|
Eels from the Thames
 If you're looking for someone or something to blame for Pie & Mash then look no
further than this fellow, Anguilla anguilla, better known as the common European eel. It was
fished on the Thames for hundreds (if not thousands) of years until the early 19th century,
when the river was becoming too polluted for them to survive. Eels were
a staple food for many of the poorer in London and the recipes for their
preparation and cooking were widely known and published. If you care to
take a look at the recipe page
you'll see extracts from half a dozen books from the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries with copious recipes for eel pie, stewed eels,
pitchcocked eels, eel soup and potted eels, to name but a few.
 Fishing took a variety of forms from spearing them with tridents to
catching them in vast arrays of "eel-bucks". These were large basket
affairs into which eels could swim but could not escape and, in some
cases, spanned the entire river and presented a formidable obstacle to
river boat navigation. Eels in vast quantities were also brought up the
Thames by Dutch eel barges known as "eel schuyts." These
had been in operation since at least the mid seventeenth century and
were commended for helping to feed the populous of London during and
after the Great Fire of London in 1666. So grateful was the Government for this
assistance that an Act of Parliament on 10th May 1699 gave them special
privileges. More of that in a moment. One thing has to be made clear
however: the Dutch eels were considered to be vastly inferior to the
Thames caught ones but had the advantage of quantity rather than
quality.
 Now, as all Londoners know (and perhaps half the world) Billingsgate
is the site of the capital's great Fish Market. But the market, which
had been thriving since the tenth century,
originally sold corn, coal, iron, wine,
salt, pottery as well as fish. As George Henry Birch writes in London
on Thames in bygone days (1903)
| Billingsgate for many ages has been the great mart for fish.
There was a natural haven here not unlike Queenhithe, but not so
large, at which boats could unload. Its derivation from Belin's
Gate is correct enough, but the building of the gate by " King
Belin " is of course purely mythical. Originally it was not
exclusively used for fish, but as a general wharf for small
trading vessels, but the Fishmongers' Company, which included
the Stockfishmongers, had their Hall in the neighbourhood and
gradually absorbed the trade. The Old Fishmarket was in Old Fish
Street. It was long famous for its fish dinners, and was a
favourite resort of the citizens. Moored just off Billingsgate
one still sees the Dutch eel-boats. |
It was that 1699 an Act of Parliament
that declared it
a “free and open market for all sorts of fish whatsoever” ... except for
eels. Eels could only be sold by Dutch fishermen moored in the Thames.
That was their reward for helping to feed the people of London during
the Great Fire.
Piemen
  Live eels were sold to the general public on the streets, as was
anything that was portable. Andrew WhiteTuer, in his Old London Street
Cries of 1885 recounts much older calls of "Large silver eels ! Large silver eels, a groat
a pound, live eels !" and "Buy my Dish of great Eeles ?" as well as "Who's for a mutton pie, or an eel pie ?",
"Hote eele pyes !" and "Piepin pys !"
So, eels and eel pies are where it all started. Street vendors, known
as piemen, would sell these "penny pies" through the streets and taverns
of London through the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth
centuries. At the height of this there were reputed to be some six
hundred such piemen plying their trade. A text from Francis Grose in
1796 tells us that "some trades have from time immemorial invoked
musical assistance,---such as those of pie, post, and dust men, who ring
a bell."
Just a little note here. If you've read the blurb on the internet claiming that pie and mash
shops began in the 18th century then forget it. For some reason a lot of
people seem to think that the 18th century ran from 1800 to 1899 ... it
didn't! The 18th century ran from 1700 to 1799 and the first eel-pie
shops didn't appear until the early 19th century (1800 - 1830) - just
before Victoria came to the throne. At the same time eels were on the
wane to a certain extent. By the first quarter of the 19th century the Thames was so polluted
that not only could it not support its own eel population, but was also
responsible for killing vast quantities being carried on the Dutch eel
boats to Billingsgate as they used the local water as a supply to their
stock. As Walter Thornbury tells us in Old and New London: Volume 2
(1878):
| ... in 1828. The masters of the Dutch eel-ships stated
before the same committee that, a few years before, they
could bring their live eels in "wells" as far as Gallion's
Reach, below Woolwich; but now (1828) they were obliged to
stop at Erith, and they had sustained serious losses from
the deleterious quality of the water, which killed the fish.
