John Grundy examines fish and chip shops, and discovers that the uniquely British institution began with the fried fish warehouses first mentioned in Charles Dickens's 'Oliver Twist' (1837).Chips began in the 1860s as 'potatoes á la mode' introduced from France. But nobody knows who first teamed the 'golden duo'. Fish and chips spread fastest in the industrial towns of Northern England in the 1870s and 1880s, offering nourishing fast food to a population of working women with too little time to cook and for whom a takeaway was a boon.Filmed in the chip shops and takeaways of Tyneside, the programme takes John into many a snug chippy with its familiar range, so comforting to lean against as you work your way up the queue, and its warming tray stuffed with nourishing goodies.In a departure from the Grundy characters John meets in the other nine programmes in the series, John interviews a real person in this programme - Richard Colman, owner of a long-established fish restaurant in Ocean Road, South Shields, who describes some of the secrets of frying successful fish and chips. John also looks at the recent success of the American-style takeaway, and he ends the programme with one of the most satisfying takeaways of all - the bacon butty.