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Food Shopping

To make a meal, a Victorian makes several stops. One option was to head to the streets where costermongers, (a seller of fruit, vegetables, and other foods) sold their goods. Street food to the Victorian was like fast food to us. It was easy to transport and wasn’t complicated to cook. These peddlers offered affordable options for those on a tighter income, especially on fruits that were relatively expensive during this time. A Victorian may have also visited a grocer. Grocers offered the basic kitchen necessities, some with more variety than others. In attempt to compete with other grocers, some sold stolen tea, sugar, and other expensive goods at a much lower price. This meant the grocer’s clientele could be extended to the working class as their products were inexpensive.

An example of the inside of a grocer

Butchers were options for those looking for meats, however, customers needed to wary when purchasing meats because butchers tried to get as much money for their product as possible. Some would lie to the customers and sell cheaper meat at a more expensive price under the notion that it was cow meat. To build trust with their clientele, some displayed the meat and carcasses in the window, however, because ice was so expensive, meat was still at risk for spoiling quickly. As a result, before purchasing, Victorians were urged to inspect, smell, and hold the meat. To avoid these problems completely, many families kept a pig in a section of their garden. The pig was fed table scraps to eventually be butchered for its meat - this way then the family knew where the meat came from and that it was fresh.

Food Connecting Cultures

During the Victorian Era, a greater incorporation of India and its culture was introduced into England. Practices of food making, like curry, into the national diet of Victorian England, “functioned as agents of cultural exchange between colonizers and colonized”. The cultural exchange happening in Victorian England offered new ways of communication through the wives of the time who were seen as the good cooks, or the ones to make the “good food.”      

Cookbooks of this era define the women of the time. Not only were they filled with recipes for an abundance of occasions, they were also, “self-conscious cultural documents in which we can locate metaphors for nineteenth-century British imperialism”. Cookbooks not only shared ideas on food, but also gave women a sense of independence and domestic power. During this time, women began to see themselves as not sub servants to their husbands, but as their own person. Cooking and integration of Indian culture through those who colonize and have been colonized, gave rise to many of the earliest feminist movements seen in history.      

Books like, “Good Things in England, A Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes, Contributed by English Men and Women Between 1399 and 1932”, give insight by Florence White about the history of curry in English culture. Unlike many historians of the time, she is not comparing English curry to Indian curry, but instead makes claims that the master chefs of curry are Anglo-Indian, which many English recipes have been updated and improved due to the Indian culture.

Three of the of the most influential cook books of the Victorian Era are, “Maria Rundell's 1807 Domestic Cookery, Eliza Acton's 1845 Modern Cookery in all its Branches, and Isabella Beeton's celebrated 1859 Book of Household Management”, all contain a chapter on the use of curry at the dinner table. All of the cookbooks mentioned offer some insight onto how curry may have been somewhat of a foreign idea to many modern English, but their history is rooted in curry and both England and India share many similarities. As states, “we have intermingled many foreign ones which we know to be excellent of their kind, and which now so far belong to our national cookery, as can be met with commonly at all refined modern tables”.

Modern Habits Rooted in the Victorian Era

Many habits of today’s modern England and habits of the old Victorian England are quite similar. A famous quote to explain the phenomenon is, “a place for everything and everything in its place” . Developments during the Victorian Era in regard to kitchen cookware, gadgets, and sterilization practices ushered in a new era of food readiness and preparedness.

Many traditions also emerged out of this era, including the tradition of holiday meals. Special meals just for certain holidays where families were brought together to celebrate with one another. Meals such as Roast Mutton, Boiled Beef, and Stewed Rabbit  were all staples in the holiday cuisine of Victorian England. Many of these meals would be served on special dining dishes, which is precursor to the modern idea of fine china. These recipes were only available to the rich, but this did not keep the poorer class from also celebrating with their own variations and creative touch.  Today’s modern world may see no issue with traditions on a particular holiday, but the origins are rooted in the Victorian Era.

For the most part, a good portion of the population will eat three meals per day being breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast in the Victorian Era was a fairly common practice. Foods included for breakfast could include some familiar foods like fruits, scones, and bacon. However, breakfast could also include bull’s eye, meat, fish, and poultry. Afternoon tea was a popular practice that much of the population practiced. For dinner, depending on the season, Victorian households would eat chicken, soups, and stews. These meals would be accompanied by fresh vegetables.

The Dining Experience

The ideal Victorian woman, ‘the Angel of the House,’ were females who perfectly combined the management of their households, making it attractive and comfortable for everyone in the family, and providing medical, spiritual and physical care to its members. This physical care took a very artistic and liberating turn in history when dining and cooking suddenly became fashionable pastimes. Factors that encouraged this innovation were improvement in kitchen safety, availability of ingredients, and the influence of the female aesthetic. With the new, positive view that “cooking was a high art practised by geniuses,” middle and upper class Victorian women in the home began to express their creativity for the first time, much as male artists had always been able to do.

Company for Dinner

Victorian Dining Room, Waddesdon Manor

Dining became an elaborate event that took planning and skill to pull off, and hosting fancy dinner parties was a new way to artistically define one’s social class in Victorian England. Instead of cooks and servants, middle and upper class women began to fill their spare time by making complicated dishes to impress family members and guests. This ultimately transformed the mundane tasks of cooking and eating into artful experiences all their own.

