A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson

mechanics and finances of running a home. She listed, for instance, thirty-seven ‘articles required for the kitchen of a family in the middle class of life’, including one pair of brass candlesticks, one cinder-shifter, one bread-grater and six spoons. She tells readers where to buy them (Messrs Richard & John Slack, 336, Strand) and exactly how much it should all cost: £8 11s 1d. She also informed her audience of what meat, fish, fruit and vegetables were in season during every month: in January, dace, eels, flounders and lampreys were among the fish that could be offered to guests, while in February ‘cod may be bought, but it is not so good as in January’. She warned that ‘in very cold weather, meat and vegetables touched by the frost should be brought into the kitchen early in the morning and soaked in cold water.’ Armed with such a wealth of detailed advice, what young wife could go wrong? Not all of her advice would seem to us sound, or necessary. She cautions, for instance, that ices, a standard finale to a dinner, should not – because their coldness may be a shock to the system after several hot courses – be eaten by elderly people, children (!) or those of delicate constitution.
    One book of this type that was
not
aimed at a bourgeois audience came from an unusual source. Alexis Soyer, a Frenchman (which automatically conferred gravitas on anyone in the world of cookery), was head chef at the Reform Club. He had shown a compassionate nature by opening soup kitchens forthe London poor, and ran similar facilities for soldiers in the Crimea, using a field kitchen of his own design. In 1855 he published a book of sensible and nutritious recipes,
A Shilling Cookery for the People
. It offered no touch of clubland – or indeed French – glamour, for both ingredients and recipes were basic and somewhat lacklustre, but it provided a sound basis for healthy eating on a small budget. It sold almost a quarter of a million copies.
    The propertied classes did not stint themselves when it came to eating. It would give a modern reader indigestion just to examine some of their menus. A typical breakfast might involve bacon and scrambled eggs, chops, kedgeree, snipe and woodcock, often devoured in such quantities that one wonders how they could even get up from the table. Domestic staff in a grand house might have much the same breakfast in the servants’ hall, and at least one account describes how the footmen, having consumed a massive repast, were in the habit of filling the pockets of their livery coats with boiled eggs – to see them through to luncheon.
    The result of such consistent indulgence was, unsurprisingly, a great deal of illness and early death; many otherwise healthy young men did not survive even into their mid-forties because of a diet that was too rich and too extensive. Both ladies and gentlemen wore such tight-fitting clothes that the effects were exacerbated. Their unhealthy eating habits explain the immense and enduring popularity among Victorians of health spas and all manner of ‘cures’, for it is ironic that a people so given to sport and exercise should also have suffered from such excesses.
    Dinners in mid-Victorian households had traditionally been served in the French style, which meant that the components of the meal were all placed on the table together, cluttering its surface with tureens and serving-dishes. Meat was carved by the host at the table, and the plates passed to his guests. Gradually,this habit was replaced by what was known as
à la russe
dining, in which the dishes were all prepared on a sideboard and then handed to guests by the servants. This meant that the table itself was given over to ornamentation: silver set-piece ornaments, complex flower arrangements, elaborate place-settings with folded napkins and desserts on stands that were admired by the guests before being demolished.
    Menus were commonly in French. A sample one, from a dinner at a wealthy private