Pie and mash is a traditional working-class food, originating in the Docks of London. It typically consists of a minced beef pie, mashed potato and a parsley sauce known as liquor. Pie, mash and eel shops have been in London since the 19th century, and are still common in East and South London, and in many parts of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

. The shops may also serve stewed or jellied eels.

History

During the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...

, industrial air pollution tended to be worse in the east and southeast of London because of the prevailing westerly wind, with the result that the East End was settled more by the working classes, while the western part of the city was home to higher social classes. The savoury pie had long been a traditional food, and its small handsized form also made it a transportable meal, protected from dirt by its cold pastry crust, and filled with cheap minced meat, usually mutton. Jellied eels are often associated with pie and mash, as

European eel The European eel (''Anguilla anguilla'') is a species of eel, a snake-like, catadromous fish. They are normally around and rarely reach more than , but can reach a length of up to in exceptional cases. Eels have been important sources of ...

s cooked in gelatine also became a common worker's meal, since eels were one of the few forms of fish that could survive in the heavily polluted

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

and London's other rivers at that time. Supply was plentiful through the late 19th century, particularly from the Dutch fishing boats landing catches at

Billingsgate Fish Market Billingsgate Fish Market is located in Canary Wharf in London. It is the United Kingdom's largest inland fish market. It takes its name from Billingsgate, a ward in the south-east corner of the City of London, where the riverside market was or ...

. Since 2010, as revealed in a joint study by the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...

and the

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and en ...

, the number of eels captured in research traps in the River Thames fell from 1,500 in 2005 to 50 in 2010, meaning most eels used in pie and mash shops are now from the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. While eel consumption continues to go down in the 21st century (in 2000, there was only one stall selling live eels in Billingsgate Market), the number of eel and pie shops has not gone down very much: there were 87 eel and pie shops in Greater London in 1995, compared to around 110 at the end of 1800.

Composition

The main dish sold is pie and mash, a minced-beef and cold-water-pastry

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts (pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweete ...

served with mashed potato. There should be two types of pastry used; the bottom or base should be suet pastry and the top can be rough puff or short. It is common for the mashed potato to be spread around one side of the plate and for a type of parsley sauce to be present. This is commonly called liquor sauce or simply liquor (liquor as in a liquid in which something has been steeped or cooked), traditionally made using the water kept from the preparation of the stewed eels. However, many shops no longer use stewed eel water in their parsley liquor. The sauce traditionally has a green colour, from the parsley.

Shops

Before shops became common, trading took place from

brazier A brazier () is a container used to burn charcoal or other solid fuel for cooking, heating or cultural rituals. It often takes the form of a metal box or bowl with feet. Its elevation helps circulate air, feeding oxygen to the fire. Braziers h ...

s or carts. It was not until late Victorian times that shops began to appear. The first recorded shop was Henry Blanchard's at 101 Union Street in Southwark in 1844 which was described as an "Eel Pie House". The shops have become part of the local community and heritage of their area; for example, L. Manze in Walthamstow became Grade II listed by English Heritage in 2013 due to its architectural and cultural significance. Traditionally, pie and mash shops have white tile walls with mirrors, and marble floors, tables and work tops, all of which are easy to clean. They give the shops, never called called restaurants or café, a late Victorian or

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

appearance. Because of the large number of pleasure boat steamer companies offering Sunday trips on the River Thames, many Eastenders used them to explore the more gentrified west of London. The result was that many also wanted their traditional foods of ale and pie and mash, resulting in the renaming of both a hotel that they frequently visited and the island on which it sat in

Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boro ...

to Eel Pie Island in the early 1900s.

References

Notes Further reading *Clunn, Chris (1995) ''Eels, Pie and Mash: A Photographic Record of Pie 'n' Eel Shops.'' London: Museum of London. *Pie 'n' Mash Club of Great Britain (1995) ''Pie 'n' Mash: A Guide to Londoners Traditional Eating Houses.'' J. Smith.

External links

2009 review of the best Pie & Mash shops
by

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2011 SpitalfieldsLife.com review of favourite Pie & Mash shops
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pie And Mash English cuisine Restaurants by type Ground meat Working-class culture in England