To celebrate 150 years of fast-food favourite fish and chips, local businessman Mark Petrou has published his guide to the dish.

TO celebrate 150 years of fast-food favourite fish and chips, local businessman Mark Petrou has published his guide to the dish.

Fish and Chips: A National Treasure covers the highs and lows of the take-away duo. The last book written on fish and chips was published in 1971, so fish and chip shop owner Mark Petrou, who has been writing columns for magazines for a few years, decided to give it a go.

He said: “It’s been a long time since someone wrote a book about fish and chips so I though I would mark the anniversary with one. I didn’t want reading it to be like a trip to the dentist, so it’s full of lots of interesting things that you didn’t know about fish and chips.

“Fish and chips have a history of being unhealthy due to high fat content, but now with high efficiency pan technologies, like we have in the Ely shop, there is little fat absorption. Fish and chips don’t go on your hips!”

Cooking fish and chips is in Mark’s blood with a chain of family-owned shops in the area and a new one soon to open in Cambridge. Mark says cooking the perfect fish and chips should be left to the experts, but for those who want to have a go the book gives away his secrets for batter and includes recipes for extras like mushy peas and tartar sauce.

The book, with a forward by Fish and Chip and Fast Food Magazine editor Wendy Durham, also hits back at the media portrayal of the famous duo. And Mark hopes it will set the record straight.

He said: “The media is responsible for misrepresentation of the fish and chip industry. For example I don’t believe that there is a problem with cod supplies. 95% of the cod in the industry comes from sustainable sources. And now with the limits on catching fish the British fishing industry is more in danger than cod supplies.”

The book is selling well and figures are set to rise with Mark’s recent appearance on the BBC’s One Show, and he is already planning his second. So, will we see another 150 years of fish and chips? Mark is confident they will be around indefinitely.

INFO: You can pick buy a copy of the book for �9.99 from Toppings or one of the Petrou brothers’ shops