The increase of gas-works and of manufactories of various
kinds, and of filth disgorged by the sewers, will
sufficiently account for this circumstance. The number of
Dutch eel-vessels which bring supplies to Billings gate
varied, in 1842, from sixty to eighty annually. They brought
about fifteen hundred weight of fish each, and paid a duty
of £13. Mr. Butcher, an agent for Dutch fishermen, stated
before the committee above mentioned that, in 1827, eight
Dutch vessels arrived with full cargoes of healthy eels,
about 14,000 pounds each, and the average loss was 4,000
pounds. Twelve years before, when the Thames was purer, the
loss was only thirty pounds of eels a night; and the witness
deposed that an hour after high water he had had 3,000
pounds of eels die in an hour. (How singularly this accounts
for the cheap eel-pie!) |
Back to the piemen. These characters would fill their pies with
whatever they could lay their hands on. They sold eel pies (which were
less prevalent because of the demise of the eels), "meat" pies and fruit
pies. The meat was often of dire quality and they were known to use dead
eels which were sold very cheaply by the Dutch, rather than fresh live ones. They would disguise the
awful quality by dosing the fillings with large amounts of pepper. This, coupled
with the fact that they did not "cover" their pies securely enough with
the crust, meant that they were often responsible for outbreaks of food
poisoning which in those days could be fatal. Here are a few paragraphs
drawn from London Labour and the London Poor (1851) by Henry
Mayhew:
OF THE NUMBER OF COSTERMONGERS AND OTHER STREET-FOLK.
The hot pie-can is a square tin can, standing upon four
legs, with a door in front, and three partitions inside; a
fire is kept in the bottom, and the pies arranged in order
upon the iron plates or shelves. When the pies at the bottom
are sufficiently hot they are taken out, and placed on the
upper shelf, whilst those above are removed to the lower
compartments, by which means all the pies are kept "hot and
hot."
"We never eat eel-pies," said one man to me, "because we
know they're often made of large dead eels. We, of all
people, are not to be had that way. But the haristocrats
eats 'em and never knows the difference." I did not hear
that these men had any repugnance to meat- pies; but the use
of the dead eel happens to come within the immediate
knowledge of the costermongers, who are, indeed, its
purveyors.
The more honest costermongers will throw away fish when it
is unfit for consumption, less scrupulous dealers, however,
only throw away what is utterly unsaleable; but none of them
fling away the dead eels, though their prejudice against
such dead fish prevents their indulging in eel-pies. The
dead eels are mixed with the living, often in the proportion
of 20 lb. dead to 5 lb. alive, equal quantities of each
being accounted very fair dealing. "And after all," said a
street fish dealer to me, "I don't know why dead eels should
be objected to; the aristocrats don't object to them. Nearly
all fish is dead before it's cooked, and why not eels? Why
not eat them when they're sweet, if they're ever so dead,
just as you eat fresh herrings? I believe it's only among
the poor and among our chaps, that there's this prejudice.
Eels die quickly if they're exposed to the sun."
If a costermonger has an hour to spare, his first thought is
to gamble away the time. He does not care what he plays for,
so long as he can have a chance of winning something. Whilst
waiting for a market to open, his delight is to find out
some pieman and toss him for his stock, though, by so doing,
he risks his marketmoney and only chance of living, to win
that which he will give away to the first friend he meets.
For the whole week the boy will work untiringly, spurred on
by the thought of the money to be won on the Sunday. Nothing
will damp his ardour for gambling, the most continued
ill-fortune making him even more reckless than if he were
the luckiest man alive. |
 (A quick note here about Victorian gambling and "Tossing the Pieman":
the piemen knew that most of the local population, as well as the hawkers and peddlers, were inveterate
gamblers and had been since they were children. They would therefore
gamble for their pies. Tossing the Pieman meant tossing a penny coin
along with a call of heads or tails. If the pieman won he would take the
penny and if he lost he gave a pie. This was often the only way a pieman
could get rid of his stock and make some money as many people would toss
the pieman, even though they didn't actually want one of his mangy pies.)
