FISH AND CHIPS: In the United Kingdom, fish and chips became a cheap food popular among the working classes with the rapid development of trawl fishing in the North Sea in the second half of the nineteenth century. Before then, fishermen had used long lines to target only large, high-quality demersal (bottom-dwelling) fish, especially valuable sole.

Trawlers, on the other hand, landed a mixed catch of high-quality "prime" and cheaper "offal" fish, most of which fishermen initially threw back into the water due to the lack of a market.

However, as railway charges fell, it became viable to transport this cheaper fish inland, and demersal fish became a mass-market commodity rather than a costly luxury.

Deep-fried "chips" (slices or pieces) of potato as a dish, may have first appeared in Britain in about the same period: the OED notes as its earliest usage of "chips" in this sense the mention in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (published in 1859): "Husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil".