How to Be English (22 page)

CRUMPETS ARE PERHAPS
one of the greatest examples of English food – and if the Internet is to be believed they were ‘invented in 1274 by Alfred the Great'. While there's absolutely no evidence of this, of course, Alfred (see Chapter 1) did have a historic link with baking cakes – having allowed some to burn during a particularly intense bout of thinking – and he had only been dead some four centuries by 1274, so you never know.

But there is no doubt that crumpets, a mixture of milk, flour, salt and yeast, and baked on a cast iron griddle in ‘crumpet rings', stretch way back, long before recorded history in England. There is a reference to a
crumpit
in 1649, made of buckwheat flour, and another one in 1769, which appears to be the earliest reference with the modern spelling.

Most authorities say the Saxons invented crumpets, but it seems that there are Celtic origins before that, and not in England either – via the
krampochs
of Brittany and the
crempogs
of Wales, both of which were variations on a pancake theme.

The idea of adding in the holes and putting in more baking flour, to give crumpets the familiar spongy feel, flat on the bottom and oozing with butter on top, seems to have begun much more recently, an innovation traced to the new industrial bakers of the Midlands in the nineteenth century.

Whatever its origins, there is something extraordinary about the English crumpet, the butter melting out of its copious pores, which gives a gravitas and satisfaction to teatime – another peculiarly English convention – which no other food can quite provide. With jam, honey or Marmite, it evokes safe nursery worlds by the fire, with damp, foggy evenings outside. It evokes comfort and childhood.

Indeed, something about the dingy autumnal weather demands crumpets. They are an English food to suit a particular English mood.

To make tea crumpets Beat two eggs very well, put them to a quart of warm milk and water, and a large spoonful of barm: beat in as much fine flour as will make them rather thicker than a common batter pudding, then make your bakestone very hot, and rub it with a little butter wrapped in a clean linen cloth, then pour a large spoonful of batter upon your stone, and let it run to the size of a tea-saucer; turn it, and when you want to use them roast them very crisp, and butter them.

Elizabeth Raffald,
The Experienced English Housekeeper
(1769)

IN THE 1970S,
there was an upsurge in the popularity of the far right, pedalling a potent and unpleasant mixture of racism and bigotry. It was fascinating to note in articles at the time, that – despite the racist language – they still ate in their favourite Indian curry houses. However boneheaded the English may be, however disapproving of foreign influence, they still embrace Indian cuisine as their own.

The clue to this is the word curry itself, which tends to mean any hot food and was first used in England in a book title
The Forme of Cury
, which was published in the 1390s. In those days, all hot food was called ‘cury' from the French word
cuire
, which meant ‘cook'.

The argument is not completely straightforward because other people claim that the word comes from the Tamil word
kari
, which was originally a thin, spiced dressing served in southern India. In any case, curry as the English understand it is just hot, spicy food and that can come from anywhere across the Far East.

Indian food as eaten in England is something of an amalgam. The whole idea of curry powder, specially prepared mixtures of spices, was developed to sell to English merchants in the eighteenth century. English curry houses date back even further, to the Hindoostanee Coffee House. This was opened in London's George Street in 1810 by an East India Company captain called Sake Dean Mahomed. It went out of business a year later.

Even the dishes served in traditional Indian restaurants tend to have names that are derived from some vague original. Words like ‘vindaloo' or ‘korma' are just as much from England as they are from the Indian subcontinent. The whole idea of balti dishes was developed in Birmingham. Some of the traditional English–Indian food has even managed to make its way back to India.

In fact, the traditional English curry house is particularly derived from East Bengal and from Bangladesh. This is partly because of the links between East Bengal and the London Docks, which led so many people from there to stay and then settle in the East End of London – and which made London's Brick Lane into curry-house central for the nation. By the end of the twentieth century, eighty-five per cent of all Indian restaurants in the UK were Bangladeshi.

But whether they are English or Indian in origin, or some strange amalgam of the two, they are firmly embedded as a part of English culture – a reward for being a pioneering trading nation, and for all the effort spent building up a dominance in trade to the Indian subcontinent in the great days of mercantile struggle, when the English traders had to elbow aside first the Portuguese, then the French and Dutch, to control the trade routes. The result of all that effort is the curry house at the end of the road.