As a result of the poor reputation earned by the piemen the new pie
shops began to catch on and the piemen began a decline in trade which,
by the 1850's had reached hopeless proportions. Meat pies
could also be bought at coffee-stalls which were well established by the
1850's as well as at the pie shops where they could be eaten on the premises or
taken away.
The following newspaper article
published on 30 April 1850 pulls all this together and makes a
fascinating read about the piemen of the mid-nineteenth century:
LABOUR AND THE POOR.
THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICTS.
(From the Special Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.)
Letter XIV.
Of the hucksters of provisions, but one class remains to be
described, and even that is seldom to be met with now-a-days.
The penny-pie trade has passed from the streets into the shops.
The following statement may be taken as a fair average of the
class at present :
The itinerant meat and fruit pieman is another class of street
provision merchant. The meat pies consist of mutton and beef ;
the fruit, of apple, and, occasionally, mince-meat. These are
sold at 1d. each. A few years ago the meat and fruit pies used
to sell very well, but lately too many of the people are out of
work, and they have not any money to spend. Fairs and races are
generally the best places for the sale of pies in the summer. In
London the best times for the sale of pies are during any grand
sight or holiday-making - a review in Hyde Park, the Lord
Mayor's show, the opening of Parliament, Greenwich Fair, Whitsun
Monday - and, indeed, whenever anything is going on that brings
the people together in large cwowds. The piemen in the streets
of London are seldom stationary, they go along, with their
pie-can on their arm, crying "pies all hot! meat and fruit pies
all hot!" This can is somewhat similar to a potato-can, but it
has no boiler inside it. The pies are kept hot by means of a
charcoal fire beneath, and there is a partition in the body of
the can, to separate the hot from the cold pies. There are two
tin drawers - one at the bottom where the hot pies are kept, and
above these are the cold ones. As fast as the hot pies are sold,
the cold ones above are placed on the drawer below. There is a
pieman who goes about Billingsgate-market, who has pony and
"shay cart." He does the best business in the pie line in town.
It is believed he sells £1 worth every day ; but the generality
of piemen throughout London do nothing like this " I was out
myself, last night," said one to me, "from four in the afternoon
til half-past twelve, and went from Somers Town to the Horse
Guards, and looked in at all the public-houses on the way and I
didn't take above 1s 6d. I have been out sometimes all those
hours, and haven't taken more than 4d ; and out of that I have
had to pay a penny for charcoal. The piemen usually make the
pies themselves. The meat is mostly bought as 'pieces,' and paid
for at the rate of 3d per lb. " People, when I go into houses,
often begin at me, crying ' Meiow'- and ' Bow-wow' at me, but
there's nothing of that kind." The piemen usually make about
five dozen of pies at a time. To do this, he takes one quartern
of flour, at 6d , two pounds of suet at 6d ; one pound and a
half of meat at 3d. amounting, in all to about 2s. ; to this
must be added 3d for the expense of baking, 1d. for the cost of
keeping hot, and 2d. for pepper, salt, and egg with which to
wash them over. Hence the cost of the five dozen would be 2s.
6d. and the profit the same, The usual quantity of meat in each
pie is about half an ounce. There are not more than a dozen hot-piemen
now in London. There are some who carry pies about on a tray
slung before them ; these are mostly boys, and, including these,
the number may amount to 25 in the winter time, and to double
that number in the summer, In the summer time the most business
is done-the trade then is nearly double as brisk as in the
winter. This is owing to the markets being better attended ; the
people generally have more money to spend. The penny-pie shops
have done the street trade a great deal of harm. They have got
mostly all the custom. They make them much larger than those
sold in the streets. The pies in Tottenham-court road are very
highly seasoned. " I bought one there the other day, and it
nearly took the skin off my mouth. It was full of pepper," said
a pieman to me. " The reason why they put in so large a quantity
of pepper is because persons can't exactly tell the flavour of
the meat with it. Piemen generally are not very particular about
the flavour of the meat they buy, for they know that they can
season it up into anything. The usual part of beef used is what
are called ' the stickings ' This is what is mostly used for
sausages, and costs about 3d per pound. In the summer time, a
pieman about the streets thinks he is doing a good business if
he takes 5s per day, and in the winter if he gets half that. On
a Saturday night, how- ever, he generally takes 5s in the winter
and about 8s in the summer. At Green- wich fair he will lake
about 14s. At a review in Hyde Park, if it is a good one, he
will sell about 10s worth. The generality of the customers are
the boys of London. The women seldom, if ever, buy them in the
streets. At the public-houses a few are sold, and the pieman
makes a practice of looking in at all the public-houses on his
way, Here his customers are found princi- pally in the tap-room.
