Lobscouse
Meat and potato stew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lobscouse, often shortened in some regions to scouse or lobby, is a stew made of meat, potatoes and vegetables common to multiple Northern European maritime countries under similar names.[1]
| |
| Alternative names | Scouse, lobby |
|---|---|
| Type | Stew |
| Region or state | Northern Europe |
| Main ingredients | Meat, potatoes, occasionally other root vegetables and spices |
It is particularly well known in a nautical context in the age of sail, when a long voyage might require the sailors to eat and drink whatever limited rations were available. Numerous maritime memoirs and naval logbooks refer to the dish,[citation needed] as well as fiction such as Patrick O'Brian's nautical historical novels Aubrey and Maturin.[2][3][4]
Under the shortened name scouse the dish is strongly associated with Liverpool to the point that the local accent is called Scouse.
Etymology
Lobscouse is likely to be linked (historically and etymologically) to the Welsh word lobsgows, a variety of the Welsh dish cawl, which is inherently connected to scouse, a European sailors' stew or hash strongly associated with major ports such as Liverpool and Hamburg.[5] It may also be linked to a Swedish dish of a similar name (lapskojs).[6][7] Similar dishes eaten by nineteenth-century sailors[8] are traditional in countries around the North Sea, such as Norway (lapskaus), Finland (lapskoussi), Denmark, (skipperlabskovs), and northern Germany (Lapskaus).[9]
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that "scouse" is a shortened form of "lobscouse",[10] the oldest citation for which in the OED is by the satirist Edward Ward (1706).[11] Tobias Smollett refers to "lob's course" in 1750.[11] The roots of the word are unknown.[10] The OED's earliest citation for the shortened form "scouse" dates from 1840.[10] In the twentieth century the terms "scouse" and "scouser" began to be applied to Liverpudlians.[10]
According to The Oxford Companion to Food, lobscouse "almost certainly has its origins in the Baltic ports, especially those of Germany".[9] The German philologist Friedrich Kluge dates its first appearance in German in 1878, and concludes that the usage spread from Britain to northern Europe rather than vice versa.[12] Kluge asserts that the origin of the word is unknown, and that it was loaned to German in the 19th century, where it was called labskaus.[13] There are similar terms in Norwegian, Danish, Latvian and Lithuanian.[n 1]
By the mid-19th century the term "lobscouse" had been shortened to "scouse" in Liverpudlian usage. In his book The State of the Poor: or a History of the Labouring Classes in England (1797), Sir Frederick Eden cites a report from the early 1790s listing expenditure on food in the Liverpool poorhouse. It included "Beef, 101 lbs. [46 kg] for scouse … 14 Measures potatoes for scouse [420 lb or 190 kg]; and Onions for ditto [28 lb or 13 kg]".[18]
Origins and history
According to Roy Shipperbottom, writing in The Oxford Companion to Food, the dish originated in Baltic ports and is generally perceived as a seaman's food.[9]
Scouse is strongly associated with the city of Liverpool and its hinterland in the north-west of England. Other parts of the country were slower to begin growing potatoes, but they were cultivated in Lancashire from the late 17th century onwards.[19] By the late 18th century the potato-based lobscouse had become a traditional dish of the region.[20] A reference from 1785 refers to "lobs-couse, a dish much eaten at sea, composed of salt beef, ship's biscuit, and onions, well peppered and stewed together".[21] A 1797 description records that potatoes were:
Ingredients and preparation
There are many variations of the dish. The dish may be made of fresh or leftover meat (usually beef or lamb, but sometimes also chicken, pork, or ham) and potatoes. Other typical ingredients are vegetables (such as carrots, onions, leeks, celery root, and rutabaga), spices (such as pepper or ginger), salt, and herbs.[1][23] Some recipes call for ship's biscuits or pearl barley.[9] The German dish labskaus may be made with preserved fish or cured meat.[9] The Danish dish skipperlabskovs is traditionally made with salt beef.[9]
According to Shipperbottom, lobscouse and its derivatives are typically one-pot dishes that call for sauteeing onions, carrots, and turnips in drippings or other fat, browning meat in the same pot, adding potatoes and sometimes other ingredients, and baking for lengthy periods.[9]
Variations
Scouse
Scouse is a stew typically made from beef or lamb with potatoes, carrots, and onions. It is particularly associated with the city of Liverpool, to the extent that the Liverpool accent is also widely referred to as "Scouse" and Liverpudlians as "Scousers".[24]
Description
The food writer Felicity Cloake describes scouse as being similar to Irish stew or Lancashire hotpot, though generally using beef rather than lamb.[25] Although ingredients can vary, the essentials are potatoes, carrots, onions and diced meat, gently simmered together.[25]
A survey by The Liverpool Echo in 2018 confirmed that for the majority of cooks the basic ingredients are potatoes, carrots, onion and chunks of meat, though many advocated the addition of a stock cube, and a few also added other ingredients, such as peas, lentils or sweet potato, and herbs including rosemary, parsley and basil.[26] The choice of meat varied: some cooks did not stipulate a particular meat; among those who did, beef was chosen rather than lamb by a majority of nearly two to one.[26][n 2]
Although some argue that anything other than beef, potatoes, carrots, and onion is not scouse, others observe that, as a thrift dish, scouse will contain "whatever veg you had [and] the cheapest cuts of meat".[26] Some recipes suggest including marrowbones to thicken the stew.[27] Proportions of ingredients vary, from equal amounts of meat and vegetables to a 1:5 proportion between meat and potato.[28] A meatless version, known as "blind scouse", is also recorded, for people who could not afford meat – and latterly for vegetarians.[29] Scouse is often served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot and crusty bread.[28]
Global Scouse Day
Since 2000 Liverpool has held a Global Scouse Day during which bars, cafés and restaurants put scouse on the menu for the day, raising funds for charities.[30][31]
Lobby
In the Potteries, a similar stew is known as lobby,[32][33] and people from Leigh, Greater Manchester, are known as "lobby-gobblers"[34] in contrast to the "pie eaters" of neighbouring Wigan. As well as mutton or tinned stewing steak, lobby can be made using corned beef.[35] Lobby consists of minced or diced beef or lamb, diced potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, and root vegetables bulked up with pearl barley and seasoned. Maurice Hassell describes Lobby as "a nutritious economic meal made with the season’s vegetables".[36] It remains on the menus of local pubs and on locals' dinner tables today.
Other variations
In North Wales the full form is retained as "lobsgows" (Welsh: lapsgóws).[37][38] Another variation has been known on the Atlantic coast of Canada in Newfoundland and Labrador from at least 1792. It is described as a sea dish of minced and salted beef, crumbled sea biscuit, potatoes and onions.[39]
Similarly named dishes
- Labskaus, another meat and potato dish common among seamen
