Christmas Ravioli At E. Pellicci
Elide Pellicci looks down upon Maria & Nevio Pellicci
If you should spot a light, gleaming after hours in the back kitchen at E. Pellicci in the Bethnal Green Rd at this time of year, that will be Maria Pellicci making the Christmas ravioli for her family as she has done each year since 1962.
Maria originates from the same tiny village of Casciana near Lucca in Tuscany as her late husband Nevio Pellicci (senior). And, to her surprise, when Maria first arrived in London she discovered his mother Elide Pellicci, who came over in 1899, was already making ravioli to the same recipe that she knew from home in Italy.
Elide is the E. Pellicci celebrated in chrome letters upon the primrose yellow art deco facade of London’s best-loved family-run cafe, the woman who took over the running of the cafe in the thirties after the death of her husband Priamo who worked there from 1900 – which means we may be assured that the Christmas ravioli have been made here by the Pelliccis in this same spot for over a century.
Thus it was a great honour that Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven & I were the very first outsiders to be invited to witness and record this time-hallowed ritual in Bethnal Green. But I regret to inform you that this particular ravioli is only ever made for the family, which means the only way you can get to taste it is if you marry into the Pelliccis.
“It’s a Tuscan Christmas tradition – Ravioli in Brodo – we only do it once a year and every family has their own recipe,” Maria admitted to me as she turned the handle of the machine and her son Nevio Pellici (junior) reached out to manage the rapidly emerging yellow ribbon of pasta. “My mother and my grandmother used to make it, and I’ve been doing it all my life.”
In recent years, Maria has been quietly tutoring Nevio in this distinctive culinary art that is integral to the Pellicci family. “I was going with the boys to see Naples play against Arsenal tonight, but that’s down the drain,” he declared with good grace – revealing he had only discovered earlier in the day that his mother had decided the time was right for making the special ravioli, ready for the whole family to eat in chicken broth on Christmas Day.
“He’s a good boy,” Maria declared with a tender smile, acknowledging his sacrifice, “years ago I used to stay here on my own making the ravioli until eleven o’clock at night.”
“She’s trying to hand it over to me,” Nevio confirmed proudly.
“Nevio’s good and he’s got the patience,” Maria added encouragingly, as Nevio lowered the pasta carefully onto the ravioli mould.
“I’ve got the rubbish job, I have to fill the ravioli,” he complained in mock self-pity, grinning with pleasure as the two of them set to work with nimble fingers to fill the ravioli. Although the precise ingredients are a fiercely guarded secret, Maria confided to me that the filling comprises beef and pork with Parmigiano and Percorino, along with other undisclosed seasonings. “Everyone does it differently,” she confessed modestly, making light of the lifetime of refining that lies behind her personal recipe.
Already Maria had cooked the mixture slowly for a hour and added a couple of eggs to bind it, and – now it had cooled – she and Nevio were transferring it into the ravioli mould. “We used to do this by hand,” she informed me, turning contemplative as she watched Nevio expertly produce another ribbon of yellow pasta to sit on top of the mould. “We rolled the pasta out on the table before we had the machine. Sometimes, large families used to fill the whole table rolling out enough pasta to feed everyone on Christmas Day. When my mother was small, they were poor and lived in a hut but they had their own flour and eggs, so they could always make pasta.”
It was Nevio’s task to turn the mould over and press it down hard onto the table, binding the layers of pasta together. Then, with intense concentration as Maria waited expectantly, he peeled the ravioli away from the mould, revealing a sheet that looked like a page of neatly upholstered postage stamps. Making swift work of it, Maria wielded her little metal wheel by its wooden handle, separating the individual ravioli and transferring them to a metal tray.
In the kitchen of the empty restaurant, mother and son surveyed their fine handiwork with satisfaction. Each mould produced forty ravioli and, in the course of the evening, they made eight batches of ravioli, thus producing three hundred and sixty ravioli to delight the gathered Pelliccis on Christmas Day – and thereby continuing a family tradition that extends over a century. Yet for Maria, Ravioli in Brodo is more than a memento of her origin in Tuscany, making it here in the East End over all this time incarnates this place as her home.
“I am happy here and I know everyone in Bethnal Green,” she admitted to me, “It’s my village and it’s my family.”
