This traditional East End restaurant and take-out is the brainchild of Pat Newland who’s made it his mission to bring real fish and chips to Spitalfields. The 68 years-old, known as Pat ‘Pop’ Newland, began his fish and chip career aged 14 in ‘Phil’s’ on the Roman Road and hasn’t left the area in over 35 years. He views Poppies as his legacy to the East End of London and has set out to create an establishment with all the traditional courtesy, humour and values of the place.
Attention to detail is paramount. The chips are peeled and handcut on site from British farmed Maris Piper potatoes and the sustainably sourced fish is delivered fresh every day from Billingsgate Market. Patrons can expect a roster of Peterhead Cod, Haddock, Plaice, Rock, Sole, Halibut or Skate - all cooked in a crunchy fresh batter from Pat’s secret family recipe, side orders of tartar sauce and mushy peas (also handmade on site of course!) and lashings of Sarson’s vinegar all parcelled up in Poppies’ special newsprint wrapping.

The Poppie Fish and Chip Menu

Open from 7am for a proper East End breakfast of kippers or smoked haddock with poached egg and a lovely cuppa from the refurbished copper last, whitebait and jellied eels are served alongside the staple offering until the fat lady sings at midnight. You can guarantee they’ll do a roaring trade.
by Stephanie Hirschmiller from The Handbook Online London Venue Guide ]]> http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2011/01/12/poppies-fish-and-chip-restaurant-and-takeaway-at-spitalfields-has-jellied-eels-on-the-menu/feed/ 0 http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2010/12/10/keira-knightley-pie-and-mash-fanatic/ http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2010/12/10/keira-knightley-pie-and-mash-fanatic/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:34:29 +0000 Bobajob http://eelhouse.co.uk/?p=1081 Keira Knightley accompanied her London Boulevard co-star Ray Winstone to a football match, and he's said he was impressed with her ladette attitude. The British actress had her big break in football film Bend It Like Beckham and, while she is now seen as a glamorous Hollywood star, Ray revealed to Zoo magazine: "Keira is a big football fan, and loves getting into the spirit at matches."
He went on: "Keira's a West Ham fan as well, which I love. "She came to a game with me once. We went with all the boys and she had jellied eels and cockles and all that - pie and mash, too. She is a rank West Ham fan." Like Keira, Ray has had a lot of success in Hollywood but he insists he would never move to America. He said: "I like the US and enjoy working there, but it'd be like living above a shop. I'm an Englishman and I live in England. It's great to work in the sun, but there's nothing like the green fields when the wind is in your face and you have to put your overcoat on. It's crazy, but I do look forward to putting my overcoat on." from Belfast Telegraph

It wasn't much of a trip for us being on Bethnal Green road but it was one we made if we had time rather than use the three Pie and Mash shops in easy walking distance. Such was the quality of this shop and from those early days as a child, this has firmly remained my favorite Pie and mash shop in London.

I always ride to this one so I don't have much of a clue how to get there other than to say there's Cambridge Heath overground station nearby as well as Cambridge Heath Bus Garage and Bethnal Green Tube Station isn't too far off either (click here for map) all walkable easily.

The shop is a real blast from the past, it's a real step back in history where the shop is clad in marble, the tables are marble and you have a good old fashioned bench seat, no wooden chairs here! The shop was established in 1862 (see the creative commons licensed photo) and I don't think there's been much of an update for any of the fitments but it's classy in a basic sort of way. The pies are stored behind the counter and trays are brought up from below and taken out of their little metal trays only when they are put on the plate.(F. Cooke's pie and mash shop, Broadway Market, Hackney, London. 11 January 2006. Photographer: Fin Fahey)

The guy who owns is very warm and friendly, most welcoming of any pie shop owner I've met. If you're a tourist (yes, they do go to Hackney) then he'll take you through it all patiently. Talking of tourists, Hackney around this place is becoming gentrified, the canal nearby has moorings for barges and it's a popular stop. Bicycle shops and arthouses abound everywhere and Hackney has had it's fair share of Banksy art installations.

That aside, the shop has been through some rough times and yet it still manages to stay and feed us poor visitors. Not all of us are East Enders either, some have moved far away and regularly make the trek in to Hackney for this Pie and Mash and take some away too. There's visitors that go in not to eat either, many films short, long and blockbuster have used rooms or the shop here. If you do go for a visit you may well see media types hauling camera rigs or waving clipboards around and maybe even the odd 'star' if you are really lucky.

