Cooking George Orwell’s Long Lost Kidney Stew Recipe

On the day following King George V’s Silver Jubilee celebrations, 6th May 1935, George Orwell took a break from writing A Clergyman’s Daughter to type a letter to his friend and one-time romantic interest, Brenda Salkeld. Among Orwell’s usual topics of discussion (politics, literature, and low-culture) the author outlined what he described as a “wonderful” ox-kidney stew.

Remembering his late friend, the poet Paul Potts recalled Orwell as possessing “the same attitude to bubble and squeak as a Frenchman to Camembert. I’ll swear he valued tea and roast beef above the OM and the Nobel Prize.” Throughout his life, Orwell had a great fondness for food and drink and one needn’t venture too deeply into his work before emerging with evidence of this pre-occupation. In both Down and Out in Paris and London andThe Road to Wigan Pier he noted the “appalling” diet of bread, margarine and sugared tea that the hard-ups relied on for daily sustenance during the first half of the 20th century. Orwell knew what he liked and held clear views on how he liked his beer served, the article devoted to the perfect cup tea, the essay defending British cooking and his strong ideas on the unexpected dietary advantages of wartime rationing. “English people before the war usually ate too much sugar,” he wrote, “the war has brought home to a lot of people the value of vegetables.” He fished, picked wild berries, kept livestock for milking, and insisted on managing allotments and vegetable gardens even as the tuberculosis that would ultimately carry him off made an exhausting task of even the lightest physical exertion.

Following the war, the British Council commissioned Orwell to write a handbook on the topic of “British Cookery”. Ultimately, the pamphlet, containing recipes for Welsh Rarebit, Treacle Tart and Orange Marmalade, was never published, though Orwell still received his fee for the work. After spending several years in obscurity, the manuscript was recovered and donated to University College London, and over the last several decades, hoards of food writers and journalists have dissected, recreated, and reinterpreted Orwell’s recipes. However, for whatever reason, his stew recipe has remained largely forgotten. That was until now, of course. The recipe itself is a simple undertaking, consisting of:

1/2 lb Ox kidney chopped-up small
1/2 lb Mushrooms
1 Onion Chopped Fine
2 Cloves Garlic
Four Skinned Tomatoes,
1 Slice of Lean Bacon chopped up
Salt.
Stew for gently for 2.5 hours in very little beef stock

The recipe is textbook Orwell; free from any unnecessary pomp or frill. Unfortunately, and with consideration toward his famous attention to detail and precision with language, young Orwell’s recipe is rather vague by  way of specifying the variety of ingredients to be used. In an attempt to remain as faithful to both the recipe and the time in which it was written, I consulted with food historian and broadcaster, Dr. Annie Gray as well as a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Everyday Cookery  in confirming which products would have been available in Britain at that time. For the mushrooms, we went with champignons de paris, a variety that has been available in the UK since at least the 18th century. For the tomatoes, after some serious deliberation we settled on the classic heritage tomato, with edenrose garlic and a brown onion taking care of our vegetable needs. The local butcher fixed us for the kidneys and the bacon. As for the beef stock, we went with that humble British staple, the good-old Oxo cube.

There are also some practical considerations Orwell omitted in his recipe. For example, it is necessary to soak the kidneys in a little water and vinegar for a couple of hours in order to soften the uric flavour present when the organs are fresh. Leopold Bloom from Joyce’s Ulysses may have enjoyed the “fine tang of faintly scented urine” on his kidneys, but we do not. We also deviated a little from Orwell’s guidelines by coating the kidneys in a little flour prior to frying in order to thicken the stew – a discretion I’m sure George would have allowed.

All peeled and ready to rock.
All peeled and ready to rock.
The kidneys before we removed the membrane and soaked in water for 2 hours.
The kidneys before we removed the membrane and soaked in water for 2 hours.
Frying the bacon
Frying the chopped lean bacon
There's no more beautiful sight in the world.
There’s no more beautiful sight in the world than cooking mushrooms.
Not looking too appetizing at the moment.
An hour in and – truth be told – it’s not looking too appetizing at the moment.

As Orwell advised, we served the stew with spaghetti (though coquillettes would also have sufficed). As a nod to his time in Spain, we topped the dish with a few shavings of Manchego cheese and took our initial bites with trepidation. The verdict: The stew was actually quite delicious and considerably richer than we had anticipated. If you’re not intimidated by offal and fancy a taste of history then I’d strongly suggest trying it for yourself, especially during those colder winter months. 

The final product
The final product

15 Comments Add yours

  1. Love this post even though I can’t come at kidneys. I thought of Leopold Bloom as soon as I saw your headlines, also of my father who had a fondness for offal and for rich hearty dishes of this kind. His Osso Bucco could just about get up and walk.
    I share your fondness for Orwell too.

  2. Very nice! I’ve never tried kidneys but this looks like a good dish to test them!

  3. Jane Bled says:

    I’ve always been reticent when it comes to organ meat, but this dish looks appealing and I love the detail in your descriptions.

  4. Fun blog post. This wouldn’t fit into my diet, but I read it through the end nonetheless. If only I did eat like this, I’d take that sparsely written recipe and give it a go.

  5. I love how you maintained the integrity of the original recipe as much as possible. I’m sure George Orwell would be quite please with your undertaking.

  6. Perhaps because I am American and we don’t eat much offals, especially not in Southern California, I would substitute the kidneys with another kind of meat 😀

  7. i like your article, very nice your post, thank you very much

  8. stella says:

    My father was of German extraction, and his grandfather was a “sausage maker” in Peoria, IL. As a child, I ate tongue, brains, and liver, although it took me until adulthood to appreciate the last. Still like head cheese and liver sausage, but I have never eaten kidneys. I don’t think the dish has ever been popular in this country, but I might try it; you make it look pretty good!

  9. It is so lovely to read about Orwell in ways other than 1984 and Animal Farm!

  10. syr3f says:

    Looks and seems delicious! My mother does once in a while some liver steaks but I’ve never tried kidneys…

  11. My time in Spain many years ago taught me to appreciate all kinds of culinary oddities including kidneys, and tripe stew. I haven’t made them in years because my S.O. doesn’t care for that stuff, but I often think about making them on the sly. Only problem is either one of them can really stink up the kitchen. My recipe for “Riñones al Jerez” is similar to Orwell’s (but also includes the soaking in vinegar part) with a nice addition of sherry in the sauce. Served over saffron rice…yes!!

    1. You can never go wrong with a splash of sherry.

  12. Reblogged this on learntoeatwell and commented:
    Keen to try making this. Might serve with mash and veg rather than pasta.

    Followed the link ‘British Cookery’ and greatly enjoyed George Orwell’s detailed analysis of our best and worst dishes plus clear explanations of what we mean by lunch, dinner and tea.

    An unexpected treat for my lunchtime reading.

  13. johnberk says:

    I ate something similar at one of the French restaurants we have around here in Toronto. And I really liked it! Comes to me as a surprise that Orwell actually wrote about topics such as beer or tea. I always imagined his as an ascetic who was possessed by the fascism and so called modern society of the first half of the 20th century.

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