Pie & Mash - Golden Pie London UK - Restaurant Review - Eel n Pie Shop

Pie & Mash - Golden Pie London UK - Restaurant Review - Eel n Pie Shop. check out Alis website for more info on pie n mash.
Pie and mash is a traditional working-class food, originating in London. Pie, mash and eel shops have been in London since the 19th century, and are still common in East and South East London and in many parts of Kent and Essex. The shops may serve stewed or jellied eels. During the Victorian era, industrial air pollution tended to be worse in the east and south east 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 working class were poor and favoured foodstuffs that were cheap, in plentiful supply and easy to prepare. 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. Adding cheap mashed potatoes, together with a sauce made with fish stock and parsley, made it a plate-based sit-down meal. Jellied eels are often associated with pie and mash, as European eels 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 and London's other rivers at that time. Supply was plentiful through the late 1800s, particularly from the Dutch fishing boats landing catches at Billingsgate Fish Market.
Since 2010, as revealed in a joint study by the Zoological Society of London and the Environment Agency, 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. The main dish sold is pie and mash, a minced mutton and cold water pastry pie 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 eel liquor sauce or simply liquor (although it is non-alcoholic), 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. Sometimes a gravy is served instead (normally Oxo or Bisto).