Daily life of the English poor in the 19th century. What did people eat in the Middle Ages? What did the poor eat in the 17th century?

We'll start getting to know the other side of England with a deep dive. Welcome to the slums of London's East End, the eastern part of the city inhabited by the poor. The time period is the second half of the 19th century, somewhere between 1840 and 1890. Life stagnates in the narrow and dirty streets, flows so slowly that it is difficult to even determine what decade it is. The local residents are wearing rags, which make it difficult to judge fashion, and the poor people were shivering from cold and hunger in the same way ten and twenty years ago. It's winter, so be careful when walking through the slush, dark gray with ash. And it’s better not to go near the windows - in case they throw out the contents of the pot on your head without bringing it to the cesspool. However, they try not to open the windows again, so as not to let the heat out of the room - heating is very expensive.

We turn into a tiny courtyard and randomly enter a two-story house. We slowly climb up the dark, smelly stairs. The railings are loose, the rotten steps creak dangerously underfoot - one wrong step and you can fall through. We open the door to the apartment on the second floor (the door is not locked, because there is nothing to steal here anyway). A cold fireplace, which has not been lit for several days, gapes at you. Mold grows on damp walls, and the plaster on the ceiling is blackened and swollen. There is a rickety table in the center of the room, and two beds are huddled against the walls. Well, not bad for a family of eight. It can happen, you know, worse. Sanitary inspectors will tell you about little rooms where the whole family, parents and children, sleep side by side on one bed. And where there is such cramped conditions, it’s not far from sin: too early the children learn where they come from... On a warm day, the kids would run around outside all day, but now they are huddled in a corner and glaring at you with their sparkling little eyes.

The mother sits in the corner and cradles the baby wrapped in her shawl - there is no money for diapers. The woman turns around fearfully, and you notice a bruise halfway across her face. But as soon as you open your mouth to sympathize with her, she waves her hand at you and nods towards the bed. Covered with a torn blanket, her husband snores on the bed. In the summer, relative prosperity sets in in their neighborhood: entire families go to Kent to harvest hops, men work part-time on construction sites, but in winter it is more difficult to find work.

Yesterday there was such a strong snowstorm in the neighborhood that a drunk neighbor, returning from a tavern, fell and froze to death, and overnight a snowdrift formed around him. Hoping to make money, the father of the family went to the nearest workhouse, maybe they would pay him a few shillings for clearing snow from the streets. Or at least a few buns. Half a block of people crowded around the gate, the same poor fellows with sunken, unshaven cheeks. But the trustees turned them all down. What kind of fashion is this - distributing help left and right? If you want a job, look for it yourself or give yourself up to a workhouse. Out of grief, the father went to a tavern and spent his last pennies on gin, and at home his wife dared to mention money...

We back away and leave the little room, which is cramped even without us. Maybe try your luck next door? But in the house opposite there is despondency. At the table by the window, a widow is hunched over and feverishly sewing shirts. Last year she buried her husband and is now forced to support her family alone. In order to somehow feed herself, she needs to sew two dozen shirts a day. Everyone has to work. The youngest daughter, a skinny girl of about ten years old, sells watercress, delivering it from house to house. The eldest girl, already a teenager, sorts dirty rags at the factory, which are then used for paper production. The rags stink, lice crawl on them and fleas jump on them. This is probably how typhus entered the house, from which the little son died. His body has been lying on the shifted orange crates for the second day now. There is nothing to bury him; first we need to wait for the proceeds for the shirts. Noticing the slightly open door, the widow narrows her eyes, and then unleashes a stream of abuse at you. Don't be offended. She mistook you for a preacher who brought her a religious tract as a consolation. Perhaps we'd better leave.

Where to now? How about this cottage? It’s much more spacious here, but what’s that stench, what’s that barking? There are dogs running around everywhere and relieving themselves on the floor. Terriers are bred here for sale, because baiting rats with dogs is one of the favorite pastimes of the East End. So, what is this? A couple of sad lap dogs whine in a cage. Apparently, the purebred dogs were stolen somewhere in the prestigious West End while the maid was walking them in the morning. Soon the owners will be asked to pay a ransom of at least 10 pounds, or even 25. However, if the thief is caught, he will have to answer to the fullest extent of the law. Let's get out of here, we're unlikely to be welcome.

Congratulations - while you were turning your head around, trying to figure out the intricacies of the streets, your wallet was stolen. When? Yes, a flock of ragamuffins just ran past. Don't try to chase them, you'll only make people laugh. And if you catch a thief and try to shake him by the collar (be careful, the rotten fabric will spread right in your hands), the locals will stand up for the boy - he is one of their own, and you are a stranger. So all that remains is to mourn the loss of the wallet.

Luckily, you'll have better luck in your next apartment. You may even be offered tea, although its taste leaves much to be desired: the stale tea leaves have been dried, colored and sold as fresh. The furniture here is not only a table with chairs, but even two armchairs, and in the bedroom you can see a bed with iron posts, and not just a bed with a straw mattress. There is a clock ticking on the mantelpiece, the walls are decorated with portraits of the Queen and magazine clippings, and a canary in a cage is pouring on the windowsill. They love songbirds in the East End; they somehow brighten up the gray days. The owners of the apartment resell used clothes that are dumped in the bedroom. It's better not to ask where the cast-offs come from. Newer children's clothing looks especially suspicious. Some thieves lure children into gateways and, threatening them with a knife, force them to take off their good-quality suits... But we won’t ask. Having said goodbye to our hosts, we will continue our journey through bad old England.

It's hard to believe that the smoky East End was once fragrant with orange trees. But it is so. Before the Great Fire of 1666, east London was home to aristocrats and wealthy citizens, but after a devastating fire, a building boom began in the western part of the city. In place of neighborhoods that had burned to the ground, new, even more luxurious ones appeared, with cozy squares surrounded by white-stone houses. The respectable public flocked west to the West End, and the destitute crowded into abandoned mansions. Over time, the “slum lords” began to build cheap apartment buildings in the east. The East End grew, absorbing the areas of Hackney, Stepney, Poplar, Benthal Green, Shoreditch, Bermondsey, Whitechapel.

In Sketches of Boz (1836), Charles Dickens described the slums and their inhabitants as follows:

“For those who are not familiar with this part of London (and there are many of them), it is difficult to imagine all the dirt and poverty that reigns in it. Poor little houses, where the broken windows are covered with rags and paper and where in each room a whole family lives, and sometimes even two or three: in the basement there are craftsmen who make sweets and candied fruit, in the front rooms there are barbers and smoked herring merchants. , in the rear - shoemakers; a songbird merchant on the second floor, three families on the third and a fierce hunger in the attic; there are Irishmen in the corridor, a musician in the dining room, a charwoman and her five hungry children in the kitchen. Dirt is everywhere: in front of the house there is a sewer, behind there is a cesspool, clothes are drying in the windows, slops are pouring from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen years old wander barefoot and unkempt in some kind of white cloaks worn almost over their naked bodies; there are boys of all ages in jackets of all sizes or without them at all; men and women, dressed in different ways, but all, without exception, dirty and squalid; all this loitering, swearing, drinking, smoking, quarreling, fighting and swearing.”.

Slums were not the prerogative of the capital; in other large cities things were no better. In Liverpool and Manchester, tenement houses were built back to back, without a backyard. If desired, one could easily look into the neighbors' windows, but it is unlikely that the workers had time for such frivolous amusements. At the entrance to the patio, guests were greeted by piles of ash and manure, so that you could immediately understand where you had ended up. Residents had to climb narrow, dark stairs, but this was the best case scenario. At worst, they went down to the basement.

At the end of the 1840s, when a stream of starving Irish poured into England, in Liverpool alone 20% of the townspeople huddled in basements, and in Manchester - 12%. Basement housing for the poor was so popular in Edinburgh that it gave rise to legends about the underground city. The underground apartments were not dry and cozy, like Tolkien’s hobbit holes, but smelly and damp, because the proximity to cesspools did not add to their charm. Respectable gentlemen were horrified by these “caves” and called their inhabitants “moles in human form.”

Small traders and working people settled in the city slums: carpenters, masons, shoemakers, dressmakers, laundresses, weavers, butchers, loaders. They earned mere pittance: in the middle of the century, seamstresses' earnings started at 7-8 shillings a week, and half of the weekly earnings were spent on rent. No wonder landlords (Landlords are large landowners in England, in the 19th century they actively bought real estate in cities. - Ed.), those who owned tenement houses in the slums were called bloodsuckers: high rents did not allow workers to escape poverty. However, the residents did not lag behind the owners. A favorite strategy was to leave the home at night without paying rent, taking with it the pipes, the fireplace grate, and generally anything else that could be sold.

