To be any authority on pie 'n mash you have, of course, need to have been born in the East End of London.
They were originally eel pies, the meat came much later. mind you even I don't know if they left the bones in the eels when they were filling the pies.
This is how the parsley liquor came to be served with the pies and mash,
eel pies were sold by street vendors as a cheepo meal for the poor, the come in and sit down shops came later.
The liquor is just the water and seasonings with parsley and a bit of flour added, that the eels were cooked in. Then stewed eels that had gone cold and the cooking water had turned to jelly was found to be a tasty dish when served with vinegar and pepper with a piece of bread as a filler and this is how the jellied eels were born. They found their way outside the ale houses and taverns for hungry drinkers.
Besides being very nutritious they were also very cheep as you could fish in any old sewer or stream and catch them. The marshlands of the east side of London from Hackney to Soufend were teeming with them and you could just go about picking them up.
But like oil, eels are disappearing, the growing population and the realisation that the poor were onto a good thing, is now shared by many continentals who smoke them......not as roll ups but for the taste.
You will find Pie and Mash shops all over the costal resort towns, they are there just as the fish and chippies are there to satisfy the holidaying Londoners appetites.
Some pie and mash shops even served soda peas these were the dried peas that were soaked overnight in bicarbonate of soda and boiled up as an addition to mash on yer plate.
This is written by one who was brought up on Muvver Ollies Pie and Mash
late of Rathbone Street Canning Town when it was a busy market street between the two world wars that is..............
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