' Here's all hot," they cry, as they look into the tap-room. '
Toss or buy , up and win 'em.' This is the only way that the
pies can be got rid of. If it wasn't for tossing we shouldn't
sell one." The pieman never tosses, himself, but always calls
head or tail to the customer. At the week's end it comes to the
same thing, whether they toss or not. " I've taken as much as 2s
6d at tossing, which I shouldn't have had if I hadn't done so.
Verv few people buy without tossing, and the boys in particular.
Gentlemen ' out on the spree ' at the late public-houses will
frequently toss when they don't want the pies, and when they
have won they will amuse themselves by throwing the pies at one
another, or at me. The boys have the greatest love of gambling,
and they seldom, if ever, buy without tossing. Sometimes I have
taken as much as half-a-crown, and the people has never eaten a
pie." For street mince-meat pies the pieman usually makes about
5lbs of mince-meat at a time ; and for this he will put in 2
dozen apples, 1 lb of sugar, 1 lb of currants, 2 lbs of "critlings"
(critlings being the refuse left after boiling down the lard), a
good bit of spice to give the critlings a flavour, and plenty of
treacle to make the mince-meat look rich. The ' gravy' which
used to be given with the meat pies consisted of a little salt
and water poured out of an oil can. A hole was made with the
little finger in the top of the meat pie, and the " gravy"
poured in till the crust rose. With this gravy a person in the
line assured me that he has known pies four days old to go off
very freely, and be pronounced excellent. The street pie- men
are mostly bakers, who are unable to obtain employment at their
trade. " I myself," said one "was a bread and biscuit baker. I
have been ati it now about two years and a half, and I can't get
a living at it. Last week my earnings were not more than 7s. all
the week through, and I was out till three o'clock in the
morning to get that." The piemen seldom begin business till six
o'clock, and some remain out all night. The best time for the
sale of pies is generally from ten at night to one in the
morning. |
Remember the old children's nursery rhyme "Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair."?
Andrew White Tuer (1885) can help us again here:
| Years ago the tin oven of the peripatetic penny pieman was found to be too small to meet the constant and
ever-increasing strain made upon its resources ; and the owner
thereof has now risen to the dignity of a shop, where, in addition
to stewed eels, he dispenses what Albert Smith happily termed
"covered uncertainties," containing messes of mutton, beef, or
seasonable fruit. Contained in a strong wicker basket with legs, or
in a sort of tin oven, the pieman's wares were formerly kept hot by
means of a small charcoal fire. A sip of a warm stomachic
liquid of unknown but apparently acceptable constituents was
sometimes offered gratuitously by way of inducement to
purchase. The cry of "Hot Pies" still accompanies one of the
first and most elementary games of the modern baby learning
to speak, who is taught by his nurse to raise his hand to
imitate a call now never heard. |
Pie and Mash Shops
The pie shops of the mid-nineteenth century sold pies filled with meat (predominantly beef
or
mutton) or eels and stewed eels and began to serve the pies with mashed
potato, as this was a cheap staple food. The first recorded Eel and Mash
shop was being run by a Henry Blanchard at 101 Union Street (SE1 0LQ) in
1844. The shop sold both eel and meat pies at a penny each with mash and
live eels. By 1874 there were 33 such shops listed.
These new eel pie and mash shops became very popular with the poor
working classes, as they served hot nourishing meals very cheaply. To
ensure repeat custom (and not kill their clientele) they could not
afford to serve the unhealthy quality of food that had been on offer by
the piemen. The shops began to flourish and spread across the Eastend of
London, where the main body of poor working class lived and worked. Pie
and Mash shops opened all over, chains of shops formed and Pie and Mash
became entrenched in Eastend culture.
The oldest Pie and Mash shop in London today is Goddard's Pie Shop, opened in 1890
by Albert Goddard
and still going strong today.
