The traditional British foods that have fallen out of fashion (and the ones back in favour)

Telegraph

08-04-2025

Gentleman's Relish, Shippam's paste, Bath Olivers, Lea & Perrins sauce: the names are reminiscent of our grandparents' larder, and a bygone age. But many of these traditional British foods are surprisingly still available, and some are even coming back into vogue.
'It's true that food fashions go round and round,' says food historian and caterer Seren Charrington-Hollins of Bubbling Stove. 'Midlifers may recall these as foods we ate as children at the house of older relatives, and nostalgia plays a huge part. On the other hand, a new set of consumers see them as new and posh and different, and will be discovering them for the first time.'
Many of these items have in common a tangy or salty flavour, which reveals their origins in the 19th century. 'The Victorians developed sauces such as oyster catsup and Worcestershire sauce to pep up their meals, and give them more flavour,' says Charrington-Hollis.
'The upper-classes of this era also had a course called 'savouries', where at the end of the meal, the men would go off for some port, a smoke, and a snack such as potted chicken livers, or Gentleman's Relish,' she says – hence the gender-specific name of this highly seasoned anchovy paste. 'The women went off for a 'sweet' and to play cards.'
This way of dining started to become obsolete at the end of the First World War – 'they no longer had the staff, for one thing', says Charrington-Hollis, and a more simplistic way of eating began. 'But some of these items remained a 'posh' delicacy.'
With the rise of mass-produced food in the mid-century, and easily grabbable snacks such as crisps or nuts, the upmarket salty savouries went into decline. But certain spreads remained common in more moderate households. 'I remember my school lunchboxes containing Shippam's sardine and tomato paste,' says Charrington-Hollis, who's in her late 40s. 'And then, just the other day, I saw Sandwich Spread in the supermarket. I couldn't believe they were still making it.'
According to Statista, the savoury spreads market – which includes sandwich spreads, as well as fish and meat paste sold in tubes – rose by 4.35 percent during the period 2018 to 2023, with a sales value of £393m. There is clearly still a market somewhere for these products.
Some traditional British foods transcend all class boundaries – and probably the greatest comeback kid is marmalade, with the first known recipe in the 1670s. 'Paddington Bear has done so much for marmalade,' says Charrington-Hollis, who has won several awards for her own preserves at the Dalemain Marmalade Award, a festival that's been running for 20 years at the stately home in Cumbria. In the wake of Paddington's famous sketch co-starring the late Queen Elizabeth – filmed to celebrate Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee – sales of the orange jelly have surged by almost 20 per cent.
'Cheap marmalade is horrible, you need to buy the good stuff,' says Charrington-Hollis, and lovers of traditional British food would always be advised to head to Fortnum & Mason for whom marmalade is a speciality. 'We are seeing more and more young people buy in to marmalade,' says Robert Pooley, the director of merchandising at the West End food emporium. 'A couple of years ago, we had a nine-year old winner of the Dalemain awards, which we sponsor, and we are launching a no-peel Sunburst marmalade later this year, also to appeal to the younger generation.'
Elsewhere in Fortnums, sales of Gentleman's Relish have risen by 15 percent year-on-year, but the real winner seems to be 181 sauce. The Fortnums version of brown sauce, named after the street number of the property on London's Piccadilly, is up by 113 per cent.
'There has been a swing back to the good old fashioned British breakfast which has supported the brown sauce,' says Liz Morgan, Fortnums' director of buying. 'Our 'butchers breakfast box' (which includes sausages, bacon and the 181 sauce) continually outsells the alternatives. People are also being more experimental with how they use the products, for example as marinades for meat.'
It's hard to pinpoint exactly why items come back into fashion, but marketing teams always keep an eye on social media. During 2023 Fashion Week, Burberry took over Norman's, a greasy spoon cafe in London's Tufnell Park, updating it with Burberry branding, labelling the salt and pepper, staff uniforms and the window.
