1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (6 page)

Think of moist, thick, snowy shards of firm, white-fleshed fish such as haddock, whiting, sole, hake, plaice, or cod, encased in a crackling-hot, crisp batter. Add to that crunchy fried potato slivers, the whole sparked with salt and a refreshing zap of malt vinegar, and you’ll understand why this plebeian English specialty is famous the world over. Basically street food, it’s a working-class meal sold at fairs and from designated fish-and-chip shops, or “chippies,” traditionally served as a walk-away specialty in grease-absorbing paper cones. But for a distinctly perfect upscale version, the hands-down London winner is the cheerfully casual Sea Shell restaurant in Lisson Grove, a short walk from the Marylebone station. This authentic outpost fries everything immaculately in peanut oil that imparts a sweet luster to the very fresh fish, some of which is served in smaller portions as appetizers, including plates of tiny, wispy whitebait and thick, grainy slabs of cod roe.

Where:
In London
, Sea Shell of Lisson Grove, tel 44/20-7224-9000,
seashellrestaurant.co.uk
;
in New York
, A Salt & Battery, tel 212-691-2713,
asaltandbattery.com
;
in Seattle
, Chinook’s at Salmon Bay, tel 206-283-4665,
anthonys.com
(click Restaurants, then Casual Dining).
Further information and recipes:
The Ploughman’s Lunch and the Miser’s Feast
by Brian Yarvin (2012).

The “gentleman” to blame or celebrate for this example of the perverse strain in the English palate is John Osborn, an Englishman residing in Paris, who devised this gastronomic devilry in 1828. If you’re familiar with Thailand’s
nam pla
or ancient Roman garum—high-protein condiment sauces based on fermented fish innards—you’ll have an idea of what this unctuously sweet, sour, bitter, and salty anchovy paste tastes like. Like that so-called restorative Marmite, or its Australian cousin, Vegemite (see
listing
), this relish has lip-curling malt-yeast-fish-oil overtones. No wonder, then, that the Gentleman’s Relish is sold in tiny crocks.

This condiment is made exclusively by Elsenham Quality Foods, whose handsome, antique-looking black labels (usually printed onto the lids) promise that even if you hate the relish (also identified there by its Latinate name, Patum Peperium), you’ll relish the crock for holding sea salt or paper clips.

Incredibly, though, Gentleman’s Relish can become addictive, scraped thinly onto buttered toast, perhaps with slivered cucumber as a foil, and taken with a glass of wine or a cup of tea. Hard-core fans stir a bit into salad dressing or dab it over eggs, boiled, scrambled, poached, or fried. It is also a key component of Scotch woodcock, which consists of soft, creamy scrambled eggs served atop slices of toast spread with Gentleman’s Relish.

Where:
In London
, Harrods, tel 44/20-7730-1234,
harrods.com
; Fortnum & Mason, tel 44/20-7734-8040,
fortnumandmason.com
;
in New York
, Myers of Keswick, tel 212-691-4194,
myersofkeswick.com
.
Further information:
theguardian.com
(search sybil kapoor gentleman’s relish).

Dating back to Tudor times, the fruit fool is a prized English dessert based on a puree of cooked ripe fruit, chilled and swirled through various kinds of cream. Lusciously rich yet restorative, fools are most classically made with berries, or can also incorporate stone fruits such as cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots. For full flavor and color, any berry or stone fruit to be used for a fool should be at the last opulent stages of ripeness. In earlier times, the pureed fruit was combined with a cooked egg custard, but these days, whipped or clotted cream is turned through the fruit for a streaky, marbleized effect.

Gooseberry bushes thrive in the English climate, and early summer gooseberries, with their green and glassy shimmer and tart, juicy flavor, are justifiable favorites for fools. (The inch-long berries are available throughout the summer season, but the riper, fatter, sweeter berries of late summer are best suited to eating raw.) Heaped into parfait glasses or sherbet dishes after the stems and spiky bits have been removed and the berries have been cooked, they are as coolly appealing to the eye as they are pleasing to the palate, with the tartness of the fruit pleasantly gentled by the cream. For added sophistication, a few drops of rose or orange flower water or a fruit wine such as elderberry can be stirred through the fruit puree before it is turned through the cream.

Further information and recipes:
Food in England
by Dorothy Hartley (2009);
British Cookery
edited by Lizzie Boyd (1989);
epicurious.com
(search gooseberry fool);
theguardian.com
(search nigel slater gooseberry fool).

An employee in the seafood section of Harrods delicatessen proudly exhibits a tray of delicacies.

