10.The Poor Diet Of The Urban Poor

Less fortunate members of society had a hard time in the Victorian era, often starving. So what’s up? Well, in earlier centuries, the lower classes of England had a feast or famine existence: they either had bread, cheese and meat or they did not. In Victorian times, things were not so clear cut. Industrialization had almost ensured a constant level of food production, making famine (in England at least) a thing of the past. However, individual cases of famine did not dissipate. The cost of food was high, even the growing middle class had to spend around 50% of its income on food. For poorer families, it was a life of potato peelings, animal fat in poor-quality bread, rotten vegetables, and the most fibrous cuts of meat, if anything. This growth stunted and contributed to a considerably lower life expectancy for the urban poor. Throw in a healthy dose of food adulteration scandals, no or few safety precautions, and a population boom and you have a recipe for disaster (pun intended) But they did drink tea, this was England after all. .

9.Delicacy Fit For A Zombie

Whether it’s a fast food restaurant, a backyard barbecue grill, or wagyu patties served with wasabi mayo, gold leaf, and shaved truffles at a poser restaurant, everyone loves a good burger. Some things don’t change: If you were a Victorian housewife who wanted to do a bit of “making,” you could make some “brain pies” – hamburger-like fried meat patties … made with brains.
This recipe comes from “Modern Kitchen for Private Families” by Eliza Acton, the most Victorian lady of her age: “Wash and soak the brain well in cold water and then in hot water; free from skin and large fibers and boil them in lightly salted water for two to three minutes. The brains are then pounded with some seasonings and egg yolks and fried in butter. The recipe ends by adding “Sometimes you add a teaspoon of flour and a little lemon zest. “Yes, that lemon zest will make a difference: prion diseases are commonly cured with lemon, all doctors know that …

8.Gruel? Try Stirabout

Orphans, inhabitants of workhouses or prisoners dragging balls and chains, all forced to eat porridge; This is the picture of hard times in the Victorian era. Thanks, Dickens! This is a mistake. The diet of these poor and unfortunate souls was actually quite supportive, especially compared to the nutrient-deficient diet of the working poor. They also had a (slightly) more varied diet: whole wheat bread, small beer, even fish and dairy products from time to time (as shown in the picture). This does not mean that they always enjoyed their food while institutionalized – the porridge was simple, but very elegant. compared to the hated ‘Stirabout’, the tasteless, gloomy and strange cousin of porridge. Sure, if you combine a daily helping of watery porridge made from cornmeal, oatmeal, and salt with a long day of physical work, you’ll leave the institution with a lean physique, abs, and triceps bulging like baby heads. But his taste buds will be withered husks in the desert landscape of a tongue.

7.Ass Milk

If we can drink the pale mammary drippings of cows, goats, and, uh, soybeans, why not donkey’s milk? In fact, there isn’t much wrong with donkey milk, per se. It is becoming a fashionable food again, used as a healthy alternative to plain milk and in the manufacture of luxury cosmetics. In fact, donkey milk has been used by various cultures since ancient times. So how did you get on a horrible food list? Prepare for a disturbing mental image … The Victorian era had many orphaned babies. In France, motherless babies were often neglected, dying at an alarmingly high rate. One man who identified this problem was Dr. Parrot from the “Hospital des Enfents Assistés” in France. He proposed killing two birds with one stone, combating lack of maternal contact and nutritional deficiencies in orphaned babies. Genius! Parrot carried the babies directly onto a donkey and allowed them to suckle directly from the beast’s nipple. Donkey milk was used throughout Europe for sick patients, the elderly, and babies well into the 20th century. Allowing babies to suck on donkey bites (thankfully) never caught on.

6.Love In Disg

Paul Simon’s classic song “Mother-Son Reunion” took its title from a dish Simon had seen on a Chinese restaurant menu. It was a dish that included chicken and egg; hence the mother met her son. If you find this name a bit off putting, wait until you figure out what’s behind the fun Victorian plate ‘Love in Disguise’ pun. This “nice side dish” is found in ‘The Complete Economical Cook, and Frugal Housewife’ written by Mary Holland, 1837. It consists of a “stuffed” (well cleaned) veal heart wrapped in minced meat (pureed lean meat, such as the inside of a sausage) and rolled into crushed vermicelli noodles. Then he puts it in the oven in a plate filled with a little water. Once a good heart juice liqueur has formed, serve. One question remains …

“Filler” of what?

5.No, This Is Food, We Swear!

For an American, a cookie is a soft, fluffy bed of dough that can rest a little satiny sauce on. For an Englishman, they are sweet, crunchy little critters that are best dipped in tea before eating. To a Victorian-era sailor, they were the embodiment of doom: indestructibly hard cakes, simple as hell. Ship biscuits, or hard biscuits, were a staple aboard English ships since Tudor times. They became a ubiquitous mainstay in the rapidly professionalizing Royal Navy gallants of the Victorian era; valued for their caloric density, ease of mass production, and ensuring morale remained low. Ok, not the last one, but it was an unfortunate result of months and years eating these bricks. But at the very least, sailors could expect a little extra protein when consuming the ship’s biscuits – the lack of modern storage technologies ensured the weevil infestation. These insects added much-needed texture and a refreshing, bitter taste to otherwise boring cookies. Or he convinced the sailors that the drowning might not be that bad. It took until the late 19th century for experts to find a solution for such infestations: the cookie tin!

