Eighty per cent of the British population say they visit a fish and chip shop at least once a year, and we consume 382 million meals from the chippie per annum.
That's pretty impressive for a combination that's only been with us for around 150 years – for the first fish and chip shop only appeared in around 1860.
Separately, both fried fish, and chips, were enjoyed by the British well before they came together.
Chips as a term for something edible was in use in the 18th Century, often in relation, rather curiously, to oranges - orange chips were candied chunks of peel.
It was in the same century that the potato was going from knobbly curiosity to staple food, especially for the poor, and given how well potatoes lend themselves to deep frying, it was inescapable that potato chips would soon be on the scene.
By the Victorian era, chipped potatoes were everywhere, from the delicate little 'straw potatoes' - which resembled, well, straw - eaten by the rich, to the French street food, which Dickens described as "husky chips of potatoes fried with some reluctant drops of oil".
The British preferred baked potatoes, but they ate them fried too.
Fried fish, meanwhile, was also on the tables of the rich and the poor.
Bread-crumbed filets, delicately fried in butter and garnished with fried parsley, were a staple for upmarket meals.
Whitebait, fried in lard, were considered a delicious delicacy.