pies

I love pie and mash, but I’ve only eaten in a traditional pie and mash shop once. Not because of the jellied eels, or the lurid green parsley liquor, but because the mash is terrible and the pies are worse.

If the last time you ended up in hospital you couldn’t get enough of the food, head straight down to The Oldest Fast Food Restaurant in the East End (Munchies.vice.com), where web channel Munchies took an affectionate look at F. Cooke, a historic pie and mash shop that opened in 1862. It’s now run by fourth generation family member, Joe.

“Pie and mash is very traditional in the East End, mostly because it was very cheap and quick,” he said. “It was one of the first fast foods.”

It wasn’t the last, because since 1862 everyone wanting fast food has been looking for something that tastes better than traditional pie and mash, like pizza, Morley’s spicy chicken wings, or a pie heated up by a newsagent in a microwave behind the till.

I know Joe makes authentic pie and mash and that the pastry and pie filling recipes have never changed. And that he says if you do it properly “you’ll end up with a bloody good pie”. But you won’t. You’ll end up with a pie that tastes like it was created - possibly even baked - in 1862.

Or maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the rise of premium pies and frilly things like butter in mash. So listen to one of Joe’s regulars, 88-year-old Peggy, instead. “The pies are done beautiful,” she said, chuckling away and tucking in. “And the gravy, the mince, the mash… It’s all quite nice.”