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Yesterday was my birthday (21 again), so I took the day off from driving my taxi cab and went for a birthday meal.

Now London, England is a world class city where it's possible to eat just about every sort of cuisine known to man. So what did I have?

I plumped for traditional London fare: a Cockney pie and mash shop. For the uninitiated, that's a pie filled with jellied eels, accompanied by mashed potatoes and surrounded by liquor (otherwise known as gravy).

It's what my Australian cousins would call a "floater and one".

You might recoil in horror at the idea of eating eel - which is actually a delicious white fish, rather like the highly prized hake, although rather narrower in the beam. In fact eating eel is fairly tame compared with some of the fare that has graced London supper tables in the past. These include swan, turtle, porpoise, dolphin and seal.

As the population of London exploded during the Industrial Revolution, pie shops became popular as one of the original fast foods. This was because poor people did not possess their own cooking facilities and so relied on the vast ovens of the bake houses not only for bread, but any hot food. Wrapping that food in a pastry case made for easier handling.

Along with eels, oysters were once eaten in vast quantities and regarded as "poor man's food". Since then, the humble oyster has reached the elevated status of gourmet food and now eels are also enjoying a revival.

In past times, eels used to come from the local London rivers. But now they are mainly caught on the Norfolk Broads, to the north east of London, and shipped across the North Sea to Holland to be processed, before arriving at their traditional home: the old London pie and mash shop.

Copyright 2006 Jon Michael and LondonVacationSecrets.com

Jon Michael is a lifelong resident of London, England and his hobby is discovering the hidden stories about this fascinating world class city. Add to all that the daily honing of his knowledge of London as a taxi cab driver and you need look no further for information on the real London. Check out Jon's website right now at: http://www.LondonVacationSecrets.com

Source: www.a1articles.com