Pie And Mash Patriotism

Box Britain Continued

Pie and mash with mashed potato and liquor. The picture is from Goddard’s Pies. www.pieshop.co.uk

London’s traditional pie and mash shops are disappearing-we must save them ran a recent headline. In The Standard, DJ Tony nostalgically recalls his experience of a historic working-class English dish. He bemoans the declining popularity of pie and mash since the 1980s and calls on readers to buy it and save pie and mash shops because of the historical connection of the food to London.¹

Arments Pie & Mash, based in southeast London, trace the origins of traditional pie and mash to pie men, Victorian street vendors who plied their trade with a tray full of pie tied to their chest or held above the head. The pies contained eels, which were a staple food for many of London's poor. As the Thames became more polluted, eels were imported from the Netherlands. In 1699, barges moored on the Thames were given exclusive rights to sell the eels- it was their reward for helping to feed the people of London after the Great Fire in 1666.

The pie men’s street trade diminished with the emergence of pie shops in London. ‘The first Pie and Mash shop, or Pie & Eel House as they were known back then, was recorded in 1844, set up by Henry Blanchard at 101 Union Street, SE1 0LQ'.’ ‘The shop sold both eel and meat pies at a penny each, and added the accompaniment of cheap freshly mashed potatoes, or fresh eels, and liquor (a parsley sauce made from the eel juice), to become an inexpensive, value for money, sit down, nourishing meal.’ ‘By 1874, 33 Pie and Mash shops were listed.’ Pie shops flourished among London’s working class in the East End. ‘Eventually, with the decline of fresh eels, mutton and inexpensive beef became the more popular filling for the pies. Jellied and stewed eels were still served as side dishes, or on their own.’²

Tony has a taste for it; but he wants the meal to survive for sentimental reasons over those relating to flavour or quality. He does not say pie and mash is better than any fare that has displaced it over the decades, nor does he make any serious argument on taste. The dish is a part of his identity, and this is why he wants it to stay. ‘I’ve still got the taste for pie and mash’. ‘It’s nostalgic. It’s quintessentially London.’³

Demographic change and the concomitant availability of an array of foreign food has undoubtedly contributed to the decline of pie and mash. Nowadays people tend to expect a richness and a piquancy when eating out and any dish that does not sing and dance with sweetness and spice might be considered insipid. Gentrification is a factor, and many normie/liberal urbanite types often eschew any association with the native proletariat. It is hard to think of a meal that shouts working class louder than pie and mash with eels and liquor. Partaking in foreign food is a way bourgeois liberals display openness. To understand this, you only have to observe how these people crow and swoon over the wide range of foreign takeaways after their opponents express indignation at the loss of home and point them towards the latest violent and sex crime reports.

The pie and mash meal does not deserve to go on simply because it is old. The meat and pastry have enough flavour and merge well with mash and liquor to meet the senses pleasantly. It does not enliven or excite, it fills and satisfies. At the age of thirty- four, I had pie and mash about a week or so ago from a proper pie and mash shop for the first time. I should have done this sooner. While I cannot say it was the best food of my life, it was enjoyable enough and cost only £5 for pie, mash, and liquor, a tea took my total spend to £6. It is worth noting that the pie and mash eatery I attended is not one of the most vaunted. I will likely find meals of a higher quality should I visit Arment’s Pie and Mash and other shops. My choice was not only motivated by a sense of cultural and ethnic loyalty and an expectation of liking the food; I do not think there is anywhere else on the high street offering better value for money at lunchtime. Not only do other eateries reflect the homogenising globalism I routinely lament, food on the high street often costs an exorbitant amount and can leave one feeling overcharged and underfed. I have yet to hear such criticism levelled at a pie and mash shop.

The meal is not only beloved by those of humble means. David Beckham is a returning customer to Tony’s Pie and Mash shop in Waltham, Abbey, located just outside his Leytonstone, East London birthplace. His recent meal there set him back £5.50.

