3) 1000 Foods To Eat – Manze’s Jelled Eels and Pie Shop (UK)
The ultimate British food, it could be argued, is pie, mash and liquor. Add some jellied eels into the mix and you’ve got yourself a classic East End treat.
Restaurant reviews are not really my scene. I find that it is not my place to judge other peoples food, and besides, food critiquing is very personal. What is one mans Chateaubriand is another’s Big Mac. Furthermore, we eat out rarely. This is due to several reasons:
- Financial limitations. Since the days of covid, eating out has skyrocketed in price.
- We prefer home cooking.
However, there are some establishments that need to be visited, if only once in a lifetime. Recently I had the great pleasure of visiting the oldest Pie and Mash shop in the country, M. Manze.
From the unassuming exterior to the evocative interior with its rickety wooden benches, fluorescent lighting and 1950s ambience, Manze is an all encompassing eating experience. The tea is served in plain white mugs, the milk poured in exactly as you want it, sometimes the bag left in.
As you tuck into your Pie and Mash, stained green by the parsley scented liquor, you feel as if you have been transported to a time less complicated. If you’ve ever seen the classic British mod film, Quadrophenia, you’ll know what I mean. And if you’ve listened to the Who’s original concept album, based around Jimmy and his internal conflicts, you’ll find that it is full of nostalgic nods to the working classes of the 50s and 60s. Pie and mash shops are possibly the only remaining culinary vestiges of that era, an almost hauntological experience for those of us obsessed with the 60s.
The food of Manze is old-fashioned and honest. It hasn’t changed in nearly 100 years. The recipe for the rich meat filling, the crisp pastry and the simple parsley “green liquor” that floods the plate, so different to shop bought pies, remains unaltered. The mash is made daily with real potatoes, not a wallpaper paste substitute and the secret ingredient for that parsley liquor is still closely guarded.
The menu isn’t filled with deep fried Mars bars or burgers or alternatives (although they do a veggie-friendly pie), and this is why the simplest food is always great. They concentrate on what they do best and the line for their famous pies often overspills onto the busy streets. You can easily imagine the shop being filled with mods, lining their bellies before an amphetamine-fuelled ride out to Brighton or East-End gangsters matter-of-factly discussing their next heist or assassination of a rival gang member.
Across the Pond
Manze has appeared in US food tome, Gourmet and in an episode of Anthony Bourdains’ show, A Cook’s Tour (2001), where he was charmingly enamoured with the dish (although he visited F Cooke Eel and Pie House in Hoxton).
Then of course there are the regulars. They remember the fact that during World War II, Manze had a not inconsiderable empire of 14 shops. In the early 2000s, all but the London Bridge Road shop had closed down due to changing appetites and fashions. However, in no small part because of the resurgence of London as the hip place to be, Manze opened several more shops, not just in London but across the UK.
It is a testament to our fondness of food from our childhood that whilst some foods are temporarily discarded, they are never forgotten. Lets hope that Manze remains part of British food heritage; pie, mash and jellied eels being as quintessentially British as the Royal Family or the Beatles.
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