Scouse (food)
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox food Scouse is a type of stew typically made from meat (usually beef or lamb) with potatoes, carrots and onion. It is particularly associated with the port of Liverpool; the inhabitants of that city are often referred to as "scousers".
The word "scouse" comes from lobscouse, a stew commonly eaten by sailors from the whole of northern Europe in the past, and surviving in different forms there today.
Description
The food writer Felicity Cloake describes scouse as being similar to Irish stew or Lancashire hotpot, though generally using beef rather than lamb.<ref name="FC">Cloake, Felicity. "How to cook the perfect scouse – recipe", The Guardian, 30 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2020</ref> Although ingredients can vary, the essentials are potatoes, carrots, onions and diced meat, gently simmered together.<ref name="FC"/>
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.<ref name="echo">Davis, Laura "Revealed: Liverpool's favourite Scouse ingredients", Liverpool Echo, 27 February 2018</ref> 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.<ref name=echo/>Template:Refn
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".<ref name=echo/> Some recipes suggest including marrowbones to thicken the stew.<ref name="The Hairy Bikers">Template:Cite news</ref> Proportions of ingredients vary, from equal amounts of meat and vegetables to a 1:5 proportion between meat and potato.<ref name=POG/> A meatless version, known as "blind scouse", is also recorded, for people who could not afford meat – and latterly for vegetarians.<ref>Crowley (2017), p. 35</ref> Scouse is often served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot and crusty bread.<ref name="POG">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Origin
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.<ref>Zuckerman, p. 56</ref> By the late 18th century the potato-based lobscouse had become a traditional dish of the region.<ref>Wilson, p. 218</ref> 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".<ref>Grose, p. 104</ref> A 1797 description records that potatoes were: Template:Blockindent A similar recipe was used by nineteenth-century sailors,<ref>Draper, p. 15</ref> and such dishes are traditional in countries around the North Sea, such as Norway (lapskaus), Sweden (lapskojs), Finland (lapskoussi), Denmark, (skipperlabskovs), and northern Germany (Labskaus).<ref name=s472>Shipperbottom, p. 472</ref>
Etymology
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that "scouse" is a shortened form of "lobscouse",<ref name=oed>Template:Cite OED</ref> the oldest citation for which in the OED is by the satirist Edward Ward (1706).<ref name="OEDlobscouse">Template:Cite OED</ref> Tobias Smollett refers to "lob's course" in 1750.<ref name=OEDlobscouse/> The roots of the word are unknown.<ref name=oed/> The OED's earliest citation for the shortened form "scouse" dates from 1840.<ref name=oed/> In the twentieth century the terms "scouse" and "scouser" began to be applied to Liverpudlians.<ref name=oed/>
According to The Oxford Companion to Food, lobscouse "almost certainly has its origins in the Baltic ports, especially those of Germany".<ref name=s472/> 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.<ref>Crowley (2017), pp. 157–158</ref> 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.<ref name="KlugeLabskaus">Template:Cite book</ref> There are similar terms in Norwegian, Danish, Latvian and Lithuanian.Template:Refn
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 [[[:Template:Convert]]]; and Onions for ditto [[[:Template:Convert]]]".<ref>Crowley (2012), p. 158</ref>
Variations
Lobscouse is also remembered in other parts of the country. In the Potteries, a similar stew is known as "lobby",<ref name="allrecipes.co.uk">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and people from Leigh, Greater Manchester, are known as "lobby-gobblers".<ref name="BBC America">Template:Cite news</ref> In North Wales the full form is retained as "lobsgows" (Welsh: lapsgóws).<ref name="Wales">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="kimkat">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A version of scouse 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.<ref>Clarke, p. 112</ref>
Global Scouse Day
Since 2000 there has been an annual International or Global Scouse Day held, where bars, cafés and restaurants in Liverpool and around the world put scouse on the menu for the day, raising funds for charities.<ref name="The Guide">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="GSD">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See also
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Notes
References
Sources
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