Wages gradually increased, but prices grew along with them. It is not surprising that even in the second half of the 19th century there was appalling poverty in England, not just in the slums of London and Edinburgh, but everywhere from the great industrial cities of the north to the tiny Irish villages. Keeping the house in order, even if not a house, but a small apartment, was very expensive. Coal made a big hole in the budget: it could cost a shilling a week to heat one room. What can we say about such luxury as hot water for bathing?

Until the second half of the 19th century, the rich and noble inhabitants of the empire took baths in their bedrooms, in front of a blazing fireplace. Servants brought water from the kitchen and poured it into the sitz bath. Starting in the 1840s, hot water appeared in wealthy homes, and from the 1870s it became available to the middle class. In poorer houses, mini-boilers or gas water heaters were installed to heat water, but they were expensive to maintain, created a lot of noise and exploded from time to time. In new houses a separate bathroom was built, in old houses one of the rooms was allocated for it. In the 1890s, another innovation became popular - the shower. Some shower models were attached directly to the faucet, so they tended to break off and generously gush out either boiling water or ice water around.

But such luxury was not available to workers for a long time. Water had to be taken from a street pump, often paid for, and carried home in a bucket, where all household members claimed rights to it - some wanted to drink, others wanted to do their laundry, and only sissies would think about bathing. It’s good if you managed to wash yourself at least once a week. No wonder London was called the “Great Dirty Place”!

There was a long queue at the pumps, especially since in some areas they worked only twice a day, and then on weekdays. The East London Water Company did not supply water on Sundays, apparently believing that the holy day should be prayed for and not indulged in sinful flesh. Poor people collected rainwater in cisterns, but at the bottom of the tank there was an unpleasant surprise. When residents of Darlington, County Durham, smelled a strange taste in the water and emptied the cistern, they found the decomposed body of a baby in it, which had lain there for several months. Fortunately, already in the middle of the century the situation began to improve. To the delight of clean people, city baths were opened, where for a few pennies one could bathe and wash clothes. And in 1853, the soap tax was lifted, and its sales doubled.

The labyrinths of dirty alleys, where people literally lived on top of each other, disturbed respectable neighbors. Residents of prestigious areas of London - Kensington, Bayswater, Mayfair, Belgravia - shuddered at the thought that hungry people were swarming nearby. Henry Mayhew (1812-1887), the famous writer of everyday life of the Victorian era, at the beginning of his book “London labor and the London poor” compared the inhabitants of the East End with nomadic savages. Slums became known not only as breeding grounds for infection, but also for immorality, and even worse - for example, communism. You never know what the poor do in such cramped conditions. Maybe they are up to no good. Even in the second half of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion was that the poor were to blame for their own misfortunes. Instead of rising from the mud and standing firmly on their feet, they walk through life with the unsteady gait of drunkards. Now, if they worked, prayed and remained sober, then there would be some sense. Unfortunately, this attitude towards the poor completely ignored factors such as unemployment and meager wages, lack of education and poor health. Solving these problems was much more difficult than scolding the poor for laziness and drunkenness.

The city authorities fought the slums as best they could, but the fight came down mainly to the demolition of dilapidated buildings. In 1838, the slums in St Giles, Holborn, London, were partially demolished, followed by Rose Lane and Essex Street in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. But changing the terms does not change the sum, and the poor, muttering under their breath, collected simple belongings and moved to another street, which immediately turned into a slum. More effective measures were also taken. The Shaftesbury Act of 1851 empowered town authorities to purchase land and build housing for working families, while the Prevention of Diseases Act of 1855 allowed parish trustees to inspect dwellings where they believed there were pockets of infection. However, the poor people did not like the fact that inspectors frequented their homes and lectured them about cleanliness.

Without waiting for government measures, rich and conscientious gentlemen themselves built housing for the poor. So in 1848, a 5-story apartment building was built in the London area of ​​St. Pancras, where 110 working families were housed. The pay was moderate, 3 shillings 6 pence per week. The new house brought income to investors, and inexpensive houses for the poor, equipped with running water, toilets and laundries, began to appear throughout London.

While some philanthropists provided affordable housing for the poor, others preferred to work with them face to face. On the streets of the East End, teeming with ragamuffins and merchants of all stripes, from time to time you met men in white clerical collars or young ladies with a stack of religious leaflets. There was little benefit from such would-be helpers, and the residents of the slums openly made fun of them. However, some philanthropists still brought real benefits to the poor. Among them was Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905), or simply Dr. Barnardo (in addition to philanthropy, he is also famous for the fact that his daughter married the writer Somerset Maugham).

A native of Dublin, Barnardo came to London to study medicine and then heal the sick somewhere in China. But having become acquainted with the East End, Barnardo stayed in London - China is unlikely to surpass such squalor. He directed all his energy to the smallest inhabitants of the slums, the hungry ragamuffins, whom the British called “street blacks.” Some were found by his assistants during night raids, some were brought to him by their parents, but, one way or another, all the children in Barnardo's shelters received food, clothing and education. Boys were trained to work in workshops or sent as cabin boys to the navy, while girls were raised to be hardworking servants. Perhaps these were not the most desirable professions, but street children did not have to choose.

The doctor's reputation was impeccable, and the British, inspired by his enthusiasm, generously donated to orphanages. But in 1877 a terrible scandal broke out. Over the course of several years, Dr. Barnardo managed to annoy both his fellow philanthropists and, what is much more dangerous, the Society for the Organization of Charities.

Created in 1869, the Society strictly ensured that unworthy individuals were not among the poor receiving assistance. Why spoil them with free soup? Let them go to work. And if they cannot work, let them give themselves up to a workhouse, where they will quickly find something to do. And then they came to get ready...

The society was so zealous in separating the lambs from the goats that it was time to rename it the “Society for the Fight against Charity.” And Barnardo's motto - "We will accept all disadvantaged children" - was a speck in the eye for many. Let the parents take care of the children - once they hear enough of the plaintive cries, they will quickly come to their senses!

But Dr. Barnardo thought differently and continued to raise funds for the hungry children. They took the intractable philanthropist and began to collect a dossier on him. Former shelter workers who were fired for drunkenness and dissolute lifestyle became a real gift for their enemies. They were the main witnesses at the trial, which shook the whole of London.

The public's favorite was accused of terrible sins - embezzling charitable funds, ill-treating students, having relations with prostitutes, and falsifying photographs. He also got it for the honorary title “doctor,” which Barnardo used undeservedly - he never graduated from medical university. And his shelters were presented as real dens: supposedly mentors drank in taverns and beat up students, and former street children, also not timid, engaged in sodomy with each other. It is difficult to say how much of this was true and how much was slander, but the public was indignant. The flow of donations stopped and dark days followed for Dr. Barnardo's shelters. But Barnardo defended himself so convincingly that the members of the arbitration court found him not guilty and thereby saved his reputation.

However, he was properly shamed for falsifying photographs. To raise more funds, Dr. Barnardo cleverly played on sentimentality - he sold “before and after” photographs of street children. In one photo, a street boy was depicted in rags, in the second he, already dressed in a shelter uniform, was doing something useful. The ladies gasped, were touched and bought postcards. Dr. Barnardo insisted that he photographed the ragamuffins “as is.” In fact, he tore the boys’ clothes, smeared them with soot and asked them to put on a sad face. On the other hand, how else to influence moneybags? History was on Dr. Barnardo's side, and a charity named after him continues to help children in the UK to this day.

“Abandon hope, ye who enter here”: workhouses

“Among the public buildings in a certain city, which for many reasons it would be prudent not to name and to which I will not give any fictitious name, there is a building that has long been found in almost all cities, large and small, namely, the workhouse.”- this is how Charles Dickens begins his novel The Adventures of Oliver Twist. And although Oliver's request - "Please, sir, I want more" - was uttered in a weak, trembling voice, it was a fierce criticism of the entire workhouse system.

It should be noted that Oliver was very lucky. A doctor was present at his mother's birth, which was more a privilege than a common practice. Although Mr. Bumble frightened the boy by pinching hemp, Oliver was given an apprenticeship to an undertaker. But many of his peers tore off the skin on their fingers, tearing old ropes into fibers. But no matter how much Dickens’s novel stirred the hearts, most Englishmen remained confident that workhouses were a necessary measure to combat poverty. And the conditions there should be a little better than prison conditions. Still not a resort.

Workhouses appeared in England in the 17th century and were charitable institutions where the poor worked in exchange for food and shelter. Until 1834, workhouses were run by parishes. They also provided impoverished parishioners with another type of help - bread and meager amounts of money. Targeted assistance came in handy for workers and peasants who had lost their ability to work. In factories where safety rules were not followed, there were a thousand and one ways to get hurt, and frequent illnesses undermined health. But where will the funds come from to support the crippled, the poor, orphans and widows? Wealthy parishioners were charged a tax for the benefit of the parish, which, of course, did not make them happy. Moreover, in the 17th-18th centuries, the poor, left without a means of subsistence, had to return for help to the parish where they were born. At the sight of the dejected ragamuffins, and even with a brood of children, the parishioners began to grumble. Let's come in large numbers! Now they will hang around the parish’s neck.

