The general impression of the middle class Victorian home, especially in London, normally includes a servant or two. If a family had a single servant, she was a “maid-of-all-work” – a general purpose helper who would primarily give the lady of the house a hand with all the menial tasks of running the home. Tasks such as laundry involved full days of hard labor. Cleaning a carpet was an affair involving damp tea leaves and a stiff brush. Generally, life was still tough, even with a maid.

It’s not too difficult to imagine what life was like back then, especially with excellent programs like 1900 House, which detailed what it was like for a modern family to be dropped into a charming little home with no electricity or modern appliances.

After my misadventure with Mrs. Beeton’s Omelet, I became even more curious about the particulars of Victorian era cookery. From our modern perspective, it seems that Victorians were hell-bent on making things difficult for themselves. For the most part, fruit was not served fresh. Our old friend Mrs. Beeton suggested grapes as a cure for constipation, but only after they were seeded and had the skins removed. I don’t know about you, but if I didn’t have electricity, peeling grapes sounds like a stupid thing to waste time doing.

Everyday fruit was stewed or baked within an inch of its life. In fact, just about any food you can imagine was thought to be improved by cooking it until it no longer resembled the original foodstuff. Much of the current distaste for “British” food comes from the idea that everything is stewed into oblivion, even though London is now one of the centers of the food universe, second only to New York City.

One of the main things I discovered which surprised me was that modern “take-away” meals were alive and well during the Victorian era. Though Mrs. Beeton and others suggested the familiar “meat plus starch” meal for the whole family, historic texts and diaries often reveal that the families “sent out” for dishes like lobster or steak. This often occurred because the food which had been targeted for that day’s meal had spoiled. The complete lack of refrigeration techniques necessitated each housewife to take stock of the leftovers from the day before to see what was still suitable for service that day.

The preparation of things so simple as butter involved scraping off the rancid outer layer and coating the block in salt to maintain it for use. When needed, the salt layer would be scraped off, it would be served, then coated again for later use. Even that staple of life, bread, was in question. Most middle class households sent out for their bread or had it baked in a communal bakery.

Unfortunately, those bakeries were not the clean and tidy places we imagine them to be today. Government inspectors found that the ceilings of these places were covered in cobwebs which became heavy with the flour of the operation, then dropped down into the dough being prepared. No effort was made to contain this problem. Once baked, the bread was left in large holding bins which ran through with rats and other beasties. Part of the skill in buying bread in Victorian London was to keep the baker “honest” by rejecting the loaves brought to be delivered which had already been chewed.

The service of meals themselves was also quite a production. If a home had only a maid-of-all-work, she would need to change clothes before serving the meals. To illustrate, the maid would do the morning work (fire lighting, lamp cleaning, breakfast preparation) then change into service clothes – then she’d continue to clean (carpets, breakfast dishes, laundry) then change again for lunch, do further work in the afternoon, then change again for dinner. This could mean that a single servant dressed and undressed six to seven times per day to keep up a “tidy” appearance while serving meals. Considering the dirty work done in between, I almost can’t blame the mistresses for all that trouble.

Even opening a can was a pain in the neck. The can opener wasn’t invented until 1858. It is described in the books of the times as “part bayonet, part sickle” – yet it was also described as being easy enough for a child to use.

The food that was consumed was unsafe in the extreme. The “Food Adulteration Act” wasn’t passed until 1860, but it was roundly ignored until 1872, when the government began to enforce it. Even worse, before 1885’s “Sale of Goods Act” there was no regulation that forced products to even be what they said they were.

Bread was filled with alum or potato starch, butter and milk were diluted with water up to 50% and one sample of tea at the time was found to contain 45% “sand and dirt.” The practice was so common that advice books of the time advised housewives to soak “suspicious” bread in water over heat for several hours. When the water was poured off, the common bulking agent – plaster of Paris(!) – would settle to the bottom and the water-logged bread could be (urp!) consumed.

The coal which was most commonly used to fuel Victorian stoves left “blacks” in the food – small pieces of burnt ash speckling anything emerging from the Victorian stove. Temperature suggestions in cookery books often said, “A drenching heat” – “A comfortable oven” – or “A warm chamber.” The measurement of heat in degrees in an oven was not in practice until well into the 20th century. Even today, British recipes call for a “hot,” “medium,” or “moderate” oven.

Knives were also substandard in the extreme. Stainless steel did not come into use for decades after the era was over. Women were counseled to never “wash” knives. They were taken apart and placed, handle down, in a pitcher of water and soda powder, swished around then rubbed with sand and a clean cloth.

It’s not hard to imagine the inconvenience of being deprived of modern appliances. Dishwashers, mixers, blenders, electric or gas stoves and ovens, even tile flooring, was years away. Victorian kitchens were nests of dirt, disease, vermin and decomposition. Gas or water came, not in a steady stream, but rather sporadically depending on the time of day.

The corsets may have been pretty, but the custards certainly were not. Studying the cookery practices of other times makes me wonder how much we are getting in our own way in our time. Mankind survived prehistorically because we ate the vegetables and fruits as they grew and roasted meat that was freshly killed.

The primary problem in Victorian England was the use of technology. Meat and dairy products brought in on trains was spoiled and infected. Fruits and vegetables cooked too long lost their nutritional content. Perhaps the lesson to be learned by Victorian cookery practices is to get out of our own way and cook food as freshly (and as little) as possible. We may be moving in that direction, with the locavore and slow food movements. But, at least our bread doesn’t have rat droppings in it – does it? (::Ahem!::)

————————————————————————————-
Images:
OldDinnerDrawing: capemayviews.com
Beastie: flickr.com
coke: perezfox.com