GEOFF DREAMS OF CROQUETTES

 Somebody (was it Giles Coren? AA Gill? Brillat-Savarin?) said somewhere that the ‘secret’ of a good restaurant is that the people running it know what they want to do and then they do it as well as they possibly can. Which of course means it’s no secret at all, though a lot of restaurant managements seem not to know it.

 

So if you’re a proper English pub you don’t start serving fried silk worms and duck fetus – you serve steak pies and ploughmen’s lunches.  If you’re a Bangladeshi restaurant you don’t serve steak pies and ploughmen’s lunches. And so on.  It’s not about authenticity, it’s about understanding the mission.

 

On Sunday afternoon I was in Dirty Dick’s in Spitalfields, and saw there were ox cheek croquettes on the menu, and I was slightly thrown.  In one sense that’s not standard pub fare, on the other hand pig cheeks are surely an ancient and noble British tradition, even if croquettes aren’t.  Well, I’d have taken a chance on them but they were off, so a sausage roll was had instead: that’s Bloody Mary ketchup on the side.

 

PHOTOS BY GANNON STUDIOS

And so to Taro in Walthamstow, a newish Japanese restaurant, part of a small chain that knows what it’s about and delivers as promised.  It may not be the sushi that Jiro dreamed off, but it seemed everything a small local Japanese restaurant ought to be.

 

There was sashimi of tuna, salmon, mackerel, and shrimp

 

tempura vegetables (which actually weren’t that fabulous but I think I’m coming to the conclusion that I don’t really like tempura vegetables)

 

octopus balls - takoyaki

There were Japanese pickles too but we didn’t photograph them.  And here’s the beauty part: the premises used to be an eel and pie shop, and most of the relevant features, especially the tiles, have been retained. 

 

Taro do in fact serve eel, and I might like to think that’s a nod to local culture but then any good Japanese restaurant would serve eel anyway.  So that’s a double win.

 

A LIFE OF PIE

Well, I said that I’d be eating pies while I was in London, and I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.  On my first day in town I ate this one (not all of it), a Brace and Dram Wild Game and Whisky Pie, from Fortnum and Mason. It took a certain amount of imagination to convince myself that I could taste the whisky.

A week or so later, again from Fortnum and Mason, I bought this one: a (ruinously expensive – best part of 9 quid - really) Mutton and Caper Pie, which I thought could have used a few more capers.

And it so happened that I was staying close to a Marks and Spencer.  Now, M and S is no Fortnum and Mason but they’re not bad, and by no means ruinously expensive, and so in those moments when I was in need of comfort I wandered in and bought items such as these Mini Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, which were perfectly good.

I also scoffed down some of these Dinky Melton Mowbray Pork Pies.  Yep, thay really call them that.  In general I don’t want my food to be “dinky” but I was prepared to make an exception here.

I suspect there is some alternative universe in which Marks and Spencer sell micro pies, or bijou pie-ettes.  I’d probably be happy to eat those too.

THE PIE AND I

I thought you might enjoy seeing some more pie imagery.  The two below were served at Hardwick Hall a few years back.

The received wisdom is that British pies are chiefly savory, American pies chiefly sweet – after all, the lad in the movie does not insert his business in among the steak and kidney.

But the rules are blurred.  Of course the British eat sweet pies, apple pies, mince pies, and here’s a rhubarb pie I made earlier (it isn’t the greatest looking pie in the world but it tasted just fine, trust me:

Meanwhile in the USA, you can get a chicken pot pie just about anywhere, and even apparently turkey pies, though I can’t say I’ve ever eaten one.

In any case it seems that this sweet/savory dichotomy is a comparatively recent development.  Modern British and modern American food have evolved from a common ancestor.   American food has become ever less like its old fashioned British counterpart, which it once resembled.  This may be because of jingoism but I think it’s more likely to be because a very different set of immigrants has settled in each country.  I think you’ll have to go a very way in the States to find a curry pie.

But back in the day there was far more of this kind of thing in America:

Interesting too to see that this one is made with canned stew – that was how my mother made her pies back in Yorkshire.

And digging around online I found this extraordinary ad – pizza in the shape of a "real" pie.  

It also once raises the question of whether pineapple belongs with pizza.  You and I, of course, think it doesn’t.  Some, evidently, take a different view.

Meanwhile the British pie continues to mutate.  I suspect the pork pie party may be gone forever, alas:

But Wall’s are – or were – offering, the pepperoni pizza slice which seems to be some kind of missing link between pies and pizzas, without resembling (or improving on) either.  An evolutionary dead end, I'd say.  And I’m not sure whether to be comforted or not by the fact that it’s a "limited edition,"  I mean, please, really.

And finally here’s The Fairy’s Pie or “All the Goodies in One Bite,” an advertising postcard for T. E. Dougherty’s New England Condensed Mince Meat Company, circa 1894.  A sweet pie, no doubt, but one containing beef and suet.  Fusion, yeah?