There are a lot of traditional British foods that you can very easily find back home — meat pies? All over the place. Fish and chips? Yep, they’re everywhere. But the type of eels that they serve in really traditional pie shops in London? I don’t think I’ve ever seen those back home.
There are actually a couple of distinctive things about the pie shops here: the aforementioned eels, obviously, but also the greenish sauce that you can see here:
It’s called liquor sauce, and it’s traditionally made with the same liquid they use to cook the eels, along with a generous amount of parsley.
It looks kind of like gravy, but tastes nothing like it — it has a bright, herby flavour that compliments the meaty pie really well.
As for the eels, they were ultra-soft — almost gelatinous — with a funky, fishy flavour. I liked them, but I can definitely see why they’ve mostly fallen out of favour over the years. They’re a little bit intense.