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Friday Night Pudding Feast

The Pudding Club at the Three Ways House Hotel ○ england

From the outside, the Three Ways House Hotel is a typical 19th-century British bed-and-breakfast, made out of golden stone and engulfed in ivy. On Friday nights, however, the hotel plays host to the Pudding Club—an institution with a self-proclaimed mission of preserving the “great British pudding.”

Since 1985, dozens of dessert-lovers from around the world have gathered weekly to gorge on a banquet of British puddings, presented with pomp by the hotel’s resident Pudding Master—the mastermind who curates the menu. Traditionally, British pudding is a cake-like dish made with suet, or hardened animal fat, that’s steamed for hours and can be sweet or savory. But the word can also apply to desserts in general, and at the Pudding Club, the Friday feast includes traditional puddings like jam roly-poly, spotted dick, and sticky toffee pudding, as well as non-steamed puddings like rice pudding, sliced-bread-and-fruit summer pudding, apple crumble, passion fruit roulade, and syrup sponge cake.

The seven-course pudding extravaganza is a feat of endurance, and those who make it through the evening are awarded a certificate. According to Pudding Master Lucy Williams, the club is not just about indulgence, but celebrating dishes that have fallen out of modern favor.

Brawny Liquid Beef

Bovril ○ England

In 1870, as Napoleon III led his troops into the Franco-Prussian War, he ordered one million cans of beef to feed his men. The request went to a Scottish butcher living in Canada named John Lawson Johnston, who tweaked a recipe for meat glaze to make “beef fluid,” a thick, glossy paste that tastes exactly as you might guess: very salty and very beefy. The result was Bovril, England’s iconic concentrated beef paste.

Bovril was touted as a constitution-boosting, meaty superfood that could be spread on buttered toast or diluted and drunk as a restorative tea. Marketing claims (some endorsed by real scientists) declared the paste could make the infirm well, the elderly strong, and the young healthy. One advertisement even claimed that “Bovril fortifies the system against influenza.”

Victorians loved the beef-in-a-jar. From breakfast tables to hospitals to football stadiums, a hot thermos of Bovril tea became the preferred way to warm up and gain strength. The foodstuff was considered patriotic—it fed British soldiers during the Boer War—and it was celebrity approved.

Ernest Shackleton ate Bovril during his 1902 Antarctic expedition. Famous Victorian strongman Eugen Sandow claimed Bovril gave him strength. Even Pope Leo XIII was depicted in a Bovril ad (albeit without his permission) drinking a mug of beef broth above the slogan: “Two Infallible Powers: The Pope and Bovril.”

Fluid beef made Johnston a very wealthy man. In 1896, he sold Bovril for £2 million and died four years later, in Cannes, on a yacht.

A Kingly Liquor to Drink While Driving

The King’s Ginger ○ england

King Edward VII was 62 when he took the throne from his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1901. Elderly and overweight, he still partied hard. His joyrides around the English countryside in his topless Daimler exposed him to the very British elements (chilly and damp) and concerned the royal physician.

In 1903, the doctor commissioned an established London merchant, Berry Bros., to formulate a warming, fortifying beverage to put in the aging monarch’s driving flask. The result was The King’s Ginger, a brandy-based elixir with ginger, honey, and lemon, designed specifically “to stimulate and revivify His Majesty during morning rides.”

The king loved his new zesty liqueur. Not only did he drink it in his “horseless carriage,” he brought it along while hunting and generously passed around the bottle. By the time Edward died in 1910, the royal family was hooked. Berry Bros. continued to make and sell The King’s Ginger exclusively to nobility, who purchased hundreds of cases of it every year in unlabeled bottles.

In recent years, a bartender asked the maker, now Berry Bros. & Rudd, for a standardized version of the elusive drink, and the company enlisted a Dutch distiller to make the beverage for the masses. A modern version debuted in 2011, using a base of neutral grain spirits instead of brandy, along with ginger, lemon oil, Glenrothes single malt scotch, and sugar. At 82 proof, it takes just a few sips to get your engine revving.