To make a currey the Indian way:

Take two small chickens, skin them and cut them as for a fricassee, wash them clean, and stew them in about a quart of water for about five minutes, then strain off the liquor and put the chickens in a clean dish; take three large onions, chop them small, and fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and fry them together till they are brown, take a quarter of an ounce of turmerick, and a large spoonful of ginger and beaten pepper together, and a little salt to your palate and strew all these ingredients over the chickens whilst it is frying, then pour in the liquor, and let it stew about half an hour, then put in a quarter of a pint of cream and the juice of two lemons, and serve it up. The ginger, pepper, and turmerick must be beat very fine.

Hannah Glasse,
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
(1747)

IT IS QUITE
impossible to generalise about the output of the Ealing Studios in the 1940s and 1950s and their impact on the way that the English understood themselves. There were historical musicals like
Champagne Charlie
and gritty police dramas like
The Blue Lamp
, and of course the famous Ealing comedies, like
The Man in the White Suit.

It is the spirit of
Passport to Pimlico
which sums up the anarchic sense of Englishness. There is Stanley Holloway, leading his small community of Londoners, filmed next to the Imperial War Museum, declaring independence from the British state – and holding off the forces of British bureaucracy with tit-for-tat passport inspections on the Underground as it rumbles under the new border. When the official loudspeaker van descends, one of the community shouts: ‘We're sick and tired of your voice in this country – now shut up!' There was the authentic voice of Englishness, as portrayed by the Ealing machine.

Passport to Pimlico
was a celebration of make-do-and-mend, of community spirit in adversity, and definitely of Anglo-Saxon awkwardness. And when they finalise the negotiations to bring Pimlico back into the English fold, the heavens open and it begins to rain.

The Ealing Studios were bought originally for film-making in 1902 and films are still being made there, so that makes it the oldest continuously used studio in the world. But it was under the leadership of Michael Balcon, in the years straddling the Second World War, when they most successfully portrayed the English to themselves – and also the Scots (
The Maggie
and
Whisky Galore!
).

But it was the comedies that particularly lodged themselves in the national psyche, often celebrations of the peculiarities of small working-class communities, with a kind of gutsy energy – full of loveable rogues who nearly get away with their crimes (
The Lavender Hill Mob
and
Kind Hearts and Coronets
).

The comedies culminated in
The Ladykillers
in 1955, in which a group of gangsters – including Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers – lodge with an old lady near King's Cross Station. Despite the recognisably English tone, it was actually written by the American screenwriter William Rose, who claimed to have dreamed the whole thing and had to write it all down when he woke up.

Stanley Holloway played in the greatest of all the comedies,
The Titfield Thunderbolt
, in which a small rural community take on the management of their local railway when it is closed by the brand new nationalised rail operator British Rail, and face down opposition from the corrupt bus operator.

The film was released in 1953 and seems to have been inspired by the screenwriter T. E. B. (‘Tibby') Clarke's visit to see Tom Rolt two years before, then in the very earliest stages of rescuing the abandoned slate railway at Talyllyn, the first of the volunteer-run revived steam railways which have since become such a feature of British life.

Holloway, George Relph and John Gregson were pioneers in more ways than one. During the inquiry by the inspector from the Ministry of Transport, Gregson takes to the floor in a desperate moment and shouts at the audience: ‘You realise you're condemning our village to death? Open it up to buses and lorries and what's it going to be like in five years' time? Our lanes will be concrete roads, our houses will have numbers instead of names, there'll be traffic lights and zebra crossings.'

Of course, his prophecy came true – had already come true by 1953 – but little did Clarke know that his next-door neighbour at the time was Richard Beeching, the man who ten years later would preside over the destruction of the English branch-line network.

By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men.

Stanley Holloway in
The Lavender Hill Mob,
as he realises how it might be possible to steal a consignment of gold

Top ten Ealing comedies:

Champagne Charlie

Hue and Cry

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Passport to Pimlico

The Ladykillers

The Lavender Hill Mob

The Maggie

The Man in the White Suit

The Titfield Thunderbolt

Whisky Galore!

AT THE END
of the very best full-length Laurel and Hardy film,
Way Out West
, Oliver Hardy proclaims that he is going back to the South. ‘Oh for a slice of possum and yam,' he says.

Stan Laurel, who – as everyone knows – was English, says that he is going back to the south too.

‘The south of where, sir?' demands his friend.

‘The south of London,' says Stan. ‘Good old fish and chips.'

Perhaps American audiences couldn't have been expected to know Ulverston in Cumbria where Laurel actually hailed from. But it so happens that the decade of
Way Out West
marked the high point in the rise of the English fish and chip shop. There were 35,000 of them in the British Isles in 1929. That figure has sunk considerably since, but they still use a tenth of all the potatoes eaten in the nation.