Taste is where it counts here though, the pies are absolutely lovely even if you have to put up with the odd bit of chewy beef where it hasn't been ground so fine. That is few and far between though, the pies are lovely full of thick dark brown gravy, these really are pies to savour. The mash is tasty and the liquor is lovely and dark green, really tasty that coats everything beautifully only thinning with vinegar and gravy. I can't really describe why the Pies and Mash taste so good here, everything just seems to gel together perfectly and that extends to the surroundings, the tiles, the signed photo's, the community based adverts, it just all feels so right. Drinks are tea and squash.

There's nothing to fear going here, if you don't understand stuff or want to try something just ask. You can ask for 20 pies to take away but be prepared to wait because the sitting eaters get fed first. If in doubt, phone ahead. I rated F Cooke's 19/20 - The failing being the rare chewy bit of meat, personally I'm suspicious of smooth mash. This place is a winner it's just a bit off the beaten path, please go, it's lovely.

* Address: 9 Broadway Market, London, E8 4PH
* Tel: +44 (0)20 7254 6458
* Opening Times: Mon - Thur: 10:00 - 19:00, Fri - Sat: 10:30 - 20:00

But a while after World War II ended, after England got back on its battered feet and charged, stiff upper lip into the modern world (full of indoor pull-chain loos and cramped under-counter refrigerators), one would presume that eating the remnants of slaughtered animals, the stuff that should only be used in tinned dog food would have ended with a collective sigh of relief.

It’d be a safe assumption, right? Wrong. Call it a cultural thing, but the Brits still eat some questionable grub. In the first eighteen months of living in their country, being a food writer, I thought it best to try some of the foods that foreigners make fun of. Here’s a list of those foods I tried that I will never put into my mouth again.

1) Rollmops Not originally British, but the fact that they have embraced them so, makes it all the worse. Herring, skin intact, soaked in a sweet and sour brine until awful, then wrapped around an olive or onion. Served cold or room temperature. Tastes like low tide.

2) TripeThe lining of a cow, sheep, pig or deer’s stomach. Have you seen this stuff? Culinary tip number 342: Stop reading any recipe that begins with, ‘boil for 2-3 hours to tenderize and clean’.

3) Black Pudding Sounds like something Mrs. Doubtfire might set down in front of you after a nice English supper. It’s not. It is sausage made from the blood of pigs. The flavour isn’t all that bad, it’s just the idea that you are eating blood (and the iron taste that clings to the back of your teeth 30 minutes after finishing).

4) Jellied Eels At least no one is trying to sweeten up the name—this is what it purports to be. Fresh water eels cut into rounds (never mind about the skin and bones), then cooked in a fish stock and allowed to cool in the gelatin that results naturally from their bony serpentine bodies. It’s like eating a snotty snake.

5) Cockles in Vinegar Cockles are small clams that are cooked and chucked into a vat of vinegar. Cockles = Good. Cockles + Vinegar = Gag.

6) Brawn Also known as ‘head cheese’. This is a case of dressing up the name so that young children will eat the head on their plate. Made from a calf, cow, pig or sheep’s head, the brain is removed (these people aren’t Barbarians, after all) and it is boiled. As it cooks, the skull releases copious amounts of gelatin. The head is picked of its meat sometimes chunks of heart may be added, then the meat and skull gelatin are mixed together and set. Eaten by the slice usually as luncheon meat. Just the idea of this is a show-stopper.

By Jennifer Brulé The Faster Times

]]> http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2010/11/10/she-doesnt-eat-black-pudding-jellied-eels-cockles-brawn-rollmops-or-tripe-what-a-fussy-women/feed/ 0 http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2010/11/08/pay-your-rent-with-eels/ http://eelhouse.co.uk/index.php/2010/11/08/pay-your-rent-with-eels/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:53:19 +0000 Bobajob http://eelhouse.co.uk/?p=916 For centuries they were a popular sight in Welsh rivers, despite being renowned as the most slippery and elusive of customers. But the rapid disappearance of eels from the nation’s waterways – dropping by an alarming 70% in a generation – is now a major cause for concern among naturalists. Rivers such as the Wye and Severn once teemed with eels. At one time they were so common that they were a form of currency. The Domesday Book lists hundreds of water mills whose rent was paid in eels.

