Butties and Fish & Chips (TIMES of London, 1968)

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Mon Nov 25 00:49:06 UTC 2002


   The TIMES (London) online has expanded its coverage a bit, but it's still not finished.  It doesn't have anything before about 1920 online yet, it appears.  Wait a bit longer for that "German measles" antedate.
   I tried the database a few weeks ago for some Maltese food names, but came up empty.  I tried again with "butties" and "sarnies."  I got some awful mis-matches ("salaries" for "sarnies").
   This is from the TIMES OF LONDON, 27 September 1968, pg. 2, col. F:

_Century of Fish and Chips_
(...)
   The air was thick with memories of butties and cod, and Wallies (pickled gherkins to the barbarian).
(...)
   For another, there was a rebel from Lancashire present, who protested noisily throughout that Lee's Chipped Potato Restaurant in Mossley is in fact the oldest fish and chip shop still in the business, with records going back to 1863.
   In sober fact, the history of who first though of joining together fish and chips is obscure and complicated.  Academics are still locked in bitter argument on this crucial question.  Joseph Malin, it is true, founded a business in Bow in 1860, but he did not sell chips with his fish until 1865.
(...)

(OED doesn't have this meaning of "butties"?--ed.)



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