In the first half of the 19th century, the situation with poverty and unemployment became so acute that radical measures were required. Between 1801 and 1830 the population of England grew by two-thirds to 15 million. This trend worried economists, especially supporters of Thomas Malthus, who argued that uncontrolled population growth would lead to famine and disaster. According to him, the population grew in geometric progression, and food - in arithmetic progression. If it were not for abstinence and disasters that stop the growth of population, disaster would befall humanity. Simply put, the hungry hordes would eat all the food.

Malthus' followers did not like the practice of delivering bread to the homes of the poor. Otherwise, what the hell, they will begin to multiply uncontrollably. And in the 1820-1830s, Malthus’ prophecy seemed especially relevant. The Napoleonic Wars and the trade blockade undermined the English economy, and the Corn Laws did not benefit farmers, but affected the family budgets of workers - bread became more expensive. Some counties were on the verge of ruin. In the mid-1830s, farmers breathed a sigh of relief, enjoying warm weather and bountiful harvests, but a three-day snowfall in the winter of 1836 marked the beginning of a prolonged cold spell. England faced the “hungry forties”, a period of crop failure, epidemics, unemployment, and economic stagnation.

How, in such conditions, to take care of the poor, who were becoming more and more numerous? Ominously, on August 13, 1834, Parliament passed a new Poor Law. The outdated system of parish charity was replaced by a new system based on workhouses. Individual parishes were united into unions for the care of the poor, and a workhouse was built in each union. This is where the poor went, turning from parishioners into national property. The workhouses were governed by a local board of trustees, which appointed a supervisor (Master) and a housekeeper (Matron), considered applications from the poor, was in charge of budget issues, and investigated cases of abuse. And there were a lot of them.

Ordinary people were hostile to the innovations. Rumors immediately spread that all the beggars would be forced into workhouses, and there they would be fed poisoned bread - no parasites, no problem. In reality, the poor were given a choice. They could live in semi-prison conditions, with meager food and grueling work, but with a roof over their heads. Or preserve freedom, but then take care of your own food. The conditions were tough, but there were no others at that time. No matter how much the Times criticized the new establishments, the middle and upper classes were pleased with the parliamentary initiative. There were fewer beggars, and the parish tax was reduced by 20%.

Journalist James Grant described the fate of the poor this way: “ When they enter the gates of the workhouse, it begins to seem to them that they are in a huge prison, from where only death will rescue them... Many inmates of the workhouse consider it a tomb in which they were buried alive. This is the grave of all their earthly hopes.". What awaited the poor family in the workhouse, the mere mention of which sent a chill down the spine?

The workhouse was a massive building with living and working areas and courtyards for exercise. Add a stone fence here, and the picture paints a gloomy one. Sick and healthy, men and women, old people and children - all these categories lived separately. Once in the workhouse, the husband was sent to one wing, the wife to another, and children over two years old to the third. First, the new guests were examined by a doctor, then they were thoroughly washed and given a gray uniform. As a sign of shame, unmarried mothers had a yellow stripe sewn onto their dresses.

The day in the workhouse was scheduled by the hour. Its inhabitants went to bed at 9 pm and woke up in the dark. The ringing of a bell informed them of a change in activity: get up, get dressed, read prayers, eat breakfast in silence, and work, work, work! Young children also worked alongside adults in their free time from school. In addition, children were sent as apprentices, as in the case of Oliver Twist, or they tried to get them into service.

If the harsh life did not suit someone, well, good riddance, just don’t forget your wife and children. They left the workhouse the same way they arrived, the whole family. In theory, husbands and wives were allowed to see each other during the day, although they had to sleep separately so as not to breed poverty. In fact, it was very difficult for the spouses to see each other during the day. The same applied to mothers with children, and newborns were taken away from unmarried mothers.

A terrible but revealing story took place in the Eton Workhouse, which was headed by former Major Joseph Howe (military men were taken as overseers). One of his employees, Elizabeth Wise, asked permission to take her two-and-a-half-year-old child overnight. The baby had frostbitten legs, and his mother wanted to console him and heal him. Just before Christmas, Mr Howe announced that from now on the child must sleep with other children. The mother retained the right to visit him during the day. But when the warden found her in the children's department, where she was washing the baby's feet and changing his bandages, he became angry and ordered her to leave. The woman refused to comply, and the guard dragged her out of the room, dragged her up the stairs and locked her in a punishment cell.

The punishment cell was a dark room with a barred window without glass. Elizabeth had to spend 24 hours there - without warm clothes, food, water, straw to lie down on, and even without a chamber pot. The temperature outside was -6 C. At the end of the term, Elizabeth was fed cold oatmeal left over from breakfast and again driven into the cell so that she could wash the floor after herself (the absence of a potty made its presence felt). The woman did not have enough strength for wet cleaning - her hands were numb. Then the sufferer was locked in a punishment cell for another 7 hours. Fortunately, rumors of the warden's cruelty leaked to The Times, and then another incident surfaced: at a previous place of duty, Mr. Howe maimed a child by dousing him with boiling water. Despite this incident, Howe was calmly accepted into his new position. However, after the scandal with Elizabeth Wise, he was expelled in disgrace.

Punishments in workhouses were regulated by rules. Silence breakers, liars, parasites, fighters and malingerers were punished with solitary confinement and deprivation of food. Boys, like their peers in regular schools, were allowed to be flogged, but corporal punishment was not used against girls. No matter how the teachers complained about the insolence of the girls, no matter how much they insisted that slaps on the hands were not considered punishment, the Workhouse Commission remained adamant. Cases of abuse were investigated and resulted in fines and dismissal. Of course, if they received publicity. What was going on behind closed doors is another question.

The victims of cruelty most often became the most defenseless inhabitants of the workhouse - the elderly and children. In the winter of 1836, three children from the nearby workhouse at Bishop Waltham were transferred to the workhouse in Fareham, Hamptonshire, which had a large school. The eldest of the orphans was five years old, the youngest three and a half. The sudden change of scenery frightened the kids so much that they began to wet the bed. There was severe punishment for damaging sheets - children's portions were cut in half. Each child's diet for the whole week was 1 kg of bread, half a kilo of potatoes, 300 g of pudding, 1.5 liters of milk porridge and a tiny piece of cheese and lamb.

How can one not recall the lines from “Oliver Twist”: “Oliver Twist and his comrades suffered for three months, slowly dying from malnutrition; Finally, they became so greedy and so mad with hunger that one boy, who was tall for his age and not used to this state of affairs (his father once ran a small tavern), gloomily hinted to his comrades that if he did not get an increase bowls of porridge, he is afraid that he might accidentally eat the frail boy sleeping next to him at night. His eyes were wild, hungry, and the children blindly believed him.”.

Naturally, hunger did not solve the problem of wet sheets, and then the guilty ones began to be deprived of lunches altogether - while other children ate, they had to stand in the dining room in special stocks. In the end, they were moved from the bedroom to an unheated barn, and this was in mid-January. When the boys returned to their original workhouse eight weeks later, they could barely stand.

The workhouse in Andover, Hampshire, became famous throughout the country. It must be said that classes in workhouses were neither easy nor pleasant. Very often the poor had to pluck hemp, that is, unravel the tarred ropes, the fibers from which were used to caulk ships. The inhabitants of Andover House had another duty - grinding bones for fertilizer. The stench from the bones knocked me off my feet, the dust blinded my eyes, sharp fragments scratched my skin. But that wasn't the worst thing. The warden and his wife were dishonest and cut the diet of their charges so much that the poor fellows gnawed at the rotten bones brought in for processing.

Because of the scandal, which the Times did its best to fan, the warden of Andover lost his job. But despite all the efforts of journalists, workhouses continued to exist until the middle of the 20th century.

"Pea Soup" or London Fog

In his poem “Symphony in Yellow,” Oscar Wilde compares the London fog to a yellow silk scarf. Charles Dickens called the fog the “London ivy” that curls around houses, and in Bleak House (1853) he sang a real ode to the fog: “Fog is everywhere. Fog in the upper Thames, where it floats over green islets and meadows; the fog in the lower reaches of the Thames, where it, having lost its purity, swirls between the forest of masts and the coastal refuse of a large (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex Moors, fog on the Kentish Highlands. Fog creeps into the galleys of the coal brigs; fog lies on the yards and floats through the rigging of large ships; fog settles on the sides of barges and boats... On the bridges, some people, leaning over the railings, look into the foggy underworld and, shrouded in fog, feel like they are in a hot air balloon hanging among the clouds.”.