With this fashionable dining rave, multiple courses per meal and a bill of fare, a guideline to plan menus, became popular. A three course meal, for example, would consist first of soups with fish, second of meats or roasts or stews, third of game and pastry, ending with salads and cheese and liquor. Setting the table was an important part of the dinning aesthetic as well, and company suppers included expensive silverware and china, with table decorations of “glass, linen, fruits, foliage, flowers, colours, [and] lights.”

Eating and Cooking at Home

The Victorian Era was also an age of eating at home as a family. Middle and upper class breakfasts, which typically consisted of porridge, eggs, fish and bacon, were eaten together as a family, as well as Sunday Lunches, a meal of meat, potatoes, vegetables and gravy. Family meals cooked by women of the house became common events that linked the comforts of home with this newly recognized art form.

However, Victorian England began to be known throughout Europe for its bland, disgusting food, since hunger and flavor were associated with sexual desires. British chefs like Mrs. A. B. Marshall encouraged boiling and mutating food until it no longer tasted or resembled its original form. Many housewives started cooking in this fashion since it was the only ‘safe’ way to encounter food. On the other hand, Elizabeth Robins Pennell was an evocative figure who promoted originality, not only by encouraging women to become creative in the kitchen, but also by urging the necessity of it stating that “cooking is the ultimate form of art.”

Diet

The Victorian diet varied depending on an individual’s rank in the class system. If one could afford the lifestyle, healthier options were chosen over unhealthy. A common breakfast featured bread topped with drippings ( fat and juices from meat) or lard with watercress on the side. Other breakfasts may have eggs, bacon, porridge, etc. Other meals throughout the day featured a meat: poultry and game was popular, however, fish offered an affordable alternative. The meat was then served with vegetables and potatoes and gravy. Poorer families often ate stews with the cheapest vegetables and meat. The sick were fed hearty meals for strength with minimal flavoring to avoid over stimulation.

Food Preparation

The Victorian era brought about many significant advancements in how food was handled, ultimately helping pave the way for how food is viewed in today’s society. In the early 19th century, food was still being produced locally due to approximately 4/5th of the population residing in the countryside . Then came the Industrial Revolution which completely changed the entire landscape of the country. Once the population shifted into the cities, the rise of the railway made it possible for food to be transported quickly. In order for the food to remain fresh for longer periods of time, Victorians used many different methods to preserve their food. Various innovations such as soups, dried eggs, condensed milk, and bottled sauces all contributed to the distribution of food, as well as increasing the shelf life . Another innovation that emerged from the Victorian era was the canning of meat in factories, which allowed for meat to be transported easier and stored for longer periods of time. In 1865, Britain’s first large-scale meat-canning factory was opened and within a few years “every middle-class kitchen had a tin opener” . Also, the refrigerated transportation of meat became a possibility in 1880. This opened up endless opportunities for England, allowing for imports from the Americas, as well as making meat significantly more affordable and popular among all classes.

Household books, which contained various recipes, how tos, and tips for the house were a commonality in the Victorian era. A popular book in particular,  The Varnum-Hill Family Household Book details countless recipes for pickling and preserving foods. One recipe for preserving tomatoes went as follows: “ Take of small ripe Tomatoes one peck, stick them full of holes or take the skins off by scalding them; make a syrup of eight pound of sugar and put them in it with eight lemons sliced and some ginger in a bag boiled with them - boil slowly three hours; take the tomatoes out and boil the syrup until done”.  

Cleanliness in the Kitchen

Victorians felt that in order for the kitchen to be able to function properly, it must be as clean as possible. The duties of maintaining the kitchen fell on women due to the simple fact that they were “generally considered superior to those of the other sex in cleanliness” . Victorians placed great emphasis on attention to detail and being meticulous, ensuring that everything in the kitchen be put away and cleaned at the end of the day. Cleanliness was considered to be “the first virtue” of cooking . Various utensils such as saucepans, gridirons, troughs, etc, were to be cleaned and put away after use, ensuring they kept their shine and were free of rust. Cloth napkins needed to be washed every day after dinner. Also, the Victorians took special care of the utensils that were used for cooking sweet dishes such as pudding cloths and molds. Instead of using soap, which they felt tainted the flavor, they used wood ashes to clean those utensils . One of the most important tasks in a Victorian kitchen was making sure it was properly cleaned and maintained.

Cookbooks

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

During this time period the cookbook was popularized among the middle class, the most popular of these was Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management which was first published in 1861. After Mrs. Beeton’s book was popularized, Almanacs and magazines began to dedicate sections to share recipes among their subscribers. These books, which discussed Philosophy, Science and Nature were especially popular among women because it showed they were educated enough to read and discussed such topics.

Curry and Spices

Before the colonization of India, England was considered to have some of the blandest food to be found. Charles Pierce, author of The Household Manager and The Art of Cookery (1857), expresses concern that "there is nothing else in which England is so much behind the rest of the civilized world as in her eating.” Food in England was made as fuel to live; not a celebration of flavor, therefore it was very bland compared to the “passionate, seductive foods of the Orient.” The spices brought from India during the peak of the British colonization created a cultural explosion that revolutionized how food was made in England. Indian Curry was popularized by Queen Victoria and soon Indian cuisine was beginning to rival the British homestead of Fish and Chips.

Tea

Tea was popularized in 1706 by Thomas Twinings who allowed women to enter his shops to purchase their own tea, a practice that was previously unheard of . Because of this most women who purchased tea would buy from Twinings making the business prosper. By 1733 the British  East India Company lost its monopoly on tea and the price of tea dropped drastically. This caused the average British citizen to purchase 3.26 pounds of tea per year by 1860, per individual.