Maria & Nevio rolling out the pasta
Maria sprinkles semolina in the mould to stop the pasta sticking
Maria & Nevio placing the meat filling in the ravioli
Nevio presses down on the ravioli mould
The ravioli are turned out from the mould
Maria cuts out the individual ravioli
Over three hundred ravioli ready for Christmas Day
Elide & Priamo, the Pellicci ancestors look down in approval upon the observance of making Christmas ravioli for more than a century in Bethnal Green
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
E.Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 0AG
You may like to read my other Pellicci stories
Maria Pellicci, The Meatball Queen of Bethnal Green
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
In Old Stepney
Albert Gardens
In spite of the bombing, the slum clearances and redevelopments, the East End is still with us. My recent visit to Fred Wright, who has lived his entire life in the vicinity of Arbour Sq, inspired me to take a stroll with my camera around the surrounding streets that comprise his home territory. In Stepney, there is an entire quarter of early nineteenth century terraces and squares that have survived the changes of the twentieth century. They are magnificent examples of the human quality of streetscape that is cherished by East Enders, and also plangent reminders of what has been lost.
The Peacock, Aylward St
Corner of Antil Terrace and Senrab St
Corner of Antil Terrace and Dunelm St
Corner of Dunelm St
Corner of Head St
Senrab St
Who will rescue The Royal Duke, 474 Commercial Rd, designed by W.E. Williams, 1879?
Shepherd Boy in Albert Gardens, dated 1903, “Fonderies d’art du Val D’Orne, Paris”
In Albert Gardens
South East corner of Albert Gardens
North West corner of Albert Gardens
South East corner of Arbour Sq
In Arbour Sq Gardens
South West corner of Arbour Sq
North West corner of Arbour Sq
Terrace in East Arbour St
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Fred Wright, Head Messenger
Fred Wright in his workshop
Around Arbour Sq in Stepney, there is a web of streets leading down to Albert Sq that have retained their nineteenth century terraces. It is among the best-preserved corners of the old East End and Fred Wright is one of the few of the generation born before the war who have stayed, passing his entire life among these familiar streets.
Today, Fred carries the history of the place through his life’s experience and has come to embody the generous ethos of the long-standing community that persists in this forgotten corner. Last week, Fred welcomed me to his immaculately-organised terrace house and showed me the lean-to workshop at the rear where he delights to restore broken furniture and give it away to anyone that wants it.
Yet, although he stayed in Stepney all his life, I discovered Fred is far from parochial in outlook, and the pain and suffering that he witnessed as an ambulance driver in his youth instilled a desire to serve his community through the Scouts and St John’s Ambulance. In a place where there has been so much movement of people, it was my privilege to meet a man who is proud to call himself one of the original residents.
“I’ve lived in this house for thirty years and before that I lived in Dunelm St which is the next street, so I have lived my whole life within four hundred yards here in Stepney. At first, I lived in Rule St on the other side of Arbour Sq, until it got bombed. My wife lived there before we got married, she was bombed out of her home and went to stay on Rule St. So I met her over the garden wall and the rest was history and we were married for sixty years.
It was a Jewish neighbourhood then, everyone was making shoes or doing tailoring in their front room. Savile Row made the jackets but the trousers and waistcoats were made here. You’d go round to a neighbour’s house and they’d be sewing buttonholes for waistcoats by hand. My mother, Maud, used to do ‘filling,’ stitching the lining of the sleeves to the jacket, that all used to be done by hand as well.
My father, Fred, died at an early age – thirty-eight years old – he worked for his father who was a furniture remover in Brixton. I was his only child and my mother worked hard to keep me. She was employed by Calmasses, a tailor opposite St Dunstan’s church, and she worked from eight in the morning until midnight. When she came home, she’d thread and wax a thousand needles ready for the next day. Her fingers would get septic cuts from the needles and, instead of sleeping, she’d be up soaking her swollen fingers in salt water all night so she could get the thimble on next day and go to work.
In my street, there was a taxi driver who had a taxi, no-one else had a car. We had only gaslight and there was no electricity or telephone. The dustman used to come right in through the house to empty the bin and put pink disinfectant in it afterwards. People used to work so hard yet they were all poor. I remember seeing improvised furniture made out of orange boxes with a curtain across the front. It was all rented property here in those days and if someone was ill, everybody else rallied round.
I was five when my father died but I had a happy childhood. We used to get wheels and make scooters from a plank of wood. My first job was at a foundry in Osborn St at the end of Brick Lane, round the back of Elfe’s the funerary masons. It was all right there – you learned quite a lot about how things are made. At eighteen, in 1944, I was conscripted and called up to serve in the war. I drove an ambulance based in Canterbury, and my job was to pick up casualties from the docks at Dover and take them to a hospital at in Kent. It was a trauma at first but you got used to it.
