In the mid-1870s, the woman of an upper-class household planned lunch and evening meals, but she had a cook to actually do the work for her. Because upper-class families were not doing hard physical labor during the day, their largest meal was served in the evening. When they entertained, they served twelve or thirteen course meals. When they dined alone, they ate five or six courses. An example:
Usually, one would eat dinner in late afternoon and then supper at early evening, or dinner at early evening and then supper later at night. You could say Supper is the Victorian mid-night snack ;)
Some other food that was used in the Victorian (judging by when these words were first used in the English language,) are: crêpes, consommé, spaghetto, soufflé, bechamel, ice cream, chowder, meringue, bouillabaisse, mayonnaise, grapefruit, eclair, and chips.
Sources:
calacademy.org
The cambridge encyclopedia of the English language, D. Crystal.
This post is part of a series on cooking! Follow the links to see the other posts:
A Victorian Christmas
Victorian cooking
Victorian kitchens
Links to recipes & etiquette
Hello,
I’m doing a project over victorian cooking and I’ve enjoyed your site very much. I have a question for you. Do you have any information on victorian restaurants in the 1800′s? I cannot seem to find any information on that. Thank you again for making such a great site!!
Cali from the states
Thank you, I’m glad you appreciate my blog!
You’re right, there isn’t a lot of information online. Looking at literature (for example a book like Trollope’s “The way we live now”) I think Victorian restaurants were mostly a place for men, where they could go to get dinner. Most Victorian gentlemen were member of a club, where they could dine, drink, and sometimes gamble. From around the 1820s on, it was more usual for everyone to have their own table, or sit with friends if they invite you, but around 1800 there might be a chance a restaurant would have a big shared table that everyone sits around and helps themselves to dinner.
I think the restaurant as we know it now, where gentlemen can take a lady or where ladies can go by themselves started around the turn of the century, and was not common yet around 1800.
If you want to cite sources I think your best bet is contemporary literature, as mentioned Trollope, but possibly there is also some mentioning of clubs in earlier literature.
Good luck with your project!
hello. i was wondering if you knew anything about what the middle and lower class meals were like in the victorian era. i need this info for a project so a quick respnse is almost necessary thanks so much
Hi Ashton, lowerclass families ate simple meals, for example potatoes and / or soup, and often ate in their kitchens. In Europe it was common to have a warm meal for lunch and bread for dinner, I’m not sure if this was the case for American families as well. If you want to cite a source, have a look at D.H. Lawrence’s story ‘the Odour of Chrysanthemums’ (it should be available to read for free online), in this story a workingclass family waits for the husband to come home for dinner so it can give you some information on how things worked.
Good luck with your project! :)
hi,
i also have a project and was wondering what kind of meals middle class cooked?
I found plum pudding!
I hope that works..haha
Thank you for posting this page, I did not know the Victorians had meringues :D
I’m looking for information on Victorian meals in general, but I have an especial need for Victorian dinner party food. For example, fancy dishes that someone would serve when hosting a grand entertainment dinner for friends and important guests, rather than what a family would eat in a sit down dinner. I’ve found sources on game and side vegetables, but do you have any information on other kinds of main courses, or special desserts? Any info would be useful, thanks. :)
Hi Aleee,
I have written a post on the meals that were served in a dinner for family and multiple friends and acquaintances, which you can see here: http://19thcentury.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/public-lives-womens-position-family-life-dinner-parties/
It gives some desserts as well. For really large feasts it can be assumed that it would be the same sort of food, but with more variety and in larger quantities. I think you might be able to find some info in Victorian society novels like Trollope’s “the way we live now” or works by George Eliot.
Good luck! :)
hey supp
[...] How did people in Victorian Era England outline their meals? I need to do a project for my Hon Brit. Literature…and we're required to do a Victorian Era cookbook. I figured it would be nice to put the different recipes in section (which course they were for). Could somebody please tell me how Victorian English outlined their meals by course? Thanks! ANSWER: Try these, good luck! http://www.victoriaspast.com/DiningRoom/… Victorian Tea Parties – the History of the Tea Tradition! http://www.bricksandbrass.co.uk/people/f… http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/M… http://www.victoriatravelguide.com/trave… http://19thcentury.wordpress.com/2007/11… [...]
hello. I am organising an event at college which i have decided to use a victorian theme. i was wondering if you knew of any victorian games or entertainment that would be suitable to use in a restauraunt after a meal.
I have created the menu and have created a victorian table setting but i am finding it difficult thinking of some sort of entertainment to provide.
If you know of anything i could use your help would be greatly appriciated.
Thank you
Hi Lindsay, that sounds exciting! Unfortunately I think there was not a whole lot of entertainment: after the meal the men generally went to the smoking room for a smoke, and the ladies went to the drawing room, probably to gossip or relax a little. Most entertainment was provided by guests, since most ladies could sing and play the piano it was usual to play and listen to music.
For entertainment, cardgames were usual, mostly for men. Cricket was played a lot by both men and women but it was more of an afternoon activity.
I hope you can find something suitable!
[...] because a story is short doesn’t mean it can’t be good. If a meal doesn’t include soup, salad, three courses, dessert and coffee, does that mean it’s okay to serve food that’s old, flavorless or just leaves a bad [...]
