I love food that has an evocative (or just plain weird) name. So, when I found myself with a large ham hock in my freezer and some green split peas in the pantry, London Peculiar was top of my list of things to make! Who wouldn’t want to eat London Peculiar rather than plain old pea and ham soup?
London Peculiar, (aka London Particular) takes its name from the thick “pea-soup” fogs that used to cover London. You would think that these noxious swirling greeny grey fogs were a thing of the long distant past. Surely they were from the times of Dickens and Jack the Ripper? Not so! There was actually a “fog event” as late as 1952!
The 1952 Fog
The fog in ’52 was so dense and so intrusive that the opera La Traviata had to be stopped because people at the back could not see the stage! Even if they could, the actors and other audience members were coughing so much no one could hear anything over the noise. On the Isle of Dogs, the fog was so thick, people could not see their own feet!
12, 000 people died from the fog, which was full of toxic chemicals.
Just like today, (but more eerie because of the fog), the people of London took to wearing masks to protect themselves. Then, as now, wise advice was to stay home when you can and wear a mask if you couldn’t!
And of course, when times get tough, there is nothing like a warm bowl of soup to soothe the soul! There is an old Jewish proverb that says “Worries go down better with soup than without”. So true!
Soup is cheap to make, quick to reheat, and usually fairly healthy. It is great working from home lunch food but also perfect for a cold winter evening. It is also a great way to hide veggies if we have little people or even big people, who don’t love their greens! Watch the salt in this one though, ham hocks can be quite salty so I would not add more salt until you had tasted the soup to check. 
London Peculiar – The Recipe
I found my recipe for London Peculiar in the July 2010 edition of Delicious Magazine. You can find that same recipe here.
PS The amazing pictures of London in 1952 and the factoids I used came from here and here. These are both amazing articles that are worth reading in full too.
Stay safe and stay peculiar friends!!!
And enjoy Shirley Bassey singing about history repeating!
