CLICK FOR FULL PAGE


I have a library book about Victorian Cotswold Village Life and it gives the guidelines for feeding paupers in the workhouse 'so they Thrive and maintain Good Health'.

Two meals a day:

Each able-bodied man received a daily breakfast of
6oz bread, 1oz cheese.

Women:  5oz bread, 1 oz butter.

-------

Dinner:  ONE of the following options

3 times a week:  one and a half pints soup.
2 x a week:  5oz cooked meat and 8oz potatoes
1 x a week:  Bacon and Vegetables (6 oz)
1 x a week: suet pudding 14 oz (12oz for women)


Each day a small breakfast and one sparse other meal, no tea or supper or lunch.

I wonder if they  were weak, starved and emaciated on that small diet or whether they were actually rather fitter (excluding vitamin deficiency perhaps!) than we are today, waddling around after our 3 daily meals plus ad-lib snacks?
'I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr. Bumble,' said the undertaker.

'You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his cane.

'Think so?' said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half disputed the probability of the event. 'The prices allowed by the board are very small, Mr. Bumble.'

'So are the coffins,' replied the beadle: with precisely as near an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.

Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; and laughed a long time without cessation. 'Well, well, Mr. Bumble,' he said at length, 'there's no denying that, since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble. Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.'

(Oliver Twist)
I think the workhouse was designed to be so horrible that people preferred to work for real and pay their rent rather than go in there. And for women who got themselves pregnant by men who could not support them , like Olivers mother.

It was probably people without much of a family I think. Looking at previous censuses so many people all crammed in small houses so I suppose if people had a family at least some in the family would earn enough to pay the rent and as much food as in the workhouse.

It was discriminatory wasn't it, why do men get cheese and women get butter.  

I do think that some sugary things are essential to brains. Obviously not the whole bar of chocolate at a time that we stuff our faces with these days.

And did they get cups of tea?
:cuppa

The very young and the very old (that was probably about 40 in those days) did get a milk allowance but not anyone in the middle.

No mention of tea:  it was probably only for the Rich.  But they did sometimes get a beer allowance (kids too)   :beer
Thingummie Major lost all his extra weight the last two months, dieting and exercising. He is now down to his high school weight, [when he was the center for his football team, and won his weight class in the state wrestling championship.]

Boy howdy, does he look good.

A lot of his slimming diet involved drinking broth or bullion when he felt hungry.

Seems like unthickened soup is an excellent dieting item.
:clap  Thingummie Major!

I like the broth idea.  I bought a swimsuit this morning - and would like a bit less of me to be on show come swimming time  :blush - the soup-pan beckons.
Are you off on sunny  holidays that need a swimsuit or are you going to the swimming baths. Either way you have my sympathy.

Bullion to me means gold and silver bars. It must mean something else in USA.
I guess it is from the French 'bouillon' for soup - literally 'boiled' I think!

Furby we are staying at the Alton Towers Hotel in September.  Last year my feet got so tired  traipsing round the park all day I could hardly hobble down to dinner (obviously a worrying moment but I made it :lol) so this year Jay and I are booking a Spa session which requres a swimsuit (haven't owned one for years) but hopefully no actual swimming, just lazing around in a jacuzzi with foot-jets to pummel my poor sad little feet.

Aqua Room

Foot reflexology Give tired feet an instant lift with our effervescent footbath where underwater jets massage the feet and ankles to relieve pressure


When I am rich I will have one of those in my house.
Oliver Twist is a wonderful novel, and so full of Dickens' wit that is almost always missing in the dramatisations. Bumble is proud of being a 'parochial' beadle whilst obviously not actually understanding what the word means. But it is a big word so he uses it to impress.

In the same novel, Dickens mentions the owner of a horse who is convinced that given enough time and training he can gradually reduce his horse's feed until he can actually exist on nothing at all. He'd almost got it when the horse died on him.
Naw I just typed carelessly and spelled it wrong. Merry has it right, bouillon.

I think folks in England call it stock cubes or some such. It's basically dehydrated meagre broth.

The ones I've got are only 5 to 10 calories per serving, and it makes you feel like you're having soup, kind of kills the craving to snack. If you have it nice and hot, you have to sip it slowly and it lasts a good long time and gives your musch something to do. heh.

Between fresh fruit and meagre soup, you can snack without adding much in the way of calories.

Swimsuits are very inspiring, aren't they?
Next Page...



Hosted by Arvixe