The fog did not become less dense and suffocating from poetic comparisons. Plunging into a cloud the color of pea soup, Londoners were unlikely to think about beautiful metaphors. They were more likely coughing and holding their noses.

The only people who were happy about the fog were the capital's prostitutes. On foggy days they earned much more, because even the most timid men were not afraid to talk to them.

The thick veil promised clients anonymity. According to the Frenchman Hippolyte Thain, in the fog it was sometimes impossible to see the face of his interlocutor, even holding his hand. The same anonymity was useful to the London unemployed who gathered in Trafalgar Square on February 8, 1886. Under cover of fog, a crowd of 20,000 people rioted in the West End, looting shops and dragging passengers from carriages.

But while prostitutes and rebels were happy with the bad weather, other Londoners were worried about the fog. Meteorologist Duke Howard described a typical London fog on a January day in 1826: “The offices and shops lit candles and lamps, and the carriages moved at walking speed.”. But on the same day, 8 km from London, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky - fog enveloped the capital and was not going to leave it. It happened that passers-by lost their way in the darkness and fell into the Thames, finding their death in its muddy waters. But this was not the only danger lurking in the fog.

The fumes from the Thames mixed with smoke from countless chimneys to form smog (short for smoke and fog). Londoners began heating their hearths with coal back in the 13th century and continued throughout the Victorian era, so the main source of pollution was not the chimneys of factories, but cozy fireplaces. Londoners burned more than 18 million tons of coal a year! In the 1840s, the tireless reformer Edwin Chadwick urged his countrymen to switch from ordinary coal to anthracite and rebuild fireplaces so that they burned coal more efficiently, but the British were in no hurry to follow his advice. Parliament rejected Chadwick's proposal. What was not enough was for the sanitary inspectors to encroach on the holy of holies - the hearth, the heart of the house! And the pipes continued to smoke.

In 1853, in notes from “Wanderings in London,” Max Schlesinger wrote: “The fog is completely unsuitable for breathing: the air simultaneously appears grayish-yellow, orange and black, it is humid, thick, fetid and simply suffocating.”. Working in basements and stuffy workshops, the townspeople suffered from pulmonary diseases. In winter, real hell began for asthmatics and tuberculosis patients. According to the committee responsible for controlling air pollution, during the severe fog of 1886, the mortality rate among city residents reached the level of a cholera epidemic. They may have been exaggerating, but historian Anthony Wahl provides some impressive figures: London's death rate was 18 per 1,000 in early December 1891, but the figure rose as fog descended on the city on December 20 and lasted for another five days. up to 32. The fog hid the crimes, but he himself was a murderer.

Great stench

In the hot and dry summer of 1858, London was gripped by horror. Because of the heat, the Thames became shallow, and instead of water, which was already dirty, streams of sewage slowly flowed through it. Passers-by almost fainted. Omnibus passengers shouted to the coachman to speed up his pace, otherwise he could suffocate in the cramped space of the carriage. Doctors sounded the alarm: according to the popular miasma theory, diseases were spread through bad odors, and such a stench promised an epidemic of epic proportions.

The parliamentarians also had a hard time. After the fire of 1834, which destroyed the former Houses of Parliament, a new Palace of Westminster was built on the banks of the Thames. But the Gothic windows did not protect against the monstrous stench, and the spacious halls stank like a country latrine. It was absolutely impossible to hold a meeting under such conditions. Prime Minister Disraeli ran out of Parliament, holding a scented handkerchief to his nose, and his colleagues rushed after him. Finally, legislators discovered what was obvious to all Londoners a long time ago: the city needs sewerage, and the sooner the better.

The lack of effective sewerage was only part of the problem. It is difficult for a modern person to imagine the aromas that hovered in the cities of the 19th century, and our complaints about exhaust fumes would make the British roll their eyes - we would like your problems! Having visited London in the first half of the century, provincials complained that the streets stank worse than the stables. But “worse than a stable” applied more to the central streets; the back streets of the East End smelled even more disgusting.

Take livestock, for example. Londoners didn't have to go to the countryside to listen to the grunts, moos and cackles. The urban poor have kept pigs for centuries. The pig was an excellent investment, and the owners, out of simplicity, poured the liquid manure left behind into the street. In 1873 alone, there were 1,500 private slaughterhouses in London - cattle were driven there directly along the boulevards, so that passers-by had to step aside.

Adding to the stench were factories—tanneries, candle factories, cement factories—that dumped waste into local water bodies. Old cemeteries, filled to the brim with rotting bodies, also tormented the sense of smell, and journalists, wincing, called them “sanctified cesspools.” In churchyards like St. Olaf's in Bermondsey, London, skulls lay on the ground, so that all London troupes, including educational ones, could be provided with props for productions of Hamlet. But the unresolved sewage problem inspired particular horror among the British.

Toilets similar to modern ones began to appear in the 1850s. Until then, they used either a chamber pot, or a latrine in the backyard, or an earthen toilet, where earth was used instead of water to flush. The chamber pot was kept under the bed or in a separate room, and during morning cleaning it was the maid's duty to empty it. Many housewives insisted that there be no sinks on the floor where the nursery was located, so that the servants would not be tempted to pour the contents of the pot there without carrying it to the basement.

In the 19th century, many wealthy city dwellers moved to the suburbs for fresh air, and turned their houses in the center into profitable ones, renting them out to several families at once. Thus, dozens of families lived in a house designed for one family - a sort of Victorian communal apartment. And they all went to the same toilet, which quickly overflowed. But what to do with its contents? This was the problem.

Those who had the conscience not to throw the pots out of the window poured them into cesspools, which were located in the basements of houses or in the backyard. For example, in the 1870s, in the town of Stockport near Manchester, the homes of workers were surrounded by fetid swamps, through which local residents swam on boards and broken doors. Cities were literally drowned in lakes of sewage. In the mid-19th century, there were more than 200 thousand cesspools in London. Goldsmiths were engaged in cleaning them, but since the services cost money, neither the landlords nor the residents themselves were in a hurry to hire them. The result was extreme dirt and stench. In 1832, fearing cholera, the city of Leeds forked out and paid for the cleaning of cesspools. It took 75 carts to remove the contents of just one pit!

As we have already said, not only the poor suffered from the stench, but also the cream of society. In the basements of Windsor Castle, the residence of the English kings, in the 1850s there were 53 cesspools, all overflowing to the brim. An alternative to pits were manure heaps, but while the former polluted the soil, the latter poisoned the air. Enterprising Englishmen capitalized on their misfortunes and sold the sewage to farmers for manure (some towns even held sewage auctions). But there was so much waste that farmers did not have time to buy it.

In the middle of the century, the British breathed a sigh of relief - flush toilets began to come into use. In the 1860s and 1870s, the most popular toilets were those produced by the company of Thomas Crapper, a man with a surname surprisingly appropriate to his occupation. At the beginning of their career, toilets were hidden in a wooden case, but starting in the late 1870s, there was a fashion for toilets of all shapes and colors, in the Empire and Renaissance styles, painted and richly decorated with stucco. Despite the fact that the appearance of the toilets was amazing, toilet paper was handled the old fashioned way - any paper, for example, old envelopes or bags, was suitable for these needs.

Since the toilets no longer had disgusting odors, there was no need to install them in the back rooms. The most popular location of the toilet was the closet under the stairs, closer to the living room and hall. However, when flushed, the toilet made a sound so loud that it could be heard in the living room, and this confused the decorum-obsessed Victorians. Here's what Agatha Christie wrote in her autobiography: “In those days, we were extremely shy about everything related to the bathroom. It was unthinkable to even imagine that anyone would notice you entering or leaving there, except perhaps a close family member. In our house this caused great difficulties, since the toilet was exactly halfway between floors, in plain sight of everyone. The most terrible thing, of course, was to be inside and hear voices coming from outside. Leaving is unthinkable. I had to sit locked up within four walls and wait for the path to clear.”.

In addition to home toilets, public restrooms came into use. During the 1851 World's Fair, visitors could use restrooms that had flush toilets. In the same year, a public toilet for men appeared on Fleet Street. A year later, the first women's restroom was opened. Women's restrooms were less common than men's - townspeople were concerned that prostitutes would congregate there. It's funny, but it was men's restrooms that often became meeting places for homosexuals. This is where the English slang expression “cottaging” comes from, meaning anonymous, non-binding sex in a public restroom. The fact is that the first restrooms really resembled cozy rural cottages.