The motto of the famed, gleaming Food Halls at London’s posh department store Harrods is still close enough to truth. Yet these days, the energetic food scout will surely be able to unearth exotica that even this retailer, long celebrated for variety, is missing. But it would be churlish to complain, as the luxurious department store near Hyde Park devotes some four and a half acres to designer clothing and one-of-a-kind merchandise of all stripes. No single department is more impressive than the ground-floor food halls, a collection of well-appointed alcoves, niches, and counters (many of antique English beauty) stocked with the finest imported delicacies from around the world: from Spain’s
jamón Ibérico
to Caspian Sea caviar from Russia and Iran to
macarons
from Ladurée in Paris. The sheer vastness of the collection is incredibly impressive, but for a traveler with limited time and capacity, it would be wise to concentrate on the purely English provender. This is the place to sample an array of English teas, jams and preserves, farmstead cheeses, and all the cakes, puddings, pastries, breads, and buns that fortify afternoon tea.

Not too surprisingly, Harrods has its roots in food, as a grocery store opened by the miller Charles Henry Harrod in 1849, when Knightsbridge was a slum. Harrods’ good fortune followed that of the neighborhood, allowing the store to pioneer the concept of destination department store dining. Now more than 15 million people, many of them tourists, are said to visit Harrods each year. Amid the gleaming antique tiles, they can take a seat at bars offering caviar, dim sum, Champagne, or a stunning array of ice-cold local oysters from various parts of the Isles. Amblers will detect whiffs of freshly ground, brewing coffee, the salt-air tang of seafood, and the warm, enveloping aroma of chocolate—all teasers that inevitably lead to delectable splurges.

Where:
87–135 Brompton Rd., London, tel 44/20-7730-1234,
harrods.com
.
Tip:
In addition to the Food Halls, Harrods has several inviting, expectedly expensive restaurants—including a Veuve Clicquot Champagne bar and an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor with hot fudge sundaes.

A staple appetizer at M. Manze.

Currently enjoying a new wave of popularity that crosses class lines, jellied eels are being featured in various upscale seafood restaurants, but are still mainly consumed as walk-away street food in London’s East End. Sometimes accompanied by mashed potatoes and peas, cool jellied eel makes a tantalizing first course or between-meal snack. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was a staple dish for the London poor, and “eel, pie, and mash” houses proliferated. Jellied eels are gaining popularity with a new generation, but concerns about the European eel’s endangered status have recently limited the number of them available for consumption.

At its most effete, the dish is prepared with sea eel that is boned, skinned, and boiled, the meaty, nicely oily chunks caught in a green-gold glassy aspic sharpened with white wine, vinegar, onion, and bay leaves and flecked with parsley; but to be at its best, the skinned eel should be cooked in slices, on the bone, however challenging that might make it for diners picking their way through the jelly. Such messy hard work is well rewarded.

Where:
In London
, M. Manze at multiple locations, tel 44/20-7277-6181,
manze.co.uk
.
Further information and recipes:
theguardian.com
(search joy of jellied eels);
recipewise.co.uk
(search jellied eels).

“Lay pretty long in bed, and then rose, leaving my wife desirous to sleep, having sat up till four this morning seeing her maid make mince pies.…” Samuel Pepys thus described his Christmas Day in 1666, when mince pies were already long established as a traditional Christmas treat. The origins of this rich dessert lie in the Middle Ages, and although Oliver Cromwell issued a law banning meat in mince pie at
Christmas (he associated holiday celebrations with paganism and gluttony), this law happily did not survive the end of the English Civil War.

Factory-produced commercial pies with crusts suggesting wet cardboard and cloyingly sweet, soggy fruit fillings have given this pie a bad name. At its Yuletide best, mince pie is rich with chewy, flavorful jewels of dried fruits such as currants, raisins, figs, candied citrus peel, and crunches of walnuts or almonds enriched by brandy, rum, whiskey, sherry, or a heady combination of several spirits. Gently sweetened with molasses and brown sugar and scented with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice, this darkly glistening treat tastes mystically historic.

In the sixteenth century, fillings did indeed include cooked meat—generally beef and suet, sometimes mutton, chicken, or tongue—along with the dried fruits, spices, and spirits that were put up to ripen months before the Christmas season. The most authentic crust is made with flour, lard, and hot water, providing a neutral foil for the lavish filling, although today’s tastes tend to run to a lighter, flakier, buttery pastry.

Where:
In London
, Harrods, tel 44/20-7730-1234,
harrods.com
;
in New York
, at Christmas, Myers of Keswick, tel 212-691-4194,
myersofkeswick.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The James Beard Cookbook
by James Beard (2002);
foodnetwork.com
(search mince pie).
Special event:
The Mince Pie Project, England, December,
themincepieproject.com
.