Scouse (food)
Scouse is a type of lamb or beef stew. The word comes from lobscouse (originally lob's course) or lapskaus, Norwegian for "stew" and refers to a meat based stew commonly eaten by sailors throughout Northern Europe, which became popular in seaports such as Liverpool.
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[edit] Origin of the term
In the 18th and 19th centuries Liverpool, being a major seaport, found itself inundated with foreign seamen, especially Norwegians, looking for a berth on any ship. There is still a Scandinavian Seamen's Church in Liverpool built in the 19th century.[1] Scandinavian seamen's churches proliferated in many British ports in the late 19th century,[2] and it is therefore probable that these incomers brought their recipes to Liverpool.
A "pan of scouse" became a common meal in working class Liverpool. A thickened stew, usually of mutton or lamb with vegetables[3] slow cooked to tenderise cheap cuts of meat, it takes its name from the Norwegian for stew, "lapskaus". The shortened and anglicised version of this Norwegian word is "scouse" and is part of a genre of slang terms which refer to people by stereotypes of their dietary habits, e.g. Limey, Rosbif (American and French slang respectively for the English), and Kraut (an English colloquial ethnonym for a German).
Scouse is still a popular dish in Liverpool, where it is a staple of local pub and café menus, although recipes vary greatly and often include ingredients which are inconsistent with the thrifty roots of the dish. In its short form, "Scouse", the name eventually came into common English usage to describe the local accent of Liverpool, and a resident of Liverpool (as "Scouser").
The traditional recipe for Liverpool Scouse consists of a cheap cut of lamb, or in earlier days, mutton (such as breast, forequarter or "scrag end of neck"), removed from the bone and browned in a large saucepan, to which are added chopped onions, carrots, and water or meat stock, to which are added as many potatoes as possible. The sauce is not thickened, and it is usual to serve with preserved beetroot or red cabbage and white bread with butter. In the nearby town of St. Helens the dish is often called "Lobbies" and uses corned beef as the meat. An even more impoverished variety of this dish is 'blind Scouse', which features no meat, although it would likely have used cheap "soup bones" for flavouring the broth (prior to WW2, such meat bones could be sold to bone dealers after being used and for the same price as originally purchased from the butcher). Either recipe should more rightly be considered a potato stew. The dish is also popular in Leigh with local residents sometimes being referred to as 'Lobbygobblers'.
A variant Lobscows or Lobsgows is a traditional dish in North Wales, normally made with beef in the form of braising or stewing steak, potatoes, and any other vegetable available. The food was traditionally regarded as food for farmers and the working class people of North Wales, but is now popular as a dish throughout Wales. The recipe was brought by the canal barges to Stoke-on-Trent where it is called "Lobby", the shortened version of "lobscouse".
In Norway, which had a long sea-trading association with the Northern English seaports, the dish (known locally as lapskaus) is virtually a national dish using the weekend's remaining food, usually carrots, potatoes, pork sausages in slices or beef cut small and served with flatbrød (unleavened bread dating back to prehistoric times).
The name of the North German hash Labskaus is derived from "Lapskaus" the Norwegian for stew,[4]. Labskaus is traditional in the Lower Elbe region, especially in the port city Hamburg.