Paradoxically, toilets only added to the problems of the cities. They were poured into the same cesspools, which filled up much faster because of the water, or into the primitive London sewer system. A legacy of bygone centuries, sewers were not intended to collect sewage at all, only to drain rainwater, which flowed through sewers into underground canals, and from there into the Thames. Until 1815, homeowners were prohibited from connecting their cesspools to sewers or disposing of household waste into them. Once upon a time, salmon frolicked in the transparent Thames. But in 1815 the idyll came to an end, and sewage poured into the river. When, five years later, at his coronation, George IV wanted to feast on salmon from the Thames, he could not even buy a fish for 30 shillings - the salmon had left the river.

The pollution continued for years and decades. In 1855, physicist Michael Faraday went on a steamboat ride on the Thames, but instead of water he saw “a muddy, brownish slurry.” His contemporary Captain Mangles stated in the House of Commons: “God gave us the most beautiful of rivers, but we turned it into the most vile cesspool.”. But the “Great Stink” of 1858 made Londoners understand that it was impossible to live like this any longer. That same year, a decision was made to build a new sewer system, and Joseph Baselgette was appointed chief engineer for the projects. He set to work with enthusiasm. Between 1859 and 1875, 134 km of underground brick sewers and 800 km of street drains were built. In addition, Londoners owe Bazelgette two new embankments, Chelsea and Victoria, built on the banks of the Thames, where sewage from sewers previously ended up.

The London sewer system opened in 1864. The Prince of Wales, the nobility and authorities of the city were present at the grand opening, and ordinary Londoners rejoiced when they learned that salmon had returned to the Thames shortly after its launch. It would seem that we can put an end to this in the history of the Great Stink. But the corrosive reader will ask the question: “Where did the sewage that ended up in the sewer go?” Alas, in the same sufferer Thames (although it would be more correct to call her “sufferer”, because the British addressed the river “Father Thames”). Sewage flowed through pipes to pumping stations, and through them entered the river, however, already far from London. Pumping stations (Abbey Mills, Crossness, Becton) were built in sparsely populated areas, but local residents began complaining about the stench almost immediately.

It took another disaster to get the authorities' attention. On the moonlit night of September 3, 1878, the paddle steamer Princess Alice was returning from Gravesend to London. Londoners loved riding on the Thames; there was no end to those willing to pay 2 shillings for a ticket. And here it is such a beautiful night! The deck was crowded with tourists. But the joyful chatter turned to screams of horror when passengers noticed the freighter Bywell Castle heading straight towards them. Both captains made a mistake, and the 900-ton ship collided with the steamer. "Princess Alice" cracked and sank in a matter of minutes, the Night plunged into chaos.

To top it all off, an hour before the crash, the Barking and Crossness pumping stations released their daily stream of sewage into the Thames, leaving the drowning people wallowing in the foul-smelling slurry. They would have died anyway: there were no life jackets, almost no one knew how to swim, bulky dresses got wet and pulled the women to the bottom. The crew of the Bywell Castle threw chairs and barrels to the drowning people so that they had something to grab onto, and lowered ropes, but out of 900 passengers they managed to save about 130. The bodies lying in sewage were in such a state that relatives could not identify them and 120 unidentified victims had to be buried in a common grave. It was then that the public remembered about the ill-fated pumping stations. Then, in the 1880s, Bazelgette changed the principle of their operation: wastewater was treated, and solid waste was transported to the North Sea. The primordial stench of London has come to an end.

Cholera - the plague of the 19th century

The plague that devastated England in the 17th century seemed like a terrible fairy tale during the time of Queen Victoria. In memory of her, there were “plague stones”, on which residents of infected villages placed money rinsed with vinegar in exchange for goods. But, as it turned out, not all troubles were left behind for the Victorians. In the 19th century, a new scourge came from Asia to Europe - cholera. But the worst thing was that the fight against epidemics hardly progressed beyond the same “plague stones.” People died by the thousands. During his first visit in 1831-1832. cholera claimed 32 thousand lives, and its subsequent attacks were no less destructive: 62 thousand in 1848-1849, 20 thousand in 1853-1854, 14 thousand in 1866-1867. Not only London was affected, but also Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and many other cities in England and Scotland.

The symptoms of the exotic illness caused awe: for several days the patient suffered from abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, his limbs were frozen, his skin was drying out, and death no longer inspired fear, but hope for relief from torment. It was rumored that patients fall into a coma, so they are buried while still alive. No one knew exactly what caused the disease or how to treat it, and ignorance, as we know, only fuels panic. As in Russia in the 1830s, cholera riots began in England, although less bloody. As usual, the doctors who allegedly finish off cholera victims in order to then study the anatomy from their corpses also got it. Cholerophobia gripped the country.

In her monumental work on home economics, Isabella Beaton wrote: “The surest means to combat cholera are cleanliness, sobriety and timely ventilation of premises. Where there is dirt, there is a place for cholera; where the doors are tightly closed, cholera will still find a loophole; and those who indulge in gluttony on hot autumn days are actually flirting with death.”.

Have you already guessed what is missing from Mrs. Beaton's sensible advice? That's right, mention of water. But cholera infection occurs by drinking water or eating food infected with Vibrio cholerae. Vibrio cholerae enters the water through excrement, and considering how sad things were with cesspools, one can only be surprised that there were so few victims of the epidemic. The greatest chances of survival were for lovers of alcoholic beverages and hot tea, for which they at least boiled water. On the contrary, a glass of water from a street pump was worse than a bowl of hemlock.

From all sides, advice rained down on the British, as varied as it was useless. The clergy called for repentance and fasting. Aesculapians advised to give up fatty meat in favor of roast beef, boiled potatoes and dry bread, washing it all down with wine. True, the wine should have been diluted with water, but again no one mentioned boiling. Time-tested remedies were also used: leeches, warm baths, a mixture of castor oil and opium tincture, and mustard plasters with hot turpentine. And the medical journal Lancet in 1831 enthusiastically reported that Jews from Eastern Europe, as a preventative measure, rubbed themselves with a mixture of wine, vinegar, camphor powder, mustard, crushed pepper, garlic and Spanish flies.

The main problem was that the source of the disease was still a mystery. In medicine, the “miasma theory” reigned supreme, according to which infection occurs through a fetid odor. The theory, although incorrect, was very useful. Thanks to her, there was a need to remove garbage from the streets and solve the sewage problem - any stench was considered dangerous. Alas, many townspeople were quite satisfied with both the taste and smell of water from contaminated wells. And when a person was found who lifted the veil of secrecy over the source of the infection, the miasma theory played a cruel joke on him.

The talented researcher's name was Dr. John Snow. As early as 1849, he came to the conclusion that cholera was spread through water, and in 1854 he recognized the source of the disease in the London district of Soho. The source turned out to be an ordinary street pump, from where all 500 victims of the disease took water. After Dr. Snow persuaded local authorities to break the pump's handle, the infection stopped. In 1855, he presented his data to his colleagues, but they annoyedly waved it off. Snow's theory did not go well, as it contradicted speculation about miasma. If the disease really is carried through water, and the smell has nothing to do with it, then why clean up the dirt from the streets at all? It turns out that Snow even harmed the cause of public health. His findings were ignored. But the discoveries of Pasteur in the 1860s and Koch in the 1880s proved him right, and the name of the quick-witted doctor entered the annals of medical history. Although he would probably prefer that the British simply not drink dirty water, rather than praise him after the fact.

After 1848, when the Public Health Act was passed through the efforts of Edwin Chadwick, reforms were introduced in the field of health care. In cities, sewers were laid and public latrines were opened, sanitary inspectors paid more attention to water quality, old cemeteries were closed, and new ones were built outside the city limits. The fight was also carried out against epidemics of typhoid, scarlet fever, and diphtheria. In 1853, vaccination against smallpox became free and compulsory, and another disease that had crippled the British became a thing of the past.

New measures to combat disease gave rise to new professions. If patients with infectious diseases were quarantined at home, after recovery or, much more likely, death of the patient, a team of disinfectants dressed in white pants and jackets visited his room. Disinfectors collected personal belongings and any objects where infection could reside. Things were put into a cart and taken to a disinfection oven, where they were heat treated. Photographer John Thompson tells the chilling story of a girl who died of scarlet fever. What was left behind was a wax doll in a woolen dress. The parents did not give the doll for disinfection because the wax would have melted in the oven, and 3 years later they allowed their niece to play with it. Having received the fatal gift, she died a week later.

From potatoes to tea: a menu of ordinary Englishmen

It's sad but true: in the 19th century, English workers lived from bread to water. More precisely - from potatoes to tea. Because of the Corn Laws, which kept the cost of English grain high from 1815 to 1846, bread was expensive. Of course, not so much that workers could not afford it, but potatoes still remained a serious competitor. The meager diet of urban workers affected their health. Due to a lack of vitamins C and D, children developed rickets. The rickety girls grew into women with crooked bones and too narrow pelvises, which in turn led to difficult births - another reason why maternal mortality was high. Historian Anthony Wahl argues that the average high school girl in modern England would have been head and shoulders above the Victorian worker.

