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by Frenchman Alexis Soyer - the most celebrated chef in
Victorian England. His innovative kitchens at the Reform
Club with new fangled water-cooled refrigeration and gas
cookers caused such a sensation that they were opened for
guided tours. On the day of Queen Victoria’s coronation
he made breakfast for 2000 guests. Moved by the plight
of the Irish during the potato famine Soyer is credited with
inventing the soup kitchen and donated the proceeds of his
cookbooks towards relief work. He also went to the
Crimea, where alongside Florence Nightingale, he trained
army cooks, work which ultimately led to establishing the
Army Catering Corps. So an all round good egg but as
a businessman a bit of a flop. Giddy with success, his over
ambitious
Universal Symposium of All Nations
at the
1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park lost a colossal £7,000.
Social historians note that frying was the key method of
preserving fish in the middle industrial revolution.
What they really mean is that frying killed the smell
of decaying fish. In
Oliver Twist
Fagin’s Den is placed in
the rank rookeries of Saffron Hill on the Holborn side of
the City and to let his readers know just how grim this
neighbourhood is Dickens tells us that nearby is a fried
fish warehouse. Today frying oils are deodorised by
treatment with caustic potash and superheated steam and
if they were not they would smell really bad. So in
Dickens time with no refrigeration, stinking oils, coal
ranges and a tendency to fry the fishmonger’s “overplus”
which was the just-about-to-get-up-and-walk-out-of-the-
door-on-its-own leftover stock you can begin to picture
how very nasty the business of fish frying could be.
From the beginning few wanted to live near a fish frying
business or indeed near to a fish fryer.
Henry Mayhew in
London Labour and the London Poor
published in 1861 suggested that for fish fryers:
“ A gin-drinking neighbourhood suits best, for people
haven’t their smell so correct there.”
He also describes the baked potato trade at the start of
Queen Victoria’s reign in the 1840s. Parboiled potatoes
would be taken to the bakers oven to be finished off for
9d a hundred weight. The potatoes would be wrapped in
green baize not dissimilar to card table baize and were sold
in the street from a four legged charcoal pot heater on
which design those ubiquitous kettle barbecues are based.
Above: Whitechapel 1877 Below: The Jewish East End