I had only just got married at eighteen at St Dunstan’s. Kathleen worked as a sample pattern-cutter at Laura Lee in Alie St. My father-in-law was a policeman based at the station in Arbour Sq and we lived with him in Rule St before we moved into our own place in Dunelm St. Thirty years ago, that was condemned and we bought this house for fifteen thousand pounds.
After the war, I went to work for Anthony Gibbs, Merchant Bankers, in Gracechurch St in the City of London. I worked my way up to the top job and became Head Messenger with thirty people under me. I’d walk around the City and all the other Messengers knew me. The Partners wore high hats and we got extra for brushing them. We all had privileges, such as putting out the fresh blotting paper in the boardroom or filling the inkwells, so everyone got a little extra. I worked there for thirty-five years until I retired at sixty-three. Two days later, I got a phone call, saying they’d opened up a place on the Isle of Dogs and ‘Could I supervise it for two weeks?’ and I was there for another two years. All the people I worked for treated me very nicely and I loved that work, and I still have a pension from them.
I was in the Scouts and the St John’s Ambulance for donkeys’ years. I was a Scout as a youngster and I wanted to give a little bit back. I went to the Buckingham Palace Garden Party three times with the St John’s Ambulance and, before it started, the Queen popped round in a head scarf and coat to ask us how we were, just like an ordinary person.
My wife Kathleen died eight years ago and now I go to the lunch club in Club Row three times a week. My son, Brian, lives in the Isle of Dogs and he comes every day to visit me. I’m eighty-seven and I know all the neighbours round here. I wouldn’t want to leave Stepney for anything, I’ve got all of my memories here. This is my sanctuary.”
Fred Wright (far left) Head Messenger at Anthony Gibbs, Merchant Bank, in the seventies
Fred’s father in law worked at Arbour Sq Police Station
Fred & Kathleen with their son Brian in the garden of their house in Dunelm St in the fifties.
Fred & Kathleen with Brian on holiday in the sixties.
High jinks on a scout camp
Fred’s cat Molly
Fred Wright
“This is my sanctuary”
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Cries Of London Playing Cards
The latest addition to my collection, these Cries Of London Playing Cards were sent through the mail by one of the readers. Dating from the end of the nineteenth century, the object of the game was to collect all the words that make up each of the traders’ cries, which would have been familiar to original players, and those sets with the longest cry had the greatest value. Judging from the worn corners of these cards, they have given plenty of amusement over the years.
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At St George’s German Lutheran Church
The Altar and Pulpit at St George’s German Lutheran Church, Alie St
In Aldgate, caught between the thunder of the traffic down Leman St and the roar of the construction on Goodman’s Fields sits a modest church with an unremarkable exterior. Yet this quiet building contains an important story, the forgotten history of the German people in the East End.
Dating from 1762, St George’s German Lutheran Church is Britain’s oldest surviving German church and once you step through the door, you find yourself in a peaceful space with a distinctive aesthetic and character that is unlike any other in London.
The austere lines of the interior emphasise the elegant, rather squat proportion of the architecture and the strong geometry of the box pews and galleries is ameliorated by unexpected curves and fine details. In fact, architect Joel Johnson was a carpenter by trade which may account for the domestic scale and the visual dominance of the intricately conceived internal wooden structure. Later iron windows of 1812, with their original glass in primary tones of red and blue, bring a surprising sense of modernity to the church and, even on a December afternoon, succeed in dispelling the gathering gloom.
This was once the heart of London’s sugar-baking industry and, from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, Germans brought their particular expertise to this volatile and dangerous trade, which required heating vast pans of sugar with an alarming tendency to combust or even explode. Such was the heat and sticky atmosphere that sugar-bakers worked naked, thus avoiding getting their clothes stuck to their bodies and, no doubt, experiencing the epilatory qualities of sugar.
Reflecting tensions in common with other immigrant communities through the centuries, there was discord over the issue of whether English or the language of the homeland should be spoken in church and, by implication, whether integration or separatism was preferable – this controversy led to a riot in the church on December 3rd 1767.
As the German community grew, the church became full to overcrowding – with the congregation swollen by six hundred German emigrants abandoned on their way to South Carolina in 1764. Many parishioners were forced to stand at the back and thieves capitalised upon the chaotic conditions in which, in 1789, the audience was described in the church records as eating “apples, oranges and nuts as in a theatre,” while the building itself became, “a place of Assignation for Persons of all descriptions, a receptacle for Pickpockets, and obtained the name St George’s Playhouse.”