But in recent years, far fewer elvers (young eels) have made the two-year migration from the Caribbean to get here.Wildlife experts say their decline is as mysterious as the fish themselves, which can grow to a metre long and have one of the most fascinating migratory life-cycles on Earth. The situation has now reached a critical level. The number of elvers migrating into rivers from the sea has fallen by 70% in Wales since the 1980s, according to estimates by Environment Agency Wales.

Andy Schofield, the agency’s strategy manager, said there were several theories to explain their decline, including climate change and commercial over-fishing in the Bay of Biscay. “When elvers are born they are not self-propelling and it takes them two years to drift on the Gulf Stream and ocean currents from the Caribbean across to Wales, where they are filtered into our rivers,” he said.

“Some scientists think shifts in the ocean’s currents, caused by the El Nino climate pattern, have led to changes in this cycle. Others think changes to the ocean’s temperature could have a big impact on them and their food supplies. “Maybe the plankton they feed on has disappeared and the elvers are ending up as food themselves. They are also prone to a parasite that feeds on their bladders. “Just 30 years ago there were big eel populations on the River Wye. People were using dip nets to catch elvers and transport them live to the Far East, where they are considered a delicacy. “They would fetch hundreds of pounds per kilo and they would be taken to grow at farms out there. “The young were far more valuable than the adults, that can end up smoked or as jellied eels in the UK.”

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle theorised they were born “of nothing”, but baby eels are actually hatched from eggs in the upper levels of the deep Sargasso Sea, 5,000km away. Their sinister-looking features may not win them many fans, but their presence in Wales is vital for the wild otters and herons that feed on them, as well as being economically important for fisheries.

Mr Schofield conceded the agency couldn’t do much about conditions out at sea, but he added that making it easier for eels to navigate their way around Wales could help them. “We are improving their habitats and making sure that our lifestyles have little impact on their adult lives,” he said. “Eels can cross damp fields at night to get from pond to pond and will leave the water rather than tackle a waterfall, making them easy prey.

“In South Wales, we have created fish passes for salmon and trout, with tiny brushes to help eels make their way up the River Taff and other rivers. “We believe that eels spend most of their adult lives here before leaving at around seven to 12 years old to return to the Caribbean to spawn.” Rob Strachan, biodiversity officer for Environment Agency Wales, said: “The number of elvers migrating into rivers from the sea, has fallen by more than 95% for Europe, with an estimated 70% reduction in England and Wales. “They have been added to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and are an important prey for several protected species.” He fears that, if no action is taken, there may be no adult eels left in 20-30 years.

“The European eel is the subject of urgent legislation in Brussels. It is an endangered species and member states are required to take immediate steps to protect it,” he said. “We aim to ensure that 40% of the pre-1980s level of silver eels survive to migrate back to sea,” added Mr Strachan.

By Sally Williams Western Mail Wales OnLine

Interestingly, these entrepreneurs will also be exempt from the Government’s proposed cap on immigration – as will the big multinationals who set up shop here. Clearly all that lobbying from business groups (who argued a cap would affect their competitiveness) has paid off, and quite right too. Although immigration caps clearly go down well with a lot of voters, it won’t do the UK any good if they encourage big employers to go elsewhere.

Of course, attracting great entrepreneurs is not just about changing the immigration rules. The Valley’s pre-eminence as a technology hub is also about employment law, proximity to leading institutions, the fact that it’s hot enough for Mark Zuckerberg to walk around in flip-flops, and many other factors besides. IP laws are another big issue – Cameron made the point today that the founders of Google said they’d never have been able to set up their company in the UK. So the good news is that he intends to have our laws scrutinised, and possibly relaxed – perhaps via the introduction of some kind of US-style ‘fair use’ provision.

So these are welcome steps, and arguably long overdue. But somehow, we can’t see the East End outstripping the Valley any time soon. Even if they do make better pie and mash.

By James Taylor Digital Editor Management Today

The competition also proved the Inner West to be Sydney’s hub of gourmet pub pies, with eight of the 20 contestants hailing from the area. There were four pubs from Balmain and two from Rozelle, as well as the Carlisle Castle in Newtown and the Australian Youth Hotel in Glebe.