NOTTINGHAM’S SUBTERRANEAN DRINKING DEN

The Lost Caves ○ england

Damp, dimly lit, and decorated with skulls, chandeliers, and stuffed animals, this secret drinking establishment is part of the extensive cave system that’s cut into the soft sandstone below the city of Nottingham.

Accessed via a dark and uninviting alley, through a heavily disguised door with a brass skull handle, you’ll find a staircase to the basement beneath a 200-year-old building. In this basement, a further series of rock-cut steps leads into the cavernous void beneath the city. The final descent into the Lost Caves is by escort, as there is a strict maximum occupancy. Inside, 26 feet (8 m) below the venerable George Hotel (now the Mecure), which has accommodated guests as diverse as Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Taylor, is a most unlikely cocktail palace.

When, why, and by whom these deep grottoes were excavated is unknown; however, they appear to have been adapted for the purpose of storing and brewing ale on rock-cut ledges. Today, instead of barrels of beer, the cushion-padded rock ledges are used as seating for the bar’s subterranean drinkers.

Outlawed ice-Cream ware

Penny Lick ○ england

Penny licks were England’s most nefarious ice-cream paraphernalia. As the name suggests, a few licks of ice cream cost just a penny. Included in that price was the sizable risk of contracting tuberculosis.

In the mid-1800s, ice cream had become a beloved and affordable treat, sold all over the streets of England. Ice-cream vendors called Jacks served tiny scoops in glass cups called penny licks, which came in three sizes: the standard and most popular penny lick, the wee ha’penny (halfpenny) lick, and the larger tu’penny (two penny) lick.

These small glasses were designed especially for ice cream—or more specifically, for an ice-cream optical illusion. As Jacks paddled the dessert into the cup, the conical shape and thick glass magnified its contents so that even the tiniest serving appeared bountiful.

After finishing their ice cream, customers licked their glasses clean and handed them back to the Jack, who would serve the next customers from the unwashed cups.

When tuberculosis swept the nation, the medical establishment pointed to the penny licks. An 1879 English medical report blamed a cholera outbreak on the reuse of glassware, and fear of tuberculosis led the city of London to ban penny licks in 1899. Some vendors continued to use the illicit ice-cream cups through the 1920s and 1930s, until a breakthrough in ice-cream technology eradicated the need for their glassware for good. The mighty waffle cone emerged as the new single-use vessel of choice, knocking out the penny lick with its portability, edibility, and complete absence of infectious disease.

“The Noted Eel-and-Pie Houses”

M. Manze ○ england

The M. Manze Eel and Pie House at 87 Tower Bridge Road is the oldest eel-and-pie shop still standing in London. Open three or four hours a day, Manze’s serves only lunch, and their lunch menu consists of just two things: eels and pies.

Throughout the 1700s, eels were so plentiful in the River Thames that a net cast at any spot would pull up a hearty catch of cheap protein. Working-class East Londoners, or Cockneys, grew to love them, and eels became the go-to meal for the city’s workhands. Capitalizing on the eel craze, pie shops (which generally trafficked in mutton and potatoes) started serving them up how their clients liked them: naturally jellied.

Thanks to a huge amount of collagen, eels are gelatinous by nature. With skin and bones intact, round chunks of eel are boiled in water flavored with vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns, and onion, then left to cool in the liquid, which gently congeals into a translucent jelly. These quivering hunks of cold, tender meat are considered Britain’s first fast-food takeaway, commonly scooped into cups, doused with hot chili vinegar, and eaten on the go.

By the end of World War II, London boasted more than 100 eel-and-pie shops—but as the Thames grew polluted, supply decreased and the city’s interest in eel eating waned.

At Manze’s, eels are still king. They can be ordered cold and jellied or hot and stewed, or served with mash and slathered in “liquor”—an alcohol-free parsley sauce that also goes on pies. The small, no-frills shop is operated by the grandson of the original owner, Michele Manze, who came to London in 1878 from the Italian village of Ravello. The decor, with its green-and-white tiles and long communal tables, hearkens back to Victorian days, when eels reigned supreme.