However, national tastes have changed over the years, as has the
ethnic makeup of the Eastend. Pie and mash shops have been steadily
displaced by fast-food burger bars, Indian and Chinese takeaways and
restaurants. Today there are less than 80 shops operating, spread over
the South East of England, but still concentrated in the Eastend.
Each successive wave of immigrants has brought elements of their own
culture with them to enrich our own cultural heritage. From the French
and Dutch Huguenot silk weavers of the early 1700's, when one quarter of
the area spoke only French, through the Jewish wave in the mid to late
nineteenth century to the modern day influx of Asian people,
each has left an indelible mark.
Incidentally, it was a Jewish man named Joseph Malin who opened the
first fish and chips shop in London (Cleveland Street, Bethnal Green) in
1860. These early fish and chip shops stank because the fish was fried
in a large vat or cauldron filled with animal fat, heated by a coal
fire. In Dundee, Scotland the first shop was opened in the 1870's by
Belgian immigrant Edward De Gernier and in Ireland the first fish and
chips were sold by an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Servi from a handcart
outside pubs.
So, where does the liquor come in to it? Well, if you go back to
those old cook books on the recipes
page you'll see plenty of references to liquor. It was, quite
simply, the liquid left over from stewing or boiling eels. This was
often made into a sauce or gravy by addition of herbs, particularly
parsley which was a natural accompaniment to fish dishes. It was quite a
natural step for them to serve this green gravy with their eels and
mash.
Fork and Spoon: a lot of pie and mash fans will tell you that
they only use a fork and spoon and that it's hardly de riguer to use a
knife. Why? Well, according to an interview with Fred Cooke in 1989
there was a shortage of knives during World War I and customers of
such establishment nicked the knives, so only forks and spoons were
available. However, in a subsequent Channel 4 interview with an Emily
Giggins, who was born in 1908 and has eaten at Cooke's since she was a
young girl, she say that "knives were banned because of fighting between
the customers." Well, whatever the reason it has became a tradition.
Chronology
| 1844 |
First recorded occurrence of an eel and mash
shop run by Henry Blanchard in Union Street. |
| 1860 |
First fish and chip shop opened by Joseph Malin. |
| 1889 |
Robert Cooke opened his first Eel and Pie shop
at Clerkenwell, then one in Watney Street E1 and Hoxton Street
N1. |
| 1890 |
Alfred Goddard opens his shop in Evelyn Street,
Deptford. |
| 1900 |
Fred Cooke started
selling jellied eels on Broadway Market. |
| 1902 |
Michele Manze, who emigrated to London from
Ravello in Italy in 1878 at the age of three, married Cooke's
daughter Ada (Michele was her second husband) and opened a shop
in Tower Bridge Road. |
| 1908 |
Manze's second shop opened in Southwark Park
Road, Bermondsey. |
| 1910 |
Cooke's eel and pie business, from Shoreditch,
opened a branch at 41 Kingsland High Street; as F. Cooke's. |
| 1914 |
Mrs Emily Louise Arment and her husband William
Peter Arment purchased an eel & pie house at 386 Walworth Road,
SE17 from the Evans family. |
| 1915 |
Irish immigrant Samuel Robert Kelly opened his
first shop in Bethnal Green Road. |
| 1919 |
Tubby Isaacs first seafood stall setup in
Petticoat Lane. |
| 1927 |
Michael Manze opens his fifth and final shop at
105 Peckham High Street |
| 1929 |
Luigi Manze built and opened the shop at 76
High Street, Walthamstow.
Mrs Grace Ida Taylor opened her eel
pie-making business at 207 Hammersmith Road, W6 |
| 1931 |
William Arment died. |
| 1932 |
Michele Manze died. |
| 1936 |
Lil Castle opens her Pie
& Mash shop at 229 Royal College Street, Camden Town. |
| 1945 |
Emily Arment died. |
| 1952 |
Goddard's open shop in Greenwich. |
| 1985 |
Manze's in Peckam burned down in the riots. |
| 1988 |
Lionel Manze died. |
| 1990 |
Manze's shop in Peckham re-opened.
Dave Goddard died. |
| 2006 |
Goddard's in Greenwich closes when sold. |
| |
|
|
This
stoneware pie dish was used in one of Taylor's eel, pie and mash shops
in southwest London.
|
