-of-british-takeaways-our-plaice-in-fish-tory/
(2) Ibid.
(3) https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-invented-fish-and-chips
(4) http://news.bbc.com/1/hi/8419026.stm
(5) http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/fishandchips.htm
(6) http://news.bbc.com/1/hi/8419026.stm