A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson Page B
Authors: Michael Paterson
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bottle, from which the air should be completely excluded. 7
Another cookbook then recommended:
Two tablespoons of meat curry paste, a tablespoon of curry powder, and as much flour as may be required to thicken the quantity of sauce needed. 8
A similar national institution was chutney. This means of preserving fruit or vegetables by a form of pickling (the difference was that in chutney the ingredients were pounded rather than left in large pieces, and that sweet ingredients were included) was actually used by Indians, although the British took it home and made it their own. Once again, British firms quickly produced a range of these products (and at least one such Victorian firm, Sharwood’s, is still in business), which became a familiar sight on the shelves of grocers.
Many other products also became familiar, for with developments in printing the possibilities for producing, at small cost, colourful and elaborate packaging greatly increased. Whether on paper bags, cardboard packets or tins, eye-catching slogans, detailed pictures (showing the product itself or some other image) and striking lettering began to command the attentionof shoppers. Some products – such as Lea and Perrin’s Sauce or Lyle’s Golden Syrup – have kept their Victorian labelling to this day. Many items that we still consume had their origins in the Victorian era, as did some of the places from which we buy them (Sainsbury’s, for instance, began trading in 1869). A glance at any picture of a nineteenth-century streetscape will show, through a wealth of placards and posters on walls and on the sides of buses, the power of advertising and the extent to which products were thrust into public awareness: Fry’s Chocolate, Keen’s Mustard, Keiller’s Dundee Marmalade, Bovril and Oxo. The era of mass advertising, as well as the world of standardized food products in which we ourselves unquestionably live, began with the Victorians.
Ready Meals
‘Convenience food’ was as much a characteristic of Victorian times as of our own. There were both sit-down dining-rooms in which quick meals could be consumed, and kerbside stalls at which refreshment could be taken standing. These were hugely popular, not just because they were fast and cheap but because for many thousands of the poor there was no alternative way to eat.
A great proportion of the urban poor had no cooking facilities, and in the cramped, highly inflammable buildings in which they lived the risk of accident would outweigh the benefits of lighting a cooking fire. Vegetables could be had cheaply, but could not easily be prepared. Thus people bought hot or cold food in the streets or bought ingredients and paid someone else to prepare them. Because whole generations had grown up in this way, there were numerous families in which not even the mother possessed basic cooking skills.
Street Food
To serve the needs of this vast group of customers, there were thousands of street vendors selling both food and drink, luxuries and necessities. The men and women who dealt in comestibles might walk through a city, selling as they went, or set up a stall, a barrow or a pitch at some strategic place and wait for custom. Sellers of fruit or watercress (the latter were usually little girls) would need only a tray or a basket, while those who sold pies, gingerbread, chestnuts or potatoes would have to carry not only the viands themselves but the means – usually a charcoal oven – of preparing them. There was a hierarchy among street-traders, and those who merely carried a basket were at the bottom of it. The owners of stalls and complex equipment, who might be helped by family members or even paid assistants, were at the top. Some of these tradesmen had followed their specialist calling for a considerable time; Charles Spurgeon photographed in 1884 a ‘champion pie-maker’ whose sign claimed that he had been in business for ‘upwards of 50 years’. Henry Mayhew, who made a study of these
Another cookbook then recommended:
Two tablespoons of meat curry paste, a tablespoon of curry powder, and as much flour as may be required to thicken the quantity of sauce needed. 8
A similar national institution was chutney. This means of preserving fruit or vegetables by a form of pickling (the difference was that in chutney the ingredients were pounded rather than left in large pieces, and that sweet ingredients were included) was actually used by Indians, although the British took it home and made it their own. Once again, British firms quickly produced a range of these products (and at least one such Victorian firm, Sharwood’s, is still in business), which became a familiar sight on the shelves of grocers.
Many other products also became familiar, for with developments in printing the possibilities for producing, at small cost, colourful and elaborate packaging greatly increased. Whether on paper bags, cardboard packets or tins, eye-catching slogans, detailed pictures (showing the product itself or some other image) and striking lettering began to command the attentionof shoppers. Some products – such as Lea and Perrin’s Sauce or Lyle’s Golden Syrup – have kept their Victorian labelling to this day. Many items that we still consume had their origins in the Victorian era, as did some of the places from which we buy them (Sainsbury’s, for instance, began trading in 1869). A glance at any picture of a nineteenth-century streetscape will show, through a wealth of placards and posters on walls and on the sides of buses, the power of advertising and the extent to which products were thrust into public awareness: Fry’s Chocolate, Keen’s Mustard, Keiller’s Dundee Marmalade, Bovril and Oxo. The era of mass advertising, as well as the world of standardized food products in which we ourselves unquestionably live, began with the Victorians.
Ready Meals
‘Convenience food’ was as much a characteristic of Victorian times as of our own. There were both sit-down dining-rooms in which quick meals could be consumed, and kerbside stalls at which refreshment could be taken standing. These were hugely popular, not just because they were fast and cheap but because for many thousands of the poor there was no alternative way to eat.
A great proportion of the urban poor had no cooking facilities, and in the cramped, highly inflammable buildings in which they lived the risk of accident would outweigh the benefits of lighting a cooking fire. Vegetables could be had cheaply, but could not easily be prepared. Thus people bought hot or cold food in the streets or bought ingredients and paid someone else to prepare them. Because whole generations had grown up in this way, there were numerous families in which not even the mother possessed basic cooking skills.
Street Food
To serve the needs of this vast group of customers, there were thousands of street vendors selling both food and drink, luxuries and necessities. The men and women who dealt in comestibles might walk through a city, selling as they went, or set up a stall, a barrow or a pitch at some strategic place and wait for custom. Sellers of fruit or watercress (the latter were usually little girls) would need only a tray or a basket, while those who sold pies, gingerbread, chestnuts or potatoes would have to carry not only the viands themselves but the means – usually a charcoal oven – of preparing them. There was a hierarchy among street-traders, and those who merely carried a basket were at the bottom of it. The owners of stalls and complex equipment, who might be helped by family members or even paid assistants, were at the top. Some of these tradesmen had followed their specialist calling for a considerable time; Charles Spurgeon photographed in 1884 a ‘champion pie-maker’ whose sign claimed that he had been in business for ‘upwards of 50 years’. Henry Mayhew, who made a study of these
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