Now let's move to the countryside. Here a generous treat awaits us - green salad straight from the garden, delicious asparagus shoots, golden apples, not to mention puddings and meat pies. Alas, the gifts of nature ended up on the tables of wealthy townspeople, while the peasants for the most part were content with the same bread, potatoes, cheese, tea, beer and bacon. In the 1820s, traveler William Cobbett fumed: “On one farm alone I saw four times more food than was required for the inhabitants of the entire parish... but while these unfortunates grow wheat and barley, make cheese, produce beef and mutton, they themselves have to live on potatoes alone.”. Boiled cow cheeks and lamb tripe were considered a delicacy. However, our own vegetable garden was still a good help, and rosemary grew green on the window sills of rural cottages, giving a piquant taste to rendered lard.

Butter, like milk, was expensive, so it was spread on bread in a transparent layer. Margarine became a real salvation. At first, the workers grumbled about having to eat “wheel grease,” but over time they came to appreciate it, especially since margarine was amazingly cheap. In the 1890s, a woman blacksmith - yes, yes, there were such people! - She said in an interview that her dreams do not go beyond margarine, and even then when there is work. The oil seemed like something fabulous and transcendental even to those who had been hammering on the anvil all day.

Although the overall diet of workers and peasants was dismal, it cannot be said that ordinary workers throughout the country ate the same thing. Southerners could pamper their family with wheat bread, while residents of harsh Scotland ate oatcakes. The seasons also affected the diet. With the arrival of winter, life slowed down not only for farmers, but also for those who earned seasonal income, such as masons. They had to tighten their belts. Henry Mayhew talks about a girl who bought the most selected and expensive chops in the summer - “Dad can’t stand the price, he’s a bricklayer.” But in winter, the same little girl agreed to any piece of meat, as long as it was cheaper - “Dad doesn’t have a job, he’s a bricklayer.” It is likely that the caring daughter, even in the summer, tried meat on Sundays at best. Until their grown-up children began to earn money, their parents did not spoil them with hearty meals. Not out of greed: all the fats and proteins rightfully went to my father, who worked 12-15 hours a day. Having fed her husband, the wife poured tea for herself and the children and cut off a thin slice of bread.

The meat was painful for my pocket. Farmers from Suffolk set snares for sparrows, plucked birds, and boiled the puny carcasses or baked them in a pie - anything to get a taste of the meat. The urban poor ate such controversial delicacies as stillborn calves and the meat of diseased sheep. It’s unlikely that these goodies added health to anyone. If the meat in the butcher's shop looked so unappetizing that even the poor would not try it, they still had a chance to taste it, but in the form of sausage: the butchers sold the stale goods to sausage shops.

Starving townspeople could try their luck in a soup kitchen. Philanthropists opened soup kitchens, although the porridge would have to be eaten with sermons and prayers. In the 1870s, free school lunches were introduced for children from low-income families. At the same time, starvation deaths were by no means uncommon. In the 1880s, about 45 Londoners died of hunger every year: some fell from exhaustion in the street and could no longer get up, others quietly faded away behind a closed door, ashamed to call for help. In 1886, 46-year-old Londoner Sophia Nation, an impoverished lady who became a lacemaker, died of starvation. When the exhausted woman was brought to the Benthal Green Workhouse Asylum, it was already too late. The shame and fear of the workhouse overpowered the gnawing hunger.

Nowadays, it is common to complain about harmful food additives, all kinds of thickeners, flavor enhancers, and flavorings. “But in the blessed past, food was environmentally friendly,” we sometimes sigh. But if you clear away the haze of nostalgia, it becomes clear that then, as now, consumers looked at food with suspicion. Why are cucumbers so green you can tear your eyes out? It's just that they added a poisonous dye. Why on earth is the bread white and dense? Well, of course, aluminum alum was mixed into the flour. And the sugar crunches suspiciously on your teeth. Obviously ordinary sand was added! In general, the cooks never had to be bored, just remember to catch the unscrupulous traders in the hand.

In a similar way, bakers and brewers had fun back in the Middle Ages, sometimes underweighting bread, sometimes diluting beer. In 1327, several London bakers came up with a new type of scam, taking advantage of the fact that ovens were rare in homes, and the townspeople brought their dough to the bakery next door. The scammers put the dough in a special form with holes in the bottom, through which they were able to steal it, at least a little. The villains were sentenced to stand in the pillory, and for greater moralizing, dough was hung on their necks. But in the Victorian era, swindlers were no longer punished so colorfully, and, thanks to new technologies, food fraud took on catastrophic proportions. In a large impersonal city, it was quite easy to sell damaged goods.

Conversation at the grocery store: “Please, sir, give me a quarter pound of your best tea for Mom to poison the rats, and an ounce of chocolate for the cockroaches.” Cartoon of nutritional supplements. Punch Magazine, 1858

We diluted everything that was possible. Not only potato starch and crushed peas were added to the flour for volume, but also chalk and gypsum. The spent tea leaves were bought cheaply, dried, tinted and sold again. In Indian and Chinese teas one could find English flora, such as crushed ash or elderberry leaves. Well, that’s even patriotic! But why dilute the coffee? It’s good if only with chicory, and much worse if with fodder beets, acorns or soil. Red lead gave an appetizing appearance to the crust of Gloucester cheese, copper gave an exquisite color to cognac.

By mid-century, around 74% of milk across England was diluted with water, with water content varying from a modest 10% to 50%. It is unlikely that the water was boiled, but the milk itself was a breeding ground for infection. In addition to flies, it also contained something worse, in particular tuberculosis bacteria. Between 1896 and 1907 they contaminated a tenth of the milk sold in Manchester. In the second half of the century, English grocery stores were replenished with ice cream, which was sold by two thousand Italians in London alone. But health inspectors were horrified when they found E. coli, bacilli, cotton fibers, lice, bedbugs, fleas, straw, human and dog hair in ice cream samples.

Some Englishmen turned a blind eye to food adulteration. Journalist J. A. Sala was indignant: “Food is a gift from heaven, so why look a gift horse in the mouth? They may turn out to be fake. We should all, of course, thank those impartial pundits who have formed a sanitary commission and are now studying our dinners under a microscope, finding that it is half poison, half garbage. As for me, I prefer anchovies to be red and pickles to be green.". Others fought with presumptuous swindlers. In 1872, following reports published in the medical journal The Lancet, Parliament passed the Food Adulteration Act, which tightened controls over food quality.

London street food

To find at least some variety in the menu, let's leave the province and head back to the capital. Street food in London, as in other big cities, was in great demand. It was nourishing, varied and, most importantly, irreplaceable. The thing is that in the cramped apartments there were simply no stoves. You had to cook right in the fireplace over an open fire: you could brown toast or bake potatoes, but cooking stew would be a long and expensive task, given the cost of fuel. Isn't it easier to eat on the street? If they managed to earn an extra penny, they did not spend it on clothes or on coal, but immediately ran to buy food.

Where did Victorian Londoners get their food? Taking the basket, they went to the market, to the butcher and greengrocer, to the grocery store. No less often, food was sold directly on city streets or brought home. Let's look at the last two options, since they seem the most exotic to us.

Londoners bought meat at markets or butchers' shops. However, street meat trading was also carried out. Both poultry and game were sold in this way. Until 1831, street trade in game was prohibited. The implication was that traders obtained their snipe or rabbits through unjust means, by poaching in other people's forests. The rightful owner of the forest hunts for his own pleasure and certainly will not get involved in despicable trade. Severe laws did not stop poachers, although they had to sell their spoils in the strictest secrecy. The poachers' regular clients were innkeepers and wealthy merchants who wanted to feast on the food of aristocrats.

From the 1830s it became possible to obtain a license to sell game. Foresters were contacted for certificates, and issues regarding catching and selling game could be resolved with the owner of the forest. So the trade in game, which was previously carried out under the counter, became more vibrant. However, merchants were afraid to sell their goods in the West End. Otherwise, you’ll knock on the door of some mansion and bump into a judge, and he’ll immediately demand to see a certificate (which may not exist!).

Game traders could be identified by their spacious canvas shirts with large pockets into which it was convenient to stuff rabbit carcasses. They tied their goods to poles and carried them on their shoulders. A wide variety of game hung on the poles: black grouse, partridges, pheasants, snipe, wild ducks. Sometimes poultry was carried home in the same way - geese, chickens, turkeys, even pigeons, which were excellent for pie. The trade in rabbits was very profitable. Traders skinned them, sold the meat to cooks, and the skins to furriers.

