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Food, glorious food, into the melting pot
A study of the capital’s eating habits charts the progress from the Roman army’s lard ration to chicken tikka masala, writes Dan Carrier
Feeding London: A Taste of History by Richard Tames. Historical Publications, £16.95 order this book
AN army marches on its stomach: and Feeding London, shows the same rule applies to a city London has expanded with its waistline: it was founded simply because of the accessibility of food.The river provided fish and transport for grains and cereals, while the surrounding forests provided hunting grounds and places for livestock to forage.
Richard Tames, a historian from Birkbeck College who is also a Blue Plaque tourist guide for English Heritage, has chosen a topic that affects us all. The daily diet has such a huge bearing on so many of the ways we work as a society, such as commerce, public health and entertainment, it goes almost unnoticed: and by tracing the changes that have taken place in our larders, we learn about how our physiological and cultural evolution.
Tames, following 2,000 years of history, starts from where our food is grown and raised through to how it gets to our tables. Markets and market gardeners, the rise and fall of the dining club – and its opposite, the soup kitchen – gastronomic oddities, how we came to eat pasta, the coffee shop, cafe, and greasy spoon, how the traditional meat and two veg became de rigeur for the London table, who invented the chippie and the effect Mrs Beeton has had on our contemporary diet. All are explained in depth.
Starting with the establishment of Roman London the author gives us an intimate description of the Roman kitchen.
How they made their fare palatable is also considered. “Honey was the main sweetener in cooking and was useful as a preservative and medicine,” he explains.He adds abundant food for pigs was available, making it the most common form of meat. It gave each Roman soldier a daily lard ration, as well as bringing the banger to Britain 1,500 years before the mash arrived.
Then the Middle Ages and the influence of the church on the diet is attended to. The instigation of fish on Fridays, and hardly-mouth watering descriptions of recipes for the universally eaten stews known as pottage are explained. Other dishes that were palatable to the Medieval taste buds included eating anything they could catch.
This meant the crane, heron and bustard were considered delicious, while blackbirds were preferred to larks. Pigeons, thrushes and gulls all found their way into the pot.
As food became a status symbol, the differences between working class and upper class diets is made clear and its knock on effects for public health.
The rise of the curry is documented: and is partly told through the story of Camden’s Pathak family, whose food company is now the biggest of its kind in Britain.
Curry came to London with the traders of the East India Company. The craze for all things Indian, through pyjamas and polo, was typified by the integration of the curry as a national dish.
Tames writes: “LG Pathak arrived from Kenya with a wife, six children, £5 and a life insurance policy.”
Mr Pathak decided the best way to establish himself would be to exploit culinary abilities.
After selling somasas he knocked up in his own kitchen, he raised enough money to take on a place in Drummond Street, Euston – which is now lined with Indian restaurants and shops.
Other communities have played their part: Joseph Lyons, who created a chain of around 200 cafés, is dubbed ‘the greatest Jewish contribution to feeding London’.
He underlines the importance of food to the culture, talking of “the strength of the Jewish traditional emphasis on family meals and the observance of kosher practises.”
And Jewish food in itself had many sub-cultures, with immigrant families whose roots were in Poland having wildly different flavoured food to those who came from Lithuania. By living side by side in the East End and later in north London areas such as Golders Green, an anglicised version of Jewish fare which marries many different styles together has developed.
The Chinese community has also put a restaurant on every high street – Tames reveals the astonishing figure that up to 75 per cent of London’s Chinese community is still involved in the catering trade or related industries to this day.
The influence of London’s cosmopolitan make up must not be underestimated: this is what makes this book so interesting.
The influence of London’s cosmopolitan make up must not be underestimated: this is what makes this book so interesting.
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