4.Chaudfroid Delights

The term “Chaudfroid” (hot-cold) is a term within French cuisine that denotes a hot dish / sauce but served cold, using jelly or aspic. Of course given some of the creations and concoctions from this era, it seems a bit more schadenfreude than chaudfroid. Famous foodie Monsieur Antonin-Carême brings us this classic French sauce, one that will send a chill down your spine. Here’s a modernized recipe: “Remove the skin from the chicken and let it cool in the strained cooking liquid. Soak 3 gelatin sheets in cold water until soft. Dip half a bunch of tarragon in the cooking liquid and reduce to 40 cl (12/3 c). Add the gelatin to dissolve it. Add 30 cl (11/4 cups) of cream, 1 egg yolk and the juice of half a lemon. Spread a thin layer of sauce on a plate. Put it in the refrigerator to see if it curdles Cut the chicken into eight pieces Bone the thighs Dip the chicken pieces, one at a time, in cold sauce, then drain on a wire rack on aluminum foil Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Top the chicken pieces a second time, followed by a third layer of chaud-froid sauce, while allowing the layer to solidify between each layer. Garnish with pine nuts and a few tarragon leaves. Let stand 5-6 hours. Serve with a very fine bean salad or a purslane salad well seasoned “. If you think cold chicken with jelly sauce gives you the creeps, why not try the “turbot chaudfroid”? Jellied cold fish – what are you, a cockney?

3.A Big Plate Of Burlington Whimsey

What a delightfully picturesque name for a dish! This is perhaps the quintessential example of the Victorian penchant for giving the rudest dishes the prettiest names. “Set aside until it is quite cold half of the head of a calf dressed with the previous receipt. If when cutting it the gelatinous part does not appear perfectly tender, cut it well from the head, weigh it and chop; put it in half a liter of good sauce and cook gently for ten to fifteen minutes. Chop as much more than the head as is for a pound of weight after cutting the edges and removing some of the fat “Then you add some spices and a little grated ham … using your trusty ham grater. continues adding “the slices of the tongue have been arranged evenly, and when it is quite cold it will be very firm. It can be garnished, before sending it to the table, with sprigs of parsley, which, however, must be perfectly dry, and when served for dinner or lunch, it can be accompanied by a salad dressing. ”

2.Frontier Foods

Some foods that were once eaten on the fringes of an increasingly colonized world were a bit gross, even if they tasted good: “pemmican”, we’re looking at you; Dried reindeer meat with extracted fat and foraged berries, anyone? In fact, it tastes pretty good. On the fringes of the various empires of the 19th century, it was often best to leave the issue of forage foods to those who had lived in those places for eons. Want to taste those purple berries, weary explorer? Prepare for it to “taste burnt.” The painful death by poison resulted from a simple lack of knowledge (or wisdom). His fancy maps, elephant cannons, and handlebar whiskers won’t save you from an ignorant death, suh. Take the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition of 1860 to 1861. On their return from a cross-country expedition in Australia, the men ran out of food. The local Yandruwandha people tried to help the party by preparing some “cakes” made from the seed pods of a fern called nardoo. After a while, Burke had a sudden attack of “chivalrous-Victorian-rage-toward-the-Indians”, a common condition at the time, and drove off would-be saviors from the party. When the men tried to make their own nardoo cakes while trudging along, they forgot to do one thing: know what the hell they were doing. The cakes were cooked improperly so they did not remove the deadly enzymes the way Aboriginal tribes did. Wills and Burke soon died, full stomachs, but starved to death. Another man in his group, Mr. King, was the only one who survived. How? Going back to the Yandruwandha, who did know what the hell they were doing.

1.All The Little Birdies

For a time when many children were expected to go down the mines or up the chimneys, one can imagine that there was no such thing as “childhood” in Victorian times. How wrong are you! In fact, rural sprogs were free to enjoy the bounty of nature. But this wasn’t so much the “blackberry picking with grandma” kind of fun. Queen Victoria’s chief cook, Charles Francatelli, noted how boys entertained themselves in rural England in 1852: “The industrious and intelligent boys who live in the country are for the most part well trained in the cunning art of catching small birds. … feathers, their heads and claws are cut off, and their gizzards are removed from their sides with the tip of a small knife, and then they deliver the birds to their mother, fried in butter, then wrapped in tallow and boiled ”. This is less “Tom Brown’s School Days” and more Chairman Mao’s “Four Plagues Campaign”, with young children wielding knives.