Londoners bought meat not only for themselves, but also for their pets. Meat for cats and dogs was in great demand and brought considerable income to street peddlers. This meat was horse meat from the slaughterhouse. The horse meat was boiled for several hours and cut into pieces, then it was bought by peddlers and sent to London courtyards. Meat was sold both by weight (2.5 pence per pound) and in small pieces, which were strung on skewers in the manner of a kebab.

The competition was desperate. Having noticed which houses their rivals supplied meat to, traders knocked on the same doors and offered the goods at a reduced price.

Among the clients there were eccentric personalities. In the middle of the century, one woman spent 16 pence on meat every day, after which she climbed onto the roof of her house and threw treats to the barn cats. Hordes of street cats flocked to her house, their screams terribly annoying the neighbors. To ward off hungry strays, neighbors got dogs, and merchants were only happy - after all, dogs also need meat!

Even the poor did not take meat from the knacker for themselves, but they could feast on another budget delicacy - sheep lytka (that is, sheep's hooves cut off below the shin). At the beginning of the 19th century, glue was made from them, but later other, cheaper materials began to be used for its production. It was a pity to throw away the lytes, so they were sold. The traps were scalded with boiling water, the hooves were separated, the hair was scraped off, but carefully so as not to damage the skin, they were boiled for about four hours and sent for sale. A large, juicy leg could fetch a penny; the less attractive bones were cheaper.

Thanks to the development of railways, delivering fish to the capital of the British Empire became much easier. Already in the middle of the 19th century, both wealthy Londoners and the poor could feast on fish. Moreover, the smell of fried fish, especially herring, was strongly associated with the homes of the urban poor. It seemed that it was soaking the walls and furniture, and no matter how much you ventilated the room, it would not go anywhere.

Fish was delivered to London without interruption, regardless of the season - if there was no herring, they brought halibut, mackerel, and flounder. The market in Billingsgate became the center of the fish trade. Along with fish, they traded seafood. Half a pint (about 250g) of shrimp cost one penny. However, shrimp was still an overkill because the same penny could have been spent on bread. They bought oysters on the street, although they were of low quality, because expensive oysters are difficult to sell in the East End. Oysters are considered a delicacy these days, but in Victorian England they were a popular food for the poor. As Sam Weller used to say in The Pickwick Papers, “poverty and oysters always seem to go hand in hand”. The purchased oysters were taken home to be enjoyed with the family, or they were enjoyed without leaving the counter. The oysters were eaten with bread, which was thickly smeared with butter. You had to pay extra for bread, but pepper and vinegar were offered as free extras.

Since we're talking about oysters, let's talk about other shell delicacies. Shore snails (Littorina littorea) were in great demand. In English they are called "periwinkle", but Cockney traders shortened them to "winks" (it is worth mentioning that the English name for asparagus "asparagus" in their mouths sounded like "sparrowgrass" - "sparrow grass"). The season for shore snails lasted from March to October. The trade in snails was especially brisk in the summer, when the weekly income of traders was 12 shillings of net income. Among the snail lovers were merchants and maids - both of them considered snails a good addition to tea. Plus, treating your girlfriend to snails was a touching display of love among young East Enders.

Although many people now associate “fish and chips” with English food, this fast food began to be sold on the streets only in the second half of the 19th century. In the middle of the century, when Henry Mayhew wrote his notes about London workers, fried fish was served not with potatoes, but with bread. The approach of a fish peddler could be recognized by a drawn-out cry - “Fish and bread, just a penny!” As usual, we fried herring, mackerel, haddock, and flounder. Rapeseed oil was used for frying, and some traders mixed lamp oil with it. Needless to say, the fried fish had a specific taste, but in chilly weather it perfectly satisfied hunger.

A certain fish peddler told Henry Mayhew about the dangers that lurk in this difficult craft. The best fried fish was sold in pubs, as an appetizer with beer, but there you had to keep your eyes open. Several times the tray was knocked out of his hands, the fish scattered across the floor, and the nimble drunks immediately grabbed it and ate it. As a result, the poor fellow was left without profit. One day they threw graphite powder in his face, which was used to clean fireplace grates. While the merchant rubbed his eyes with his apron, the pub regulars stole his stall. The merchant returned home by touch, and for several days his face itched terribly. But nothing can be done - I had to get a new tray and continue trading.

On the streets of the capital, among the abundance of fish and boiled sheep legs, a vegetarian would also find something to profit from. Street peddlers sold cabbage, regular and cauliflower, turnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, lettuce, asparagus, etc. Little girls bought watercress at the markets, and then went from house to house, trying to sell it at a higher price. When buying greens, the principle of “trust, but verify” prevailed. At the end of the market day, dealers bought up unsold greens, already withered and yellowed. Lettuce and cabbage leaves were carefully sorted and soaked in dirty water. Having thus restored the marketable appearance of the greens, they sold them on the cheap. Is it any wonder that cholera was a frequent visitor to the capital?

If Londoners didn’t want raw vegetables in chilly weather, they could warm their stomachs with pea or fish soup. Hot eels were halfpenny for 5-7 pieces plus broth, pea soup halfpenny for half a pint. The soup was poured into bowls that traders carried with them. Although ordinary people did not disdain to eat from such containers, many were suspicious of eels. The street vendors themselves claimed that fishmongers were selling dead, stale fish instead of still alive ones. However, they admitted that aristocrats also eat eels in this form (but aristocrats, after all, no matter what nasty thing you slip into their hands, they will eat anyway).

At the beginning of the 19th century, baked apples were sold in large quantities on the streets, but baked potatoes drove them out of the market. It’s not surprising, because it’s easier to get enough of a potato than an apple. Merchants baked potatoes in a bakery and transported them around the city in metal containers equipped with a mini-boiler, which kept the potatoes hot. The containers were polished to a shine or painted bright red. Before eating a potato, chilled workers held it in their hands to warm up. A pleasant warmth spread through the glove into the palms, and only then the hot crumbly potatoes warmed the eaters from the inside. Even decently dressed gentlemen carried potatoes in their pockets to dine at home. But, it goes without saying, the main buyers were workers and artisans. The boys and girls who worked on the streets all day also spent halfpenny on potatoes. The Irish simply adored the product they had been accustomed to since childhood, however, according to traders, they were the worst buyers - they tried to choose the larger potatoes!

Along with vegetables, one could enjoy nuts, as well as baked chestnuts, which were cooked right on the street. Henry Mayhew interviewed a little girl who was delivering nuts to taverns - the nuts went well with beer. There was no question of chewing the nuts herself. If the girl did not bring her mother 6 pence, she would be thrashed. Her family ate bread and potatoes, although from time to time they could afford the luxury of herring or tea. Mayhew emphasized that this girl’s mother got drunk “only” once a week, so such a meager diet is not surprising.

In the summer, street vendors sold fresh fruit, and when that was not available, dried fruit. The choice of fruits and berries was quite large - strawberries, raspberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, apricots, plums, apples, pears and pineapples. Like vegetables, fruit was bought at Covent Garden, Farrington or Spitalfields markets and then resold on the streets. Street selling of fruit, especially oranges, was often carried out by the Irish, whom Londoners - both ordinary people and journalists - treated with contempt.

In the first half of the 19th century, pineapples appeared on the market and created a sensation. Taking advantage of the rush, street vendors bought cheap pineapples, spoiled by sea water in the hold, and sold them at exorbitant prices. A pineapple bought for just 4 pennies could fetch a shilling, or even a shilling and a half. Those who could not spend a whole shilling bought a slice for one penny. Pineapple traders earned fabulous money - 22 shillings a day! They were bought mainly by middle-class people to spoil their children at home, although cabbies, chimney sweeps and garbage men were also not averse to trying a slice for a penny to find out what the fuss was about.

Cunning fruit merchants, like other sellers, did not miss the opportunity to fool the simpletons. It was possible to boil small oranges to swell them and then sell them to inexperienced resellers. Very soon the product, so beautiful, turned black and shrunk. Other crooks pierced the oranges and squeezed out some of the juice, which they then sold separately. Cheating with apples was more difficult, but also possible. Cheap sour apples were rubbed with a woolen rag to make them shine and become softer to the touch. They were then mixed with the best quality apples and sold to gullible people.

There was little trade in bread on the streets of London in the mid-19th century. And why? Wouldn't it be easier to go to the bakery and buy a loaf with a crispy crust and melt-in-your-mouth crumb? However, not everyone could afford such luxury. Some poor people could only afford a crust of stale bread, which was what they sold on the streets. At the end of the working day, hawkers visited the bakeries and bought all the baked goods that were not sold out at a cheap price. The bakers were only too glad to get rid of it, and the traders carried it around Whitechapel the very next day. Some carried baskets on their heads, filled to the brim with dried out but quite edible buns. Others pushed a wheelbarrow in front of them, praising their goods in a hoarse voice - if you shout all day long, you can become hoarse, or even lose your voice altogether! The merchants' jackets and trousers were dusted with flour, making them appear dusty.

