Bring back the savoury!

For a while now, we’ve been living through a renaissance of classical British cooking: a whole host of restaurants have been embracing the joy of the old school, the pies and puddings, the traditional and the retro. But there’s something missing. Bring back the savoury!

An Edwardian favourite, a ‘savoury’ was an extra course that came towards the end of the meal, either just before or after pudding, or as an alternative to it. A savoury should be small – a ‘morsel’ – and strongly flavoured. To this end, the main ingredients are usually cheese, smoked or salted fish, bacon, or spice in the form of devilling. It is often served on toast or with a small pastry croute, and with something creamy as a foil. In the past hundred years, most savouries have found new homes as starters or canapés, kitchen suppers or even breakfasts. But devils and angels on horseback, bone marrow on toast, devilled eggs, pâté on toast and Welsh rarebit were all originally served toward the end of a dinner, rather than the start.

Welsh rarebit often graces the menu of the British dining institution St John in London, and I went to a newly opened restaurant a couple of weeks ago that had cheese on toast on its pudding menu, sitting alongside a custard tart and a rhubarb ice cream. Maybe this is a sign of savoury revival… dare I hope?

Ambrose Heath, who wrote a whole book on the topic – Good Savouries (1934) – describes savouries as ‘the passion of the average Englishman and the bête noire of the ordinary housewife’, presumably because they are a pain in the arse to conjure up at the end of a long meal. A savoury, he says, ‘often makes an admirable ending to a meal, like some unexpected witticism or a musing epigram at the close of a pleasant conversation’.