Today the church feels like an empty theatre, maintained in good order as if the audience had just left. Even as late as 1855, the Vestry record reported that “the Elders and Wardens of the Church consist almost exclusively of the Boilers, Engineers and superior workers in the Sugar Refineries,” yet by the eighteen-eighties the number of refineries in the vicinity had dwindled from thirty to three and the surrounding streets had descended into poverty. Even up to 1914, at one hundred and thirty souls, St Georges had the largest German congregation in Britain. But the outbreak of the First World War led to the internment of the male parishioners and the expulsion of the females – many of whom spoke only English and thought of themselves as British.
In the thirties, the bell tower was demolished upon the instructions of the District Surveyor, thus robbing the facade of its most distinctive feature. Pastor Julius Reiger, an associate of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a leading opponent of the Nazis, turned the church into a relief centre offering shelter for German and Jewish refugees during World War II, and the congregation continued until 1996 when there only twenty left.
St George’s is now under the care of the Historic Chapels Trust and opens regularly for concerts and lectures, standing in perpetuity as a remembrance of more than two centuries of the East End’s lost German community.
The classically-patterned linoleum is a rare survival from 1855
The arms of George III, King of England & Elector of Hanover
The principal founder of the church Diederick Beckman was a wealthy sugar refiner.
The Infant School was built in 1859 as gift from the son of Goethe’s publisher, W. H. Göschen
Names of benefactors carved into bricks above the vestry entrance.
St Georges German Lutheran Church, c. 192o
The bell turret with weathervane before demolition in 1934
The original eighteenth century weathervane of St George & the Dragon that was retrieved from ebay
St George’s German Lutheran Church, 55 Alie Street, E1 8EB
Julian Rothenstein, Publisher
Julian Rothenstein, The Redstone Press
Observe this man’s placid smile – from his composed demeanour no-one would believe that he has run his own publishing company for nearly thirty years. Yet Julian Rothenstein is the man responsible for Redstone Press, producing over a quarter century of Redstone Diaries and a whole string of inspirational and eclectic art books that no-one else would ever have dreamed of.
As I made my own first steps in publishing this year, Julian was the man I went to for advice. And he proved to be a generous mentor, which makes it a pleasure to welcome him to Spitalfields this week, bringing his celebrated Annual Christmas Bookshop to the East of London for the first time – opening today at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, and running every day until 22nd December.
Operating from a modest office in his basement home, Julian edits, designs and supervises the production, promotion and distribution of all his books himself. And he does it with such apparent ease that you might not readily appreciate the feat of mental dexterity required to bring it off with bravura and grace, as he does. Yet this flexibility also allows him to pursue personal passions and produce books that surpass people’s expectations by their ingenuity and wit – such as his current bestseller ‘Inside the Rainbow,’ exploring the forgotten flowering of Russian Children’s books in the early Soviet era and his forthcoming project, a compendium of work by blind photographers.
I shall never forget the first time I came across a Redstone Diary, it was unlike anything else I had seen and it is this distinctive personality which makes these books so appealing. Julian’s vibrant designs, with strong colour, bold type and plenty of white space, give his titles a unity of appearance that is in contrast to their diverse form and subject matter. Obviously not the product of a corporation, they are the outcome of one man’s love of books – as Julian admitted to me when I dropped into his office this week with Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven.
“After I left school, I worked at a publisher called Peter Owen as an alternative to going to art school, which I couldn’t do because my father was well-known in that world – so I opted for being an office boy instead. I must have picked up the rudiments of publishing there.
I was a lost soul for a while after that, until I went to work with Emma Tennant on ‘Bananas’ – she was the editor and I was the art director and designer. It was a large format literary and art magazine, printed on newsprint up in Norfolk, that published the work of famous figures like J.G.Ballard, Bruce Chatwin, Angela Carter and Ted Hughes alongside unknown writers. And it was there I met my wife Hiang Kee who was very much involved with the beginnings of Bananas and Redstone Press.
My first Redstone Press book was of drawings by my father Michael, who was a child prodigy, and my grandfather William Rothenstein had kept everything he ever drew. I made all the mistakes with that first publication – it was far too big, no-one is interested in children’s drawings and I printed too many copies. Bookshops hated it, I printed fifteen hundred copies and sold only fifty or sixty.
But, shortly after that, I discovered these visual novels in woodcuts by Frans Mazereel and the first one sold out in three weeks. I published six of those and they all were very popular. I thought, ‘Publishing is really easy!’ And then I was unstoppable. Another big success was publishing boxes of ephemera from the Mexican Day of the Dead – I literally had my whole family sitting around sticking tin skeletons into boxes at one point. Then the diaries started in 1987 and I have just sent 2015 off to the printers – so that’s twenty-eight so far. The theme of 2015 is The Art of Simplicity and it includes a portrait of Barn the Spoon. Sometimes people write to say they have used my diaries year after year and cannot use anything else.
