An Appreciation of The Queen’s College, Oxford.

Tradition runs deep and remains lively at the colleges of Oxford. That much is more or less common knowledge, at least among the educated cohorts of the anglophone world. The living tradition extends not least to daily foodways. The ritual of High Table with its orchestrated courses, fine bottles from storied sellers, port always passed left, is known nearly as well.

At The Queen’s, within its symmetrical Georgian ranges and their Hawksmoor facades, culinary tradition also seeps into the quotidian service of lunch. One recent day the college pulled out a pair of West Country stops by serving both Stargazy Pie and scrumpy. Few alive have borne witness to an actual Stargazy Pie while The Queen’s does not ordinarily offer alcohol, let alone a drink as explosive as scrumpy, for lunch; a double dose of culinary stewardship.

For the uninitiated, and most people are uninitiated, Stargazy Pie is both humble and exotic, modest in its constituents, flamboyant in terms of fashion. The pie gets its name from the herrings whose heads peer up out of the topcrust to the heavens. The flavor may not change, not much anyway, from the inclusion of head and tail but the visual impact is bold, the cooks at The Queen’s daring. Thanks to them for their dedication to the foodways of England, for their steady work in the service of a culture both ancient and latterly, thanks in measure to them, vibrant.