Mead-Making Paradise

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

In the 7th century, at the request of King Oswald of Northumbria, Irish monk Saint Aidan established a monastery on the isolated tidal island of Lindisfarne. The monastery, which survives in ruins, would become the base for spreading Christianity throughout Anglo-Saxon England. Many also believe that the Lindisfarne monks were excellent mead-makers, who crafted the golden liquid in the name of spirituality. Mead is one of the oldest tipples in the world, appearing in ancient Greek texts, Hindu scriptures, and Norse mythology, in which drinking certain meads was a pathway to scholarly intelligence.

Often called the elixir of the gods, it’s fitting that some of the finest mead is produced on “Holy Island.” While monks no longer helm the operation, mead-maker J. Michael Hackett was drawn to the history of Lindisfarne. In the early 1960s, he opened St. Aidan’s Winery on the island and set about making a modern version of the ancient brew, which he called Lindisfarne Mead. Drawing cues from the ancient Romans, who included grape juice in their meads, the team at St. Aidan’s starts with a base of fermented honey, adding aromatic herbs, fermented wine grapes, and water drawn from a local well. A neutral spirit fortifies the holy mixture, which tasters describe as light, silky, and dry. The medieval mead from the tiny island (population 180) is now distributed internationally.

A Fabled Fish Head Pie

Stargazy Pie

Tom Bawcock’s Eve, a Christmastime festival held in the Cornish seaside village of Mousehole, celebrates the night that Tom Bawcock, a 16th-century Mousehole folk hero, sailed out to fish despite dangerous storms. As the story goes, he returned with enough catch to end a local famine. In some versions of the tale, Bawcock brought along his cat, who helped calm the storm.

To honor the brave fisherman, revelers tuck into stargazy pie, a classic savory fish pie of potatoes, eggs, and white sauce, with the added flourish of intact fish heads (and sometimes tails) craning their necks through the crust, as though looking up at the stars. An anchovy-like fish called a pilchard is typically used, but really any small fish will do—so long as it has a head.

A Coffee Bar in a Victorian-Era Urinal

The Attendant, Fitzrovia ○ England

These ornate, underground urinals once served the Victorian gentlemen of London. Now they serve diners espresso, flat whites, and avocado toast. Walk down the stairs to take your seat at one of the full-size, porcelain urinals and sip your coffee among the most elite, historical toilets in Fitzrovia.

Originally built in the 1890s, these public toilets were closed in the 1960s. They sat boarded up for more than 50 years before being reimagined as an upscale coffee bar.

Health Milk on a Budget

Artificial Asses’ Milk ○ england

Since antiquity, donkey milk has been used as a cure-all and cosmetic—by those who could afford it. Cleopatra was said to bathe in tubs full of asses’ milk to preserve her skin. Hippocrates recommended donkey milk for a range of conditions, including liver problems and fever, and from the 1700s to the early 1900s, Europeans considered donkey milk a superfood that cured lung problems, blood problems, and even hysteria. Poet Alexander Pope drank donkey milk for his many health issues, writing in a 1717 letter, “I also drink asses’ milk, upon which I will make no jokes tho’ it be a fertile subject.” The composition of asses’ milk closely resembles human breast milk, and so orphanages and new parents found it a helpful supplement.

But asses’ milk was not cheap, and those looking for an affordable alternative attempted to replicate the natural product. An 18th-century recipe for “Mock Asses Milk” begins with boiling barley in water, adding hartshorn (ground-up deer antlers), enrigo root (a thistle-like plant believed to soothe coughs), and a handful of snail shells, and then diluting the brew with cow’s milk.

Snails show up in almost all the renditions of ersatz donkey milk—often tossed in whole. The “Mock Asses Milk” author included a finger-wagging note at the end of his recipe, saying, “You may leave out the snails if you don’t like them, but it is best to use them.”

Dormant Underground Dairy

Bog Butter ○ ireland

When digging up peat in rural Ireland, it’s not uncommon to bump into a huge block of butter. Wrapped in animal skins or packed into a wooden or earthenware container, chances are the butter has been buried for hundreds of years, and while it might be too funky to actually be tasty, it’s likely still safe to eat.