David Beckham and his son Romeo outside Tony’s Pie & Mash, the picture is from the Daily Mail

It was nice reading Tony’s praise of pie and mash and his associated reminiscences, but his reference to having food brought to him by Deliveroo seems incongruous with the rest of his article. ‘The liquor, the secret recipes. I’ve been having mine delivered by Deliveroo recently, which has really reconnected me with it,’ he writes.⁴ Deliveroo fuels a migration economy that facilitates the displacement of native food and native workers. I have never ever heard of an English Deliveroo driver. Today, one can appreciate a choice of the best food from overseas, but a profusion of very average foreign fare saturates the takeaway and dining-out market; this has gone some way to creating the conditions leading to Tony’s outpouring on the decline of the English cuisine. In this context, having Deliveroo bring you your pie and mash is like paying a form of tribute to internationalist overlords. It is a tragedy. It's more a case of the foreign interfacing with Tony and pie and mash than the foreign reconnecting him with it in any meaningful way.

An investigation by i news revealed Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat are being used as a ‘backdoor’ for illegal immigration. ‘Riders who officially sign up to work for the delivery giants are required to pass background checks and prove they have the right to work in the UK. Once verified, they are permitted under employment law to give a ‘substitute’ worker access to their account to carry out jobs on their behalf.’

‘Messages, seen by i, within the Facebook groups where accounts are being traded suggest that the majority of people wishing to rent out a profile on an app do not go through any level of vetting.’

By monitoring fifteen Facebook groups and reviewing hundreds of messages for weeks, the paper found many substitute workers were offered accounts to rent after explaining they had no right to work in the UK or that their official profile had been deactivated.⁵

It’s better for Tony to get his pie and mash delivered than to not have it at all, although I would rather a company like Baz and Dave The Delivery Drivers, mentioned in my piece Box Britain, supported the native workforce. Instead of having it delivered, dine at an establishment or order to collect, eschew Deliveroo and the like as much as possible, and withhold our support from businesses that erode this country.

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Sitting next to Peace & Quiet, Pie & Mash occupies one unit of Box Britain. The interior is in keeping with the character of the famous Victorian establishments that specialised in pie and mash; it looks like the famous L Manze shop on Walthamstow High Street, London, which first opened its doors to customers in 1929. A visit to the Box Britain unit would cost between £5-10.

L Manze Eel, Pie and Mash shop on Walthamstow High Street first opened its doors to customers in 1929 and has remained open since. The picture is from Historic England.

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I did consider describing the remaining outlets of Box Britain in a series of small paragraphs. However, I wanted to do a piece about pie and mash to explain its roots in English culture. I reasoned that there is no rush in completing this project about a hypothetical food and retail park. So far, around half of the outlets have been identified. It is likely my next article on this theme will describe a handful of units.

References

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/pie-and-mash-shop-east-end-london-b1168405.html

https://www.goddardsatgreenwich.co.uk/

https://www.pieshop.co.uk/pie-and-mash/

https://armentspieandmash.com/a-brief-history-of-pie-and-mash-celebrating-national-pie-n-mash-week-march-11th-17th-2024/

https://www.pieshop.co.uk/pie-and-mash/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13833609/David-Beckham-Romeo-surprises-fans-lunches-pie-mash-cafe-Essex.html

https://inews.co.uk/news/deliveroo-uber-eats-just-eat-illegal-worker-accounts-2956956?srsltid=AfmBOooDpO7Go2ECHKaOv7SZ8wTOk8WygAlFhrjeA-AWoek9-3cZmw0X

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1416834?section=official-list-entry

1. DJ Tony, The Standard, https://www.standard.co.uk, London’s traditional pie and mash shops are dissappearing-we must save them, 3/7/24, accessed: 15/9/24

2. https://armentspieandmash.com/, A brief history of pie and mash-celebrating national pie and mash week, March 11-17 2024, 16/3/24, accessed: 15/9/24

3. DJ Tony

4. Ibid

5. Sanya Burgess, i news, Revealed: The Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat ‘backdoor’ to UK illegal immigration, 15/3/24, accessed: 15/9/24