Jellied Eels… Yum! (?)
In the 1700s, the Thames River in London was replete with eels. Surprisingly easy to catch, these slippery creatures were free for the grabbing, nutritious, and tasty. Nets were set upriver, and the bountiful harvests quickly became a dietary staple for London’s poor.
On top of being cheap, they were easy to prepare. The simplest method common at that time was to chop the eel into slices or chunks and boil in stock spiced with vinegar, salt and pepper, onion, and any other desired (and available) spices or herbs. Once cooked, the mixture was allowed to cool completely until the eel’s proteins solidified the liquid into a savory jelly. Jellied eels were typically eaten cold.
The texture of the eel is reported to be very soft, which can be off-putting, but the taste is said to be mild, slightly salty, and not at all “fishy”. I can’t confirm this personally, so let me know if you have eaten them!
Londoners swiftly grew to love the strange dish with a passion. Street vendors saw the potential and began selling jellied eels along with the already popular fare of small mince-meat pies and mashed potatoes. This was followed by shops selling “pie-and-mash” with jellied eels served hot, and offering assorted garnishes such as hot chili vinegar and spicy sauces.
At the height of their popularity, these specialty shops were as plentiful as Starbucks. One on every corner with street venders in between! London’s oldest existing pie, mash, and jellied eel shop is M. Manze, which opened on Tower Bridge Road in 1891. It was founded by Michele Manze, whose family moved to London from southern Italy in 1878, and began selling pies after dabbling less successfully in ice-cream. For Manze, this Tower Bridge site was the first of a mini pie empire. He opened a second shop on nearby Southwark Park Road in 1908, followed by two more in Poplar and yet another in Peckham in 1927. Three were either destroyed or closed during the war but the original, his Peckham outlet, and a third on Sutton High Street remain open today.
LINKS FROM THE COLLAGE ABOVE FOR MORE HISTORY AND RECIPES:
Eat Your World: Jellied Eels
British Food: Preparing, Sourcing, and Cooking Eels
Jellied Eels: History, Recipes, & Videos
Does not sound good to me! I’ll stick to clams and scallops!lol
I’ve never eaten jellied eels and I suspect I would have to be on the verge of starvation to actually try them.
On the other hand I have caught one! My husband was a keen fisherman and in the seventies before the children we went to Norfolk in a caravan with fishing rights. I decided to have a go and did manage to catch a fish, but my second attempt I pulled the line out of the water to see an eel wriggling its way up the line! I didn’t deal with it well I’m afraid, shouting for it to be removed from the line before I threw that and the rod in the river! Needless to say that was my first and last attempt!
Great story! I suppose it is a bit lame to base what we would eat on what the animal looks like. After all, chickens aren’t exactly adorable and lobsters truly do resemble bugs! At the end of the day, if the choice was jellied eels or crickets, I’d take the eels! LOL!
I’ve seen that as a meal in many books I’ve read, wasn’t sure what it entailed. Your description of it makes me want to barf! Maybe an aquired taste? But back then, if you were poor and nothing else to eat, you would gladly eat it, I guess!
Acquired taste for sure, but I think you are correct in eating what one can when times are tough. My dad would tell stories of what his southern family grew up eating, largely as a result of the Great Depression. No amount of his claims of being delicious ever enticed me to try head cheese, tripe, or crawdad brains!