1901: The Last Suppers

It's finished. The Workhouse Diet ended as it began; an early morning interview on local BBC radio, and me feeling disproportionately excited about the whole thing.

This week I've left out the gruel but cooked main meals for myself and my family from the 1901 Workhouse Manual. This was a recipe book and cookery guide issued to all workhouse cooks after a damning Governmental report of workhouse food standards nationwide.

The manual includes recipes for adults, children and 'invalids'. Adults and children all got tea and even cocoa this time around (extra milk used for the kiddies) and the sick  were treated to lemonade. Unsurprisingly, I already know how to make tea, so I tried the Edwardian lemonade. It was certainly sweet and lemony, but not fizzy.

Poorly inmates were also served restorative Beef Tea (a strong, reduced beef stock, really). I've been fascinated by the idea of Beef Tea since reading The Railway Children as a child: 'Mother' was prescribed Beef Tea, but they couldn't afford it. Anyway, the way I made it, it tasted like weak Bovril and I wasn't very keen. I expect it would have been considered a most nutritious broth in 1901, though.

I had more success with Pasties. The Manual was part of a national standardisation campaign, so regional favourites from all corners of Great Britain were included. The pasties I made were just like Cornish Pasties, only less tasty. There's a YouTube film of my Triumphant Pasty-Making available here.

Another notable meal was Sea Pie. I have no idea why it is called Sea Pie. There is nothing briny or nautical about it, no fish in it, no cockles or mussels (alive, alive-oh or otherwise). Not even a touch of Piratical Rum. It was just a pie, albeit one with a bit of a slimy crust, due to steaming. I used my slow cooker to replicate the low, steady warmth of a Workhouse Kitchen Range. If you'd like to witness the entirely landlocked nature of my Sea Pie, there's another YouTube film here.

The greatest success of the week was Roley Poley Pudding. This was a splendid lump of jam-smothered suet pastry tied up in a cloth and boiled to Kingdom Come. Delivered, oozing and steaming, onto a plate, it looked like an albino lung, but tasted WONDERFUL. Again, a YouTube film here (this film also mentions the gorgeous personalised plate in the photo at the top).

The recipes for all these items are available in the Workhouse Cookery Book by Peter Higginbotham, and reproduced from the original in the '1901 Recipes' page of this blog.

I've been asked whether I'm planning to do one of my 'talks' about the workhouse diet. I'm not. But I am going to put together some sort of report or conclusion; maybe as part of this blog, or maybe as a separate publication. Watch this space!

One thing is certain: as a result of Living The Workhouse Diet, my empathy for the workhouse inmates has risen a thousandfold, as has my appreciation for the variety and tastiness of the foods I have available to me in 2014.

My knowledge about cookery has been increased too. I think I might start making my own pastry again instead of buying frozen- I'd forgotten how quick and easy it is. And best of all, I've definitely kicked the sugar habit!

I've been impressed that my ten-year-old son, George, has been prepared to try all the strange foods laid before him over the last few weeks, and he deserves a great big thank you for being such an able cameraman. I'm very grateful that my colleagues and friends and, most of all, my partner Martyn have been so patient with my gruel-induced mood swings and continuous Social Media updating. Thank you!

You Have Been Watching

George Duffield (Camera & Food-Tasting)

Lucy Child (Dietary Advice)

Martyn Shults (Food-Tasting & Eye-Rolling)

and...

Rachel Duffield

To be continued...

1797 Workhouse Diet Day 6: Suet Pud and a Pasty Face

Day Six Stodge-ometer Rating: 8/10

At last- something with a bit of cakey bakiness to it: suet pudding!

I used the ingredients from Peter Higginbotham's excellent website www.workhouses.org, and the only 'method' available was the later version in my lovely, century-old copy of Mrs Beeton (before you say it, I know it's the wrong date, but no one seems to have written it down in 1797).

Here it is. I baked it instead of steaming, and it is, in fact, a giant dumpling. 

I microwaved it to eat for lunch at work, and I enjoyed the change of texture, after endless rye bread. The taste was ok- a little bland, and very greasy, extremely filling. I couldn't finish it! I wonder if the inmates would have been able to, if they'd been working physically all morning? Is this an indicator of appetite or lifestyle differences?

Breakfast had been bread with butter, and beer (though I didn't have the beer) and supper was, inevitably, bread and cheese, and more beer (I did drink the evening alcohol).

People keep telling me I look pale. So I guess I look pale. I feel alright, though increasingly lacking in energy. As Day Seven, the last day of the 1797 diet, approaches, I'm wondering what I'll eat for my first normal meal. All I really want is some fruit. 

And of course, the remaining Easter chocolate has been making eyes at me all week. I may just have to invite it out on a date tomorrow night. I predict a brief, but passionate affair!

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No Cuppa With Me Supper

Tea is definitely my favourite hot beverage. 

