1797 Workhouse Diet Day 7: Food for Thought

Day 7 Stodge-ometer rating: 5/10

I got very excited on the last day of the diet. I'm not talking a little bit jittery, I'm talking sweaty-palms-and-butterflies-in-the-tummy levels. You know, like when you hear the sound of a cheering audience or glimpse a new sparkly dress. Or is that just me?

Obviously the day's food was not the cause of my excitement. It was merely a repeat of a previous day; gruel for breakfast, stew for lunch and broth & bread for supper.

Here's a YouTube clip of me getting excited at breakfast time. I was so excited I accidentally called it video No.7 instead of No.8.

My great excitement was, of course, because I'd successfully completed the first of the diets. I didn't have to go without tea or biscuits any longer! 

However, 24 hours later I've only had one cup of 'real' tea, and no biscuits other than medicinal fig rolls -and I need not expand any further on those. 

In spite of all predictions, all I wanted when I got to the end was oranges, orange juice, and dried fruit and nuts. And I had a green smoothie too, to pack in a bit of goodness. To be honest, I haven't fancied anything REALLY sugary, like biscuits, in the slightest (not even Lemon Puffs). 

Has this diet made me lose my incredibly 'sweet tooth'? Maybe it has. This shocking revelation made me ponder about various other surprises the 1797 diet had to offer.

Here are some things I noticed while on the 1797 diet: 

• I had blinding headaches for the first two and a half days.
• I suffered painful bloating on the first day.
• Beer for breakfast made me sluggish and woozy.
• My -ahem- 'digestive transit' slowed right down.
• The meals took a lot of eating! Much more chewing required.
• I got big dark circles around my eyes.
• People kept telling me I looked pale.
• I was physically incapable of remaining awake beyond 9.30pm.
• I felt increasingly lethargic and sluggish through the week. 
• I was psychotically looking forward to oranges by the end of the week.

On the bright side, I was never, ever hungry- not even once. 

Would the inmates of 1797 have felt hungry on the same rations? The simple answer is, we can't tell. This experiment has, so far, raised more questions than it has answered. Dietician Lucy's prognosis was gloomy, but historians at Gressenhall wondered whether inmates really did work that hard every single day and burn off all those calories? We'll never know. We haven't found records to back up the nutritional deficit we now know would have caused inmates dental problems and hair-loss; but if it happened, it was probably as unremarkable then as it is startling now, so its reasonable to assume that nobody would have bothered to write it down. 

How did the diet in the workhouse compare to that of people in the surrounding villages? Was it better, or worse?

If Gressenhall Workhouse was known as  "The Paupers' Palace", the implication is that conditions were better inside than outside those daunting gates. The tough 1834 legislation to deter entrance into the place indicates the same thing.

We can theoretically try to compare 1797 diets inside and outside the Workhouse, but realistically I can only compare it to my own, modern eating. I'm interested in the   tangible, burpy, bloaty, sleepy, human experience, which is, after all, why I'm doing it. The 'Voices from the Workhouse' were probably muted by flatulence and muffled by toothless yawning. The 1797 diet yet was tricky for me; I think the 1834 diet will be considerably worse. In the meantime, I shall enjoy the wide variety of delicious fruits and vegetables freely available in 2014 and feel lucky to be me, now.

The next part of this project is the 1834 diet which begins on Monday 12th May.

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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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1797 Workhouse Diet Day 1: Beer, Gruel, and Radios.

Day One's Stodge-ometer Rating: 6/10. 

It has begun! Yesterday's sumptuous 1797 workhouse menu:

Breakfast:

1pt beer, 6oz rye bread, 2oz Edam cheese.

Dinner:

1pt onion gruel.

Supper:

1pt beer, 6oz rye bread, 2oz cheese, 
a choice of treacle or butter.

A couple of 'firsts' for me yesterday. I ate my breakfast under media scrutiny, which is not something I've done before. I started eating it on 'Wake Up with Whiteley', the breakfast show on our local BBC radio station. The host, David Whiteley, was genuine charm personified, and asked all the right questions. You can hear the interview for the next seven days. Click here and fwd to 2:20 to listen. 

The other 'first' was, of course, consuming beer at breakfast. It was very low alcohol, and drinking it at 8am was not as bad as I anticipated, but it did make me feel a bit giddy (and caused lots of burps, if the truth be known).

Then another radio interview: North Norfolk Radio's Dick Hutcheson and I had a quick phone chat on air and made a date to do the same next week. Following this modest media frenzy, I gained some extra Twitter and Facebook followers- hurrah!

I found the breakfast filling, but then again I didn't do much physical activity in the morning. The rye bread is extremely chewy and tough. Click here to each a YouTube film showing the ingredients.

My intention was to have milk pottage at lunch time, but I still haven't managed to find a definitive 1797 recipe, so I went for the gruel, adding onions for a bit of flavour. It was joyless gloop, as expected. It took half an hour to eat and made me very bloated, on top of the breakfast beer. 

To prove that I ate it all up, here's a my empty bowl:

I had to eat supper after performing in a concert. My fellow singers were all tucking into a beautiful buffet as I gnawed at my dry rye bread. 

Bread in the workhouse was very low quality, solid, cheap stuff. Rye bread was a particular Norfolk favourite and mine was made for me (watch it being made on YouTube here). It turned out to be a good replica! I was almost tempted to dip it in the beer to make it easier to chew. 

It made me wonder: How did toothless workhouse inmates manage? It was very slow-going, and the added flavour from the small amount of cheese was most welcome. The diet allows an extra treat of a bit of treacle in the evening; a sugary tonic in an otherwise savoury day.

As Day 1 draws to a close, my bloating has diminished and I am already craving fruit, but feeling ok, and not hungry. Interestingly, the worst thing for me about missing out on the buffet was not the food, but the shared experience. 

As always, easy links to all the social media platforms are just below. Feel free to comment or ask questions, too.

Lights, Cameras, Action! The First Ever Workhouse Diet Video is available!

If you were to be so bold as to click on this link to YouTube  you would find me in my kitchen rabbitting on about Pease Pottage.This link shows a second video in which, having tasted the Pease Pottage, I nearly vomit.

I have finally successfully filmed and published the first of many videos for this project. My ten year old son George is my cameraman, and I predict that the viewer may well feel George's presence quite definitely during the videos.

But never, no never (well, hardly ever*) in my wildest dreams did I imagine that going back 200 years to try living as a workhouse inmate would involve learning about many futuristic new technologies. 

I already knew how to 'blog' (my other life as a 'Royal' freelance speaker and singer is well-documented in my blog, What Queenie Did Next), but now, I also know how to sync my iPad, auto-update my Google Plus, create and manage a You Tube account, Twitter with two different personalities, Tweet, Retweet, and Follow others. In return, I now have over 100 people Following me. 

I am truly grateful for their interest and I feel as though I should at least offer them all a cup of tea- but I'm not allowed any on this 1797 diet.

Do check out and 'like' my Workhouse Diet Facebook page by clicking here, and consider becoming my disciple- er, follower-  on Twitter (@workhousediet).

Checkout Gressenhall's website to see what's happening there and in other Norfolk Museums- and look out for a big feature on this project in the EDP in the next couple of weeks! The Workhouse Diet itself begins on 29th April...

*Gilbert & Sullivan. Sorry. Quoting from old songs is like a nervous tic for me.