did fish and chips used to be working class?

[Marshtit]

i never had fish and chips growing up
and only have it once in a blue moon now

it used to be a really common meal, i believe, particularly on fridays

It's much older than that. It's also one of the meals least likely to give you food poisoning due to everything being cooked in boiling oil.

Fish and chips were a huge treat. We were, and are, working class

How much?! >Faints<

Are you in Virginia Water or Ascot?

When I was growing up in south wales in the 70s with my mum and brother, we couldn’t afford fish and chips and it was seen as a huge treat…maybe a couple of times a year if that. We lived on the bones of our arse until my mum remarried when I was 12.

Working Class women sometimes opened a fish and chip shop in their own home, I was reading about this at St Fagans museum Cardiff.

Also the pot for the mushy peas costs more than the actual peas.

Grew up in seaside town. We had fish and chips once a week - we would share large one between me, mum and dad.

It was the only takeaway we had when I was growing up in a small northern mining town. We fairly often just had chips or chips and peas though as fish was too expensive- not anything like the price it is now mind you!Or I liked "scallops" which I think were just battered slices of potato.
My sister and I used to get a bag of chips between us on the walk home from Guides on a Friday night and sometimes they'd give us scraps for free. Happy days!

We regularly had a Fish Supper on a Friday.

My parents had a chip shop until I was 18. Yes it was in a working class area. Working men came in at lunchtime, mums, dad's and/or children at teatime (children would have a note and the money), evening was people going/coming to or from the pub/cinema etc. wasn't expensive then. £23???? What is it Duchy Original? Heston Blumenthal charges 31 I think and thats high end pub food. Round my way fish and chips is 7.50

I'd pay to not have mushy peas if they were obligatory. Hate them with a passion.

Did fish and chips used to be working class?
I imagine so, as I read that it was brought over with the Sephardic Jews from Spain, and was adopted by the Catholics at some point for Fish Fridays. Immigrants, Jews, Catholics and most other religious and ethnic groups were probably all tarred with the working class brush at some point.

These days, I don't think that they are a working class food. Chip shops are incredibly expensive, and four battered fish fillets (to cook at home) are £7 at my local supermarket.

Fish Fridays were very much enforced at the Catholic school that I went to. The fish had been cooked in so much oil that they were probably still doing breaststroke. If you couldn't face that, you either went hungry or nipped out elsewhere for lunch!

Fish Fridays are still a thing though, and our nearest chip shops were said to be sold out on Good Friday.

http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=424

http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=510

(oddly, I remember the latter one as a slightly different picture... I wonder if it happened twice? or have I been caught by the Mandela effect )

It was a cheap meal and a massive Friday night treat when I was a child, a portion of chips cost 2 & 1/2 pence (showing my age 😜).
Had fish and chips takeaway a couple of weeks ago and it was £24!!!!!

We always had fish & chips on Fridays, mainly because my mum used to go to the hairdressers for her weekly shampoo and set so didn’t want to cook when she got home. My dad used to pick it up from the chippy on his way home from work. All three of us had skate & chips, either a middle or a wing. He and my mum always had a wally with theirs but I didn’t like them.

We never had any takeaways growing up. Didn’t even know they existed. I was born in the 70s.

my DP was born in the 80s. His childhood was completely different to mine, lucky him, and they’d have chips on Friday night or otherwise chips at his grandparents on Saturday plus sweets and choc bars.

Two fish and chips is £9 in my village.

Well it beggars belief if you think fish and chips is common considering your lack of composition. Hope you did not have a private school education.

Whom am I kidding? Goader. You are so boring.

@AppleDumplingWithCustard what’s a wally ??

Define working class.. no fish and chips can be enjoyed by everyone even royalty

A wally?! 😂

we always had chips on Saturday.. Mums day off cooking

Born in 1964 to a working class family, yes we observed fish on Friday , as did the schools - albeit fish fingers

But from a chippy? Rare.

A fish supper would be a monthly treat - usually a Saturday

Family of 5 , the order was 2 rock and chips and 2 steak and kidney pies ( omg I loved those pies ) The chips would be shared and wee sister would get a bot of fish cut off the full portions

Now me and he have a lot more disposable income then our parents had back then, a chippy tea is still a rare treat. A fish supper - take out is around £17 a head

Not to say we dont observe fish Friday still . Only now its me battering the fish and cutting the chips

It seems I am fortunate not to live in the UK. Fish and chips are still relatively cheap here, I nearly faint at the prices I see on MN.

A Wally is a pickled gherkin.

I’m tickled at the thought of one portion of fish and chips serving three people. I don’t have them very often (coeliac) but on the rare occasion I find a gf chippy, anyone trying to share would likely lose a hand 😂

once i discovered fish and chips, had my own money, my favourite was battered pineapple, but i like that less recently, the batter wasnt crisp enough the last time i had it,