For me, tea is so much more than just a pleasant way to rehydrate: it wakes me up in the mornings, gets me through a busy day at work, and helps me relax in the evenings. I'm not the only one- like many other British folk, I have an automatic 'make tea' stress response. I turn to the teapot for solace, distraction, procrastination, and warmth. In truth, I actually love the stuff.


In 17 days, on the 29th April 2014, I will be embarking on the first week of my Workhouse Diet, which will follow the 1797 inmates' diet. 

SPOILER ALERT: IT DOESN'T CONTAIN ANY TEA!

Astonishingly, even whilst reading that I would be drinking beer at breakfast time on this diet, the penny didn't drop that the beer would be replacing my usual double dose of tea.

Maybe it was a classic case of denial, but I had possession of that diet sheet for two whole weeks before the enormity and horror of the lack of tea situation truly struck me. 

When it did strike, it was like a terrible caffeine-free thunderbolt. I was thinking about how I'd miss biscuits, and dunking them, while on the diet (I love a dunked ginger knob:don't judge me). Then I suddenly gasped as I realised that there would be No Tea in which to dunk my No Biscuits.*

The reason is simple. In 1797, 'my' workhouse at Gressenhall near Dereham (link here) was known as a House of Industry. There, as in many other Parish Houses, they drank beer because the water wasn't safe. The teeny amount of alcohol in the 'small beer' or 'table beer' drunk twelve times a week by inmates was enough to kill the bugs. 

So why not drink tea? The boiling would, after all, also sterilise the water. The assumption is that tea was too expensive, but Peter Higginbotham's 'Workhouse Cookbook' (buy it here) tells us that in the 1790s, tea and sugar were regularly bought by labourers, so we can conclude that money was not the issue preventing workhouses serving tea to inmates. 

No, according to Higginbotham's research, the decision to restrict tea consumption was a moral judgement call. He says 'tea was often still viewed as a luxury the poor should do without'. He tells us that in some workhouses tea was only for the sick or elderly, and as late as 1899 a Scottish Board Official deemed that 'excessive tea-drinking by women accounts largely for the number of pauper lunatics'. 

There you have it: tea makes you go mad. It explains a lot. 

However, caffeine-withdrawal aside, I think I may just go mad without it. 

Sympathy now please.

*I've started weaning myself onto the low-caffeine green tea, which I find surprisingly acceptable, although it is no good for dunking. But then again, I thought I'd better wean myself off biscuits as well, so it's probably for the best.

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The Beer Necessities

With three weeks to go before I embark on this insane dietary odyssey I have had a thorough look at the first diet. This is the one from 1797. Here's a reminder:

Some surprises. Of twenty one meals, 12 are bread, with either cheese, butter or treacle, but only four are Oliver Twist's favourite, gruel. And here's the real jaw-dropper: BEER FOR BREAKFAST? I had a count-up, and twelve of the twenty one meals I'll be eating include beer. Mostly at breakfast time. Now, I am no stranger to the tankard, but beer for breakfast is definitely not what I expected.

I realised I had a few other questions, too. For instance, I haven't a clue what the following meals are:

Milk-broth. Frumenty. Pease-pottage. Milk-pottage.  

I like the sound of Frumenty. It feels as though it should be a bit naughty, and perhaps taking place behind a haystack.

Pease-pottage? I recognise that from nursery rhyme days and can hazard a guess it's made of- well, peas. Let's hope it's not hot, cold or in the pot nine days old.

Milk-pottage sounds disgusting, and I'd like to direct that dairy-based bowl of wickedness to take a long walk off a short cliff. It can take its shameless little sister Milk-broth with it, for that matter.

Other questions popped up: what sort of boiled meat- and how much of it? What type and quantity of bread? And what sort of cheese (please let it be bacon sarnies and Dairylea triangles)?

I've scanned my copies of Delia and Jamie but funnily enough, they don't seem to give cooking instructions for any of these carbohydrate-rich curiosities, or suet pudding, or gruel. But I bet Nigella's got a good recipe for dumplins.

Luckily, I have a team of experts on hand: Megan Dennis, curator at Gressenhall, Steve Pope, researcher and workhouse expert extraordinaire, and Lucy Child, dietician and general all-round Good Egg (Lucy is, incidentally, probably the only egg of any type to feature in this diet).

Steve says the cheese would be made backwards*, and the bread would be more or less the sweepings off the mill floor. He says the main beverage would be beer due to necessity, the low alcohol content being enough to kill the bugs dwelling in the 18th century water supply.

Megan says that the vegetables 'served in great plenty' would be just that, but none of us really know what sort of size the portions were. Our educated guesses tell us that if there were less people in the workhouse, there would be more food per person.

Lucy reckons the bread would be similar to rye bread, and the diet won't kill me.

Steve has recommended a book of recipes and suggested I get on with it.


Living The Workhouse Diet:1797 begins on April 26th 2014. Follow Rachel on Twitter @workhousediet or on her Facebook page 

*Edam. It's the cheesiest joke in the world.