It was one of the original fast-foods, knocked together using left-over meat to satisfy the Friday night food cravings of workers in Birmingham in the 1900s.

Regulars would queue up with their dishes and jugs outside A W Lashford in Kings Heath, waiting for the latest consignment of freshly made faggots.

Served with onion gravy, mashed potatoes and mushy peas, faggots were the happy meal of Edwardian Brum.

Steve Lashford, the fifth-generation boss of Lashford, recalls how his grandmother, Grace, saw a gap in the market for ready meals, originally making the faggots at the family butchers shop in Kings Heath.

Steve says: “Grace started the fast food business. She was about 15 or 16. After school, that was her job on a Friday night.

“It was faggots and peas night. Locals used to bring along their jugs to have the faggots ladelled into them.

“Back then, there was no refrigeration so on a Saturday night the spare meat went into a pickling vat. It was preserved during the week and cooked by the following Friday for faggots.”

More than a century on, Lashford faggots remain a favourite dish and it makes on average 3,000 of them a week.

They are now made at the company’s base at Allcroft Road, Hall Green, and although the recipe has been adapted it is essentially the one put together by founder Albert Lashford.

The mix includes pigs’ livers, pigs’ hearts, belly pork, breadcrumbs for binding, onions and up to a dozen spices including mace, nutmeg, parsley, sage and thyme. Each four ounce ball is made by hand.

One of the few modern tweaks has been the decision to cut out caul, a fatty membrane from the pig’s stomach, which used to be wrapped around faggots to maintain moisture during cooking. It turned out lots of customers preferred the large meatballs without the lacy fat covering.

Steve, whose sons Craig, 21, and Darren, 17, both students, help out with the business, says: “The secret of making good faggots is the seasoning. You also need good produce and tender loving care. We use 12 different spices and herbs and they give the faggots a lovely flavour.”

Lashford is probably best known for its sausages, of which it makes three-and-a-half tons a week. The biggest seller remains the classic pork, which was known as Lashford’s breakfast sausage until it won a national competition in 1978.

Faggots, though, having been making something of a comeback, helped by the tough economic times.

“Faggots are the ultimate recession food. Lots of pubs have started adding them to their menus,” says Steve. “You have got to have them with mushy peas and mash and a bit of onion gravy.

“We call them Black Country wedding cake. It always generates a bit of a chuckle.

“The Welsh have a variation and the Scots have haggis. But faggots are a West Midlands dish. It is the food of the Gods.”