Happy 150th birthday fish and chips?

LEEDS, England (AP) — Britain has plenty of venerable institutions, but none so tasty as fish and chips.

It's a simple dish, usually a hunk of golden brown cod or haddock served with thickly cut strips of potatoes sprinkled with salt and vinegar. Despite that simplicity, the dish has become an icon of British culture.

This year, fish and chips is celebrating its 150th birthday. Or is it? That date is according to the National Federation of Fish Friers, which represents about 8,500 fish-and-chip shop owners in Britain.

Yet there are competing stories about when the dish was first created, and the exact origins are lost to time.

One story is that an entrepreneur named John Lees started selling fish and chips in 1863 out of a wooden hut in Mossley, near Manchester, before moving to a permanent location nearby.

In his new digs, so the story goes, he hung a sign in the window proclaiming, "This is the First Fish and Chip Shop in the world."

But Douglas Roxburgh, president of the national federation, said his group can date the dish to 1860.