| Yesterday was my birthday (21 again), so I took the | | | | As the population of London exploded during the |
| day off from driving my taxi cab and went for a | | | | Industrial Revolution, pie shops became popular as one |
| birthday meal. | | | | of the original fast foods. This was because poor |
| Now London, England is a world class city where it's | | | | people did not possess their own cooking facilities and |
| possible to eat just about every sort of cuisine known | | | | so relied on the vast ovens of the bake houses not |
| to man. So what did I have? | | | | only for bread, but any hot food. Wrapping that food in |
| I plumped for traditional London fare: a Cockney pie | | | | a pastry case made for easier handling. |
| and mash shop. For the uninitiated, that's a pie filled with | | | | Along with eels, oysters were once eaten in vast |
| jellied eels, accompanied by mashed potatoes and | | | | quantities and regarded as "poor man's food". Since |
| surrounded by liquor (otherwise known as gravy). | | | | then, the humble oyster has reached the elevated |
| It's what my Australian cousins would call a "floater | | | | status of gourmet food and now eels are also |
| and one". | | | | enjoying a revival. |
| You might recoil in horror at the idea of eating eel - | | | | In past times, eels used to come from the local London |
| which is actually a delicious white fish, rather like the | | | | rivers. But now they are mainly caught on the Norfolk |
| highly prized hake, although rather narrower in the | | | | Broads, to the north east of London, and shipped |
| beam. In fact eating eel is fairly tame compared with | | | | across the North Sea to Holland to be processed, |
| some of the fare that has graced London supper | | | | before arriving at their traditional home: the old London |
| tables in the past. These include swan, turtle, porpoise, | | | | pie and mash shop. |
| dolphin and seal. | | | | |