Redstone Press has become a family business with my wife Hiang Kee and my daughter Ella involved and, over the years, I have done a lot of books in partnership with my friend Mel Gooding. I had the good luck to work with David Shrigley too, one of the most productive people you could hope to meet – doing one book a year.
Yet, my whole thing has been to stay deliberately small and I can say that I have made a living out of it. People will always love to have something to read and, as the world goes more digital, they’ll be more demand for tactile things – like my books.”
Copies of Redstone Press titles adorn the shelves in Julian Rothenstein’s office
Bananas, the seventies literary magazine, edited by Emma Tennant & designed by Julian Rothenstein
One of Julian Rothenstein’s first big successes, a novel in pictures by Frans Masereel, 1988
Alfred Wallis Paintings introduced by George Melly, 1990
Redstone Diary 1992, Drawings by Writers
J. G. Posada, Messengeer of Mortality, 1989
Redstone Diary, The Lucky Diary, 1996
Ants Have Sex In Your Beer by David Shrigley, 2007
Surrealist Games compiled by Alistair Brotchie, edited by Mel Gooding, 1991
The Redstone Psychological Diary, 2005 – edited by Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding
Kill Your Pets by David Shrigley, 2004
The Redstone Diary – The Artist’s World, 2011 – edited by Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding
Julian Rothenstein, publisher of The Redstone Press
Portraits copyright © Patricia Niven
Redstone Press Books, Diaries & Prints are for sale from today at reduced prices at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields. 11-6pm daily until 22nd December.
David Hoffman At St Botolph’s
Bobbie Beecroft cuts Mr Sheridan’s hair, 1976
When photographer David Hoffman was squatting in Fieldgate Mansions in Whitechapel in the seventies, he was asked to do fund-raising shots for the shelter in the crypt of St Botolph’s in Aldgate which offered refuge to all homeless people without distinction. Yet this commission turned into a photographic project that extended over many years and resulted in a distinguished body of work documenting the lives of the dispossessed in hundreds of intimate and unsentimental images.
Initially, David found the volatile conditions of the crypt challenging but, over months and years, he became accepted by those at the shelter who adopted him as their own photographer. Rev Malcolm Johnson was the enlightened priest responsible for opening the crypt but, once he moved on, his brave endeavour was closed down. More than thirty years later, most of the people in David’s pictures are dead and forgotten, and his soulful photographs are now the only record of their existence and of the strange camaraderie they discovered in the crypt at St Botolph’s.
“St Botolph’s in Aldgate had a ‘wet shelter,’ an evening shelter for damaged or lost souls where alcohol and drugs were permitted. It was run by Rev Malcolm Johnson and Terry Drummond, who were very generous and accepting, and the purpose was a Christian one, based on the notion that you are accepted whoever you are. I’m not keen on organised religion, but here they were doing something that needed to be done.
I was asked if I could do some photographs to raise funds for the work and I remember arriving at the top of the steps outside the crypt and standing there for five minutes because I didn’t dare to go down. The noise was deafening and it really stank of piss and unwashed bodies. I was frightened I’d get attacked and my camera smashed but, equally, I thought it needed documenting, it was a part of life I’d never seen before. It was very noisy, very smelly, chaotic, and there was a lot of violence.
It was a place to get something to eat, get washed and get clean clothing. Not everybody was on drink or drugs but ninety per cent were. A lot were ex-servicemen who had travelled the world and would reminisce about bars in Cairo or Baghdad. It was amazing what they would talk about.
When I returned, I gave them eighth-size A4 prints so they could put them in their pockets. They gave me permission to take their pictures and, on each visit, I’d bring them prints from the previous evening. So I became their photographer.
Over six or seven years, I’d go every night for two or three months at a stretch. It was important to be regular while you were doing it. You needed to come frequently, so people relaxed and accepted you as part of the scene. I’d go every night for a couple of months. It was a place where nobody else goes, it was a humble part of life.”
Washing a shirt at St Botolph’s, 1978
A volunteer serves tea and sandwiches
Azella, a regular at St Botolph’s, makes herself up before heading to the pub with a pal in 1977. Later that year, Azella was killed when a lorry drove over the cardboard box where she slept in Spitalfields Market.
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1976
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
Leo, eighty-two years old and a non-drinker at St Botolph’s, 1976
At St Botolph’s, 1978
Percy & Jane, non-drinkers, at St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1977
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
At St Botolph’s, 1978
Photographs copyright © David Hoffman
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