With the use of Coopers Pale Ale in the recipe as the only prerequisite, Riverview publican Tim Condon said the competition helped his kitchen “push the boundaries of pie making”. It is a special achievement for the pie’s creator and Riverview head chef Brad Sloane, who only stepped into the top job in January.

“We wanted to do a play on the cult pork pie,” he said. Not content with just any old pork, Mr Sloane used braised cheek, neck and smoked hock inside the pie, as well as a pork crackling on the side. Serving his pie with mash and mushy peas, Mr Sloane said he was inspired by the simplicity of the pies from Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Woolloomooloo. “I used gourmet ingredients but kept it to the basics,” he said.

Why do we no longer eat eels? Wherever one is near a river or lake in France, Italy and Spain, eels are eaten in season with voracity and much pleasure - and by all. But in Britain the phrase, "Why do we no longer eat eels?" is loaded with class-consciousness.

Everyone knows that in Victorian times, 100 oysters could be had for a penny - or some such piddling amount. We could easily suggest that the very fact of their costly price today, is one of the reasons for their allure. If cabbage was the price of caviar, and vice-versa, whose taste would we prefer?

But back to eels. The Japanese and, especially, the Chinese eat eels till they are coming out of their ears. In fact, there is probably a very good hot-pot-stew dish that they might do incorporating eels' and pigs' ears. They certainly do stews of oysters and eels, belly pork and oysters, eels and belly pork, so an ear or two could only add interest to these.

But where else in Britain to find them? Well, in London, and Chinatown in the West End particularly: live eels are readily available seven days a week from the charming Chinese proprietors of Good Harvest fishmongers at 14 Newport Place, WC 2 (0171-437 0712), who will happily fish some out of their deep, Stygian tanks with a net and pop them into a plastic bag. They then hit the eels sharply to kill them before gutting, ready for you to take home, still wriggling. Then, of course, you have to skin them.

If you live near clean rivers or lakes, ask your fishmonger whether he knows of eel fishers in the vicinity. Manchester and Liverpool, and, to some extent, Edinburgh and Cardiff, have thriving Chinese communities, so look in Chinese supermarkets there.

Skinning an eel is not as difficult or as worrisome as you think. Make a circular cut through the skin just behind the head. Now, with a pair of pliers and holding onto the head with a damp tea-towel or dishcloth, pull away the skin sharply with some determination and fortitude; it will peel away from the flesh as one long inverted bicycle inner tube. Trust me.by Simon Hopkinson is 1997's Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year for his writing in this magazine. READ MORE: independent.co.uk

It is a tiny place, just 600 yards long and barely 150 at its widest, but it has nearly fifty houses, some twenty houseboats, two boatyards and a score of small businesses and craft studios, two boating clubs and a nature reserve at each end, and it is connected to the rest of the world by an elegant footbridge.

Eel Pie Island is in the River Thames 10 miles southwest of central London. The Eel Pie Island Hotel was built in 1830. The island was formerly called Goose Eyte or Twickenham Ayte. The hotel served eel pie and the name Eel Pie stuck. It has also been said that Henry VIII used to stop at the island for eel pie when he was passing on the Thames

The island has enjoyed two periods of special fame: in the nineteenth century it was a resort for Londoners who, like Charles Dickens, came by the newfangled steamboats to spend the day in the grounds of the hotel that dominated the island. In the 1960s many now famous rock bands played gigs at the hotel. The Stones had to carry their equipment over the famous footbridge, which is the only way to get onto the island. In the 60s the footbridge was so old and worn that only three people were allowed on it at one time.

The Eel Pie Studios, on the mainland nearby, formerly owned by Pete Townshend and now owned by The Lightning Seeds, were the location of several significant pop and rock recordings. Townshend's publishing company, Eel Pie Publishing, is named after the ait. The original club closed down in 1967 and was reopened by new owners as Colonel Barefoot's Rock Garden in 1969. Genesis had one of their early gigs at the Rock Garden.

A suspicious fire demolished the hotel in 1972. Neighbors petitioned against having the hotel rebuilt and an apartment building was put in its place. The island is now mostly residential. There are quite a few artists still in residence even without a nightclub. A surprising number of people all over Britain and beyond remember Eel Pie Island and its gigs - usually with a nostalgic smile.