what did children eat in the victorian era?

Question

need to find out what food children would have eaten during the victorian era my daughter is doing a school project on this time.

Answer 1

The Victorian era lasted quite a long time, and the food industry went through quite a few changes during that time. But basically, children ate what their adult counterparts ate. There was a lot of meat, especially fatty meat, in their diets, and a lot of starch. A variety of fresh vegetables were consumed, but due to a lack of reliable storage, were usually available only part of the year. If you lived on a farm and your father kept a good root cellar stocked, you could have carrots and the like all year - but if you lived in the city, you probably didn't eat many such veggies consistently through the year.

Because of a lack of widely-available refrigeration, meats and other foods had to be preserved differently. One way was to pack cuts of meat in salt. Another was to smoke it or dry it. Many old farms here on the Eastern Seaboard still have smokehouses on the premises, and with proper instruction, you could hang your own hams and the like in there and smoke them.
It might surprise you to learn that even though there was a general lack of refrigeration, you could have ice cream as early as 1850. Ice was cut from lakes and ponds during the depth of winter and stored in "ice houses" by stacking blocks of ice with sawdust under, over, and between each block. They'd sometimes last well into summer, and one could go to the ice house, take a block of ice home or to one's restaurant, break it up and put it in a hand-cranked machine to chill a mix of cream, sugar and other ingredients to produce ice cream. Soldiers recovering from wounds received during the American Civil War would be served ice cream occasionally at the big general hospitals located in the big cities like Philadelphia, New York, Washington , D.C. and Chicago. The well-known poet, Walt Whitman, served for a time as a volunteer nurse at one of those hospitals and it's documented that on more than one occasion, he bought ice cream for the men on his ward out of his own pocket.

Donuts were also very popular. They, and ice cream, were expensive so they were a rare treat. Candies like taffy were also available and could be made at home. A popular thing to do was to get together down at the church and have a "taffy pull". Taffy is made largely from sugar that is boiled and treated so that it becomes a warm, thick and sticky mass. To make it into candy, people would cover their hands in butter, grab a handful of that sticky mass and start to stretch and pull it out and fold it back and stretch it out and pull it back again and again. This worked much better if two people grabbed the same mass of sugary stuff and pulled and folded it between them. Young unmarried men and women would do this together, a guy and a girl pairing up to do the taffy pulling - it was a socially acceptable way of getting close to your boyfriend or girlfriend. Sometimes the young folks would, as they leaned towards each other to push the taffy back on itsself, sneak in a kiss! You'll have to decide whether your daughter is mature enough for that knowledge -and yes, Victorian times were dreadfully repressive of human intimacy!

If you were to do a few on-line searches, you can readily find a sampling of Victorian-era cookbooks and recipes - spelled "reciepts" back then - and some of 'em are simple enough that your daughter and you could make for her to take to school for he classmates to sample. Bet'cha that'd get her an "A".

Think you might be interested in learning more about the Nineteenth Century yourself? There are clubs, usually called "units" of folks who get together to re-enact and re-live the American Civil War. It was an horrific conflict, but we who re-enact do it to honor the men and women who gave so much to our country during that time and to keep our history alive. We'd love to see you and your family come to a re-enactment and check us out: maybe you'll see fit to join us! Keep an eye on your local newspaper and public access t.v. for announcements regarding reenactments in your area. And yes, it's an international hobby - there are annual re-enactments of the American Civil War in Germany, the UK, Canada and Australia just to name four...

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
what did children eat in the victorian era?
need to find out what food children would have eaten during the victorian era my daughter is doing a school project on this time.

Answer 3

Victorian Food For Kids

Answer 4

It all depends on the class. Most children belonged to the working class, and they would have eaten a lot of carbohydrates: oats in porridge and wheat in bread. Meat would have been a treat. A joint of meat bought on a Sunday was expected to have lasted the family until the middle of the week. Fish on a Friday of course.

You have to consider that a lot of working class families worked long hours, and this is where fast food came from. Fish and chips shops were very popular for obvious reasons.

One thing you can do, and which might be fun, is to find out what the average weekly wage was for a mill-worker, or a labourer, then go to your library and have a look at the archives of your local newspaper. When I did my dissertation for my history degree I found these archives very useful. Back then local newspapers were very informative with all sorts of information, including the price of goods at the local market!

Remember though that if a worker was paid thirty shillings a week, at least 25% of this would go as rent. Although it was written in the 1930s, George Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier' does have this sort of information. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

You need to find out which part of the Victorian Era, early Victorian food technology was a lot different to late Victorian food technology.

Then we need to know the age of the children in question.

There are many websites you could check for answers the best, in my opinion, would be http://www.foodtimeline.org

Answer 6

One thing worth knowing is that food adulteration was at its most inventive during Victorian times; chalk and other substances were added to milk to make it whiter. Sawdust was added to things like flour and oats to make it go further, butter was often rank by the time it was sold and meat was often pretty high too with many means of disguising it.
One staple of the poor which may surprise you is oysters; huge amounts of oysters were consumed. So huge that the oyster beds nearer London were exhausted and over a relatively short space of time, they became a rarity and then a luxury food for the rich only.
Much of the diet was monotonous and boring; bread with whatever available spread upon it (butter in season for the better off, goosefat, dripping and lard)making up most of meals.
Wordsworth's family in the Lake district during the early part of the era ate a lot of oatmeal porridge; it was commented on by one of their circle that staying with them was better than staying with Sir Walter Scott (another penniless arty sort!) because with the Wordsworths you did at least get 3 meals a day, even if two of them were porridge!

Answer 7

1: Yes, but you also had the opinion to choose. 2: Mid 15th century things. Lots of frills, and things that covered up a lot of the body. 3: Yes, but it was punishable by death if you were caught. 4: Yes, it was also shamed upon, although you wouldn't be killed for it. 5: Lots of bread and meat. Wine with every meal other than breakfast, where they drank milk. 6: Epically Epic.. Completely overdone. Obviously, a castle.

Answer 8

In the event that it's a fruit it includes seeds, otherwise it's a vegetable. And vegetables are usually grown in the ground while fruits are grown in trees.

Answer 9

Read David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Usually bread and butter.

Answer 10

they ate good home cooked meals.the same stuff we eat today,except there were no fast food places or junk food.even pastries were home made.you didnt buy bread at the store..you made it.everything was fresh and healthy because it wasnt processed or mass produced..no preservatives or chemicals,dies,or artificial coloring.real food as God intended us to eat.