My dear friend the Colonel and I have tea together from time to time at one of the country’s most august establishments. He’s not really a colonel, although he does have a military background, a commanding bearing and a resolutely British manner. He is also a creature of habit, and his order is always the same: a pot of English Breakfast tea, two crumpets (well done), and a side order of The Gentleman’s Relish. 

The last two times we have taken tea, however, he has been told that his favourite accompaniment has not been available. I didn’t think anything about it until I discovered this morning the horrible truth: The Gentleman’s Relish, a piquant anchovy paste whose recipe is as closely guarded a secret as that of Coca-Cola and which was first put before the public in 1828, is no more. Its production has been ceased by current owners, the food production conglomerate, AB World Foods.

It’s a quiet death, all right, and only epicureans with a taste for tradition, like the Colonel, will mourn its passing. Very much an acquired taste, it comes in a discreet white pot (a future design classic?) and is a rather unappealing grey, sludgy paste with a distinctly fishy aroma. It has a peculiarly strong flavour, not for the faint-hearted, a fact acknowledged by the instructions for use: “To appreciate the fine flavour of this relish,” it reads, “it should be used VERY SPARINGLY”.

The official communiqué from AB World Foods, however, spoke of part of our food culture whose time has come and gone. “While we recognise that this Victorian relish has a niche and loyal following,” said a spokesperson, “it sadly does not have wider commercial appeal and, despite our best efforts, retailer distribution has dwindled.”

What kind of a world would it be if only food which had “wide commercial appeal” was available? No more Manx kippers, only fish fingers. Goodbye to Jerusalem artichokes and hello Potato Smileys. Sorry, no Simnel Cake, but we do have Mr Kipling. I’m not saying that The Gentleman’s Relish is a staple of the British diet, and it’s definitely hard to make a case for the contemporary resonance of an item whose proper name is in Latin (“Patum Peperium”, translated as “Pepper Paste”) and whose principal purpose is to be spread on hot, buttered toast.

Nevertheless, it is a small piece of our culinary heritage that is dying out, and, while I wouldn’t say that news of its demise has broken the internet, there are plenty of posts on social media that offer a lamentation. “Look what you’ve done with your bloody avocado toast, granola and kefir,” read one contribution on X. “Another small tessera of the mosaic of Britain’s oddities and specialities bites the dust,” read another.

One contributor even suggested it was a sign of a more fundamental, sociological change. “I’d take an educated guess,” she wrote, “that the problem is a lack of gentlemen in today’s society.” She may well be on to something. Even its very name – “The Gentleman’s Relish” – speaks of a somewhat antiquated concept, a platonic ideal of yesteryear, and harks back to the time of Empire, No place for this tasty little curiosity in these days of weight-loss jabs, faddy diets, girl dinners and cupboards full of kimchi, Dubai chocolate and Chamoy Pickles.

But what if you knew that Nigella Lawson said it was one of the 10 British foods she can’t live without, alongside Bramley apples, Maldon Salt and Colman’s English mustard? “If you’re an anchovy lover, this has your name on it,” she says, proclaiming that a layer of Gentleman’s Relish is “wonderful on a toasted English muffin with a poached egg on top”.

What’s more, the writer Jessica Mitford told Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that it was the one luxury item that she would take to her desert island, James Bond was partial to its particular delights (he partook of it in “For Your Eyes Only”) and no less a kitchen authority than Mrs Beeton, in her best-selling Book of Household Management, refers to it as “an excellent bonne bouche which enables gentlemen at wine-parties to enjoy their port with redoubled gusto”.

Ok, so Jessica Mitford, Mrs Beeton, James Bond and certainly my friend the Colonel, are not exactly the arbiters of modern tastes. But food is about romance, a sense of place and the reflection of a shared history. In that, there is reason for us all to mourn the death of Gentleman’s Relish.

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