I never expected to see the humble fish finger sandwich enter Bond lore and join the extensive menu of food consumed by characters in James Bond novels, but by dint of making an appearance in Vaseem Khan’s first Q adventure, Quantum of Menace, it does just that.

In the novel, Q, aka Major Boothroyd, is left adrift after being booted out of MI6, until he reads a message from an old friend, Peter Napier, who has died in mysterious circumstances. Q begins an investigation into Peter’s death, taking him to his home town of Wickstone-on-Water. There he meets represents of the local constabulary, former girlfriend DCI Kathy Burnham and her fellow officer, DS Bob Lazarus. It’s Bob who tucks into a fish finger sandwich, bringing it to the police station for lunch.

I do love a fish finger sandwich, whether it’s served hot, the fish fingers straight out of the oven (or, I must confess, the microwave, if pressed for time), or cold after being made the night before and taken to work for lunch the next day. I was understandably very pleased to see it in the book.

The origin of the dish is somewhat opaque. Fish fingers have been around in Britain since the mid-1950s (courtesy of Captain Birdseye) but I don’t remember fish finger sandwiches being talked about publicly until quite recently. I do know, however, that they’ve been around for some 40 years at least. Today, the fish finger sandwich has become a staple of restaurant and pub lunchtime menus, but I was making fish finger sandwiches at home during my teenage years in the mid/late 1980s. At the time, I wasn’t aware of anyone else who ate them, and it became something of a family joke that I invented the fish finger sandwich. I expect, though, that fish finger sandwiches were being made in households up and down the country around the same time (or even earlier) but only gradually gained sufficient traction in the cultural environment to be taken up and popularised by celebrity chefs and acknowledged as a ‘thing’ equal to, say, the sausage sandwich or a bacon sandwich.

So, how do I make my sandwiches? Cook the fish fingers (usually bought frozen) in the oven for about 12 minutes at 220C (200C fan). The more expensive the packet of fish fingers, the better the quality, but (another confession), I’m quite happy to have ‘economy’ brands. I always have five fish fingers in a sandwich. Bread is important, and these days I rather like fresh slices of a crusty tiger bloomer. Assembling the sandwich, I butter the bread, arrange the fish fingers on the bread, top with crispy iceberg lettuce and dollop mayonnaise or, better still, thousand island dressing or other seafood sauce on top of that. I often accompany the sandwich with salt and vinegar crisps on the side. As Bob says, you can’t go wrong with a fish finger sandwich.

Do let me know how you eat yours and if you have any information on the history of the sandwich. (Send me a message via the contact form.)