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'Maybe, on the back of this, Gen Z started to have a taste for brown sauce – which we first started selling in 1800,' says Louise Woof, Fortnums deputy archivist. The original Harvey's brown sauce comprised anchovies in a thin vinegar and soy sauce; the recipe for the modern 181 sauce remains a closely guarded secret.
Perhaps the best Fortnums traditional-to-modern twist is exemplified by the Scotch egg, which the Piccadilly store invented in 1738. The pork sausage original still flies off the shelves, but these days, Fortnums also sells a vegetarian version made with chickpeas. There's even an Easter Scotch egg, made from a simnel milk chocolate praline with an orange ganache centre, coated in roasted hazelnuts and cocoa nibs.
Have any other traditional British foods evolved to suit the modern palate, or have they disappeared for good? Here's a run-through of some of our old favourites.
Seemingly gone forever
Bath Olivers
This water biscuit was created in 1750 by William Oliver of Bath, intentionally flavour-free in order to enhance the taste of the cheese with which it was eaten. But Bath Olivers eventually fell out of favour. Despite a brief rearguard action several years ago by the Bath Oliver Preservation Society, which listed the shops in which the crackers were sold, they appear to have been discontinued in 2020.
Updated and evolved
Mattessons' spreads
'Just try saying Mattessons without saying mmm,' went the annoying earworm of a 1970s advert. But the spreadable meat pastes, invented in 1947 by Richard Mattes and his son Werner (including Chubs, launched in 1966), seem to have gone by the wayside. Fans of processed meat can still find Mattessons smoked sausages and Southern-style fried chicken in Asda and Iceland.
A niche, posh purchase
Gentleman's Relish (or Patum Peperium)
James Bond sampled Gentleman's Relish in For Your Eyes Only, and Nigella Lawson has said she 'cannot live without it'. The original recipe, created in 1828 by John Osborn, is only known to a select few; similarly, sales are not publicly disclosed. 'But Patum Peperium has always been available for those who've hankered after its savoury piquancy,' wrote Ameer Kotecha, author of Queen Elizabeth II's official Platinum Jubilee Cookbook, recently. 'After almost 200 years on the scene, it has started popping up in trendy spots, like a debonair rake sauntering into a party fashionably late.'
Hanging in there
Shippam's (now Princes') fish paste
The potted food brand was started by Charles Shippam in 1750s Chichester, before expanding and receiving a Royal appointment in 1948: seven years later, Shippam's was one of the first brands to advertise on television. Despite a management buyout in 1997, the company was acquired by Princes Foods five years later. Specific figures for Princes pastes – still on the shelves of most supermarkets – are not available, but a 2010 report suggested meat and fish pastes were 'making a comeback'. According to Statista, however, sales of the whole savoury spreads market (this includes butter) were flat, with a year on year growth of 0.9 percent last year.
Bouncing back
Brown sauce
Frederick Gibson Garton invented what we know as brown sauce in 1895, calling the sauce 'HP' because he'd heard it was served in the Houses of Parliament. The political link remained: brown sauce was nicknamed 'Wilson's Gravy,' after prime minister Harold revealed a fondness for the tangy condiment.
In 2005, HP sauce was sold to the American-founded package food giant, Heinz, which had already acquired competitor Daddies. In 2015, sales dropped almost 20 per cent, but figures from Fortnum and Mason's and a Burberry-related style reboot suggests brown sauce is yet again being squirted on the side of the nation's breakfast plates.
Big in America
Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce was apparently invented by accident in the 1830s after Mr Lea and Mr Perrins invented a terribly pungent sauce, left it in the basement and rediscovered it 18 months later, by which time the taste had mellowed.
Lea & Perrins is the number one Worcestershire sauce brand in the UK, with a dominant volume share of the category. The sauce – used in soups, casseroles, and bologneses – is particularly popular across the Atlantic and was valued at a billion dollars in 2024 and is expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2031. 'We noticed that many of these Lea & Perrins 'moments' revolved around brunch, an increasingly popular weekend social event,' says the advertising agency Multiply, who relaunched Lea and Perrins in 2023. 'And the number one alcoholic drink consumed at brunch? The Bloody Mary.'