[...] just because a story is short doesn’t mean it can’t be good. If a meal doesn’t include soup, salad, three courses, dessert and coffee does that mean it’s okay to serve food that’s old, flavorless or just leaves a bad taste in [...]
thank you very much for the info,I needed the exact things.I’m from Argentina,and I’m studying this.
Chawton House have recently reissued “The Compleat Housewife” a book of receipes and remedies from the long 18th Century. It’s a fascinating insight into the life of the Victorian era…what funny things they ate! See http://tiny.cc/YPmhE
I have to do homework on victorian cooking so thanks.
LOOK AT THIS WEBSITE!
hi i am a school cook and been asked to do a theme next week have you got any ideas please
Hello,
My 12th grade western civ class is putting on a victorian tea party for our final exam and I am on the foods committy. Though we call it a tea party it is really more of a christmas party. I was wondering what would be the typical type of meal served during a Victorian Christmas Party. Any info you could give would be amazingly helpful.
Thank you!
Rachel
hi
with regards to an earlier request for information re “Eating Out”
the following report would suggest that having meals “brought in” was more likely to have happened.
“An article from “The Illustrated London News” in 1882 read:
Of the making of cookery books there is no end; and I hold it to be rather a public benefit than otherwise that there should be scarcely a solution of continuity in the production of culinary manuals; because, although in the vast majority of cookery books (always excepting the late Miss Acton and the Happily living Miss Mary Hooper) there is usually a considerable proportion of nonsense, there is scarcely one (especially if it be compiled by a lady) that does not contain hints always entertaining and occasionally useful on the subject of household management. As to the Art of Cookery, it is rapidly retrograding, and will retrograde more swiftly still, as well-to-do middle class people grow more and more “stuck up,” and have their “set dinners” sent in from the pastry cook’s instead of having them cooked at home.”
http://www.mirrormist.com/mary.hooper
kind regards
Hi Mirrormist, great comments and wonderful information, thank you! I hope you don’t mind I’m making a separate post for this, linking back to you of course!
Sincerely,
Thanks, this was very helpful. I’m trying to write a manga (japanese comic book) and the story takes place in 1888 in england (victorian era), so i wanted to research as much as i could about this era, including the food. This was very helpful, but i have a question:
Besides the courses the nobles and high class people where served, what are the deserts and at what course are they served in? I was also hoping you could tell me what they served for breakfast. The breakfast menu is very improtant in my story, because that’s where the characters conversations usually take place, so please be specific (sorry if I’m asking too much).
Your information really helped me (for the third time XP), I’m gonna research the foods you named right away (can’t wait to draw them)!
Please, and thank you! ^_^
Hi Alice! Breakfast menu was fairly like modern English breakfast, usually tea with some bread or rolls, boiled eggs, and meat, and I think some sort of muffins, biscuits, or scone-like sweeter bread. Desert was usually exotic fruits (because they were rare and expensive), icecream, or some kind and some kind of English-style pudding, usually many different things all on the table together. With desert, a sweet wine was served. Desert was at the end of the dinner (before the smoking) but inbetween courses there might be an inbetween-desert, which I think would have been something like fruit or a sweeter course as well. Good luck with your manga!
This may help
Mary Hooper’s Handbook for the Breakfast Table 1873
http://www.archive.org/details/handbookforbrea00hoopgoog
also
A novel by Mary Hooper “Wives and Housewives a story for the times” will give you a flavour of Victorian Life and Speak.
it can be read here
http://www.mirrormist.com/wives.and.housewives.a.story.for.the.times.2.htm
Regards
Thanks!!! This really helped me on my English assignment! You wouldnt believe how hard it is to find a decent article like this:)
i’m doing a project on victorian homes and i need to find out what the very poor cooking with, and how they dried their chlothes.
Thanks for the information! :)
I have to make a story from 19th century, so you informations are really help me. :)
Thanks again. :)
Hey I was wondering what spices they used in the victorian era?
hmm i like it!
cool
hi! the website is great i just have one question, for a project im doing i need to find out about a famous victorian time cook. its hard to find!
if you could answer asap it would be great!
hey,
i was just wondering what people had for lunch in the victorian era there are not many sites about it and the one that are about it have really bad information.
Please reply as fast as u can because its for a project.
Thankz
For those interested in when restaurants appeared, there are some clues. The Physiologie du Gout by Brillat-Savarin gives a reasonable picture of French habits in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Restaurants are stated there to have really started around 1820 in Paris (i.e. as businesses and as public places where gentlemen – ladies seem not to be mentioned – could go to eat). Another good source might be old tourist guide-books, but those for non-English-speaking countries. I have a German Baedeker for London from the late 1870s which says something about just about everything.
thanks
hi can you help me, see i am doing a project and your post said they would eat two vegetable side dishes. Can you specify what kind of vegetables side dishes they ate.
Hi i need some help. More information. This website was good so thank you. Im doing a speech for my communications class about victorian era food. A little more info would be helpful! Gracias:)
My friends and I are making a Victorian Tea. I would like some help, please and thank you.
I just wanted to say that I am doing a project on Victorian Era Culture (so food, leisure, music and art) and this website helped me SO MUCH! So I just wanted to thank you! :)
hi my name is catherine
i have a question what was the foods that were eaten in the 1800s?
i cannot find anything
I have a question about say if the higher up victorians had a party what food would they serve?
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