Sellers of ham sandwiches were on duty at the doors of the theaters. Depending on size, sandwiches cost a penny or a halfpenny. But sandwiches are not stale bread that cannot be spoiled by anything. Even if it gets moldy, the poor will eat it and not choke, as long as it’s cheaper. The theater audience was distinguished by its refined taste. Give her fresh bread and ham without green spots. So the sandwich sellers had a hard time. It was necessary to calculate exactly how many sandwiches would be sold out that evening, and sell every single one of them, because the next day no one would take them. All the bakery sellers were harmed by the damp weather, which is by no means uncommon in London. In the rain, the bread quickly became soggy, so it was not possible to sell it to passers-by.

Although the menu of East End Londoners was not full of delicacies, even the lumpen indulged their taste buds from time to time. Who would refuse to diversify a diet consisting mainly of potatoes and herring? The extra penny can be spent on pie. On the streets they sold meat and fish pies, boiled puddings with fat and kidneys, as well as sweet pastries of all sorts - open pies filled with rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, cherries, apples or cranberries, puddings with dried fruits, crumpets and muffins, buns Chelsea" (Chealsea buns) with cinnamon, lemon zest and raisins, gingerbread and so on and so forth.

Since bakers who were left without work became pies, either they themselves or their household members did the baking. Minced meat for meat pies was prepared from beef or lamb; for fish pies, duck was suitable. Need I say that the meat was not of the best quality? For the filling they did not take a whole piece of meat, but scraps that a decent person wouldn’t even covet. On the other hand, you have to be a masochist to closely examine the filling of a one-penny pie. Traditional mince-pies were in great demand. Nowadays they are associated with the Christmas season, but in the 19th century city dwellers ate them every day. The pies were filled with a mixture of minced meat, lard, apples, sugar, molasses, raisins and spices. The pie-makers carried a butter dish with gravy with them. The buyer pierced the crust of the pie with his finger and poured gravy into its depths until the crust puffed up. Experienced traders assured that thanks to the gravy, you can turn off a pie that was even four days old!

The famous musical about a maniacal barber and human pies did not arise out of nowhere. In London there were stories about the barber Sweeney Todd, who cut up his clients, and his mistress Mrs. Lovett used them for mincemeat. When they saw the pie-maker, the wits began to meow and bark, but the sellers were accustomed to such jokes. However, the Londoners did not offend the pie-makers and often played toss with them. Yes, yes, you didn’t always have to pay for the pie. Many relied on luck and tried to win the pie! “Take toss” was such a popular pastime that some Londoners, especially young people, flatly refused to buy pastries without first tossing a coin. If the merchant won, he took the penny for himself without giving the pie in return. If the buyer was lucky, he received the pie for free.

In the fall came the season of boiled meat puddings, which lasted all winter, when nothing warms the soul more than a delicacy based on rancid fat. The following picture was often seen on the streets - boys bought hot pudding and, groaning, passed it from hand to hand, torn between the desire to eat it right away and the fear of burning their tongues. Another favorite of the kids was plum dough pudding. A cookbook from 1897 gives the following recipe for this delicacy: mix a glass of butter, one and a half glasses of sugar, a glass of milk, three glasses of flour, a glass of raisins, three eggs and two teaspoons of baking powder. Steam the resulting mass for three hours. There were also original sweets - for example, the so-called “Coventry godcakes”. The city of Coventry is considered the birthplace of triangular jam puffs. According to tradition, godparents gave them to their godchildren for New Year or Easter. Three cuts were made on each pie, symbolizing the Trinity. In the 19th century, the regional delicacy reached London.

On Good Friday in England, they traditionally baked “cross buns” - buns decorated with the sign of a cross. Traditional medicine prescribed storing such a bun for a whole year until the next Good Friday. Cross buns, even if stale, were considered a universal remedy for any illness, including gastrointestinal disorders. And if it’s covered in cobwebs... well, cobwebs are great for healing cuts and stopping the bleeding! It will also be useful on the farm. Every Good Friday the city streets were filled with cries of “Cross buns, two for a penny!” Trade was very brisk, with only the Irish remaining on the sidelines, since Catholics were prescribed strict fasting on Good Friday.

Like their Russian peers, English children loved gingerbread. Gingerbread was shaped into a wide variety of shapes - horses, sheep, dogs, etc. A “rooster in trousers” was sold everywhere - the trousers on an impressive-looking gingerbread bird were made of gold leaf, and after the coronation of George IV, English children gnawed at “King George on a racehorse.” .

Back in the 18th century, milkmaids, often natives of Wales, busily scurried around the streets of London. On her shoulders the milkmaid held a yoke, from which dangled milk pans full of milk. Carrying buckets all day long is not an easy task, so burly women sold milk. Every day they visited the homes of regular customers, and on occasion they could pour a mug for a passerby. On the first of May, milkmaids took part in the parade and danced dashingly, holding milk bowls on their heads, hung with polished silverware. But in the middle of the 19th century, men zealously took up the sale of milk. “Milk-o-o! Half a pint for a halfpenny!” - they shouted.

The most scrupulous people preferred fresh milk, straight from the cow. The main trading point for fresh milk was St. James's Park. Both in winter and summer there were several cows there, which were milked at the first request of customers. Intermittent milking resulted in the park cows producing less milk, but this did not stop the thrush. Milk was bought by soldiers, nannies who took their pupils out for walks, as well as slender girls who were prescribed it to improve their health.

Such a grumpy thrush complained to Henry Mayhew about the spoiled public. These are the picky people who get into the habit of coming with their own mugs, and even porcelain ones. You see, they disdain her mugs! And the maids have no reason to wander around the park on their day off and drink milk there. They should all be locked up so that they don’t squander their money and wink at the soldiers! And where are the owners looking? It’s amazing how such a quarrelsome old woman’s milk doesn’t go sour. However, she can also be understood - if you spend every day, from morning to evening, in the company of a sad cow, then it won’t take long for you to become embittered.

In addition to raw milk, Londoners loved sweetened cottage cheese, which was sold in mugs, as well as rice milk. To prepare this drink, four liters of milk were boiled for an hour with half a kilo of previously boiled rice. The rice swelled, so that the coveted drink became even larger. At the request of the sweet tooth, sugar was added to the mug of rice milk, although in moderation, because you can’t have enough sugar for everyone.

What about another vital drink? But when it comes to street trading, alcohol has no place here. To fill your eyes, you will have to go to a pub or to the “gin palace” - the same pub, only with a more decent atmosphere. However, alcohol was still sold on the streets, but it was more a tribute to tradition. In winter they sold hot elderberry wine. According to popular beliefs, elderberry wards off evil spirits, so drinking wine is not only pleasant, but also soul-saving. Some cunning people sold mint lemonade, and carried two barrels with them. One contained water sweetened and flavored with mint, the other contained alcohol. The smell of peppermint overpowered the smell of alcohol, so you could trade right in front of the police.

But if the street vendors refrained from selling alcohol, their brothers on the river sold it with all their might. Entrepreneurs who crossed the Thames on their fragile boats were called “purl sellers”. In ancient times in England they brewed “purl” - ale made from wormwood. The Victorians lost all interest in this intoxicating drink, especially since a completely bohemian drink appeared - absinthe. However, the word has survived. This is how they began to call hot beer with gin, sugar and ginger. Sailors and workers on cargo ships sailing along the Thames warmed themselves with punch. To engage in this trade, it was necessary first of all to obtain a license, and then to acquire a boat, equipment for making cocktails and an impressive bell. It was easy for a river merchant to get lost in the fog, so he rang a bell to inform the sailors of his approach. If the crew wanted to warm up, shouts of welcome were heard in response and the merchant swam closer.

Street drinks, like street food, evolved quickly in the 19th century. Old favorites were replaced by new ones. Take, for example, the sbiten-salup, which brightened up the existence of Londoners in the 18th century. It was prepared from milk with the addition of sugar, spices and the bark of the Orchis mascula or sassafras (both plants are mentioned). In the 1820s, essayist Charles Lamb wrote a eulogy on the favorite drink of young chimney sweeps:

“There is a certain mixture, the basis of which, as I understand it, is a sweetish tree, “recommended as sassafras.” Its wood, boiled to resemble tea and flavored with the addition of milk and sugar, is undoubtedly more refined to the taste of some than the luxurious gift of China. I don’t know due to what peculiarities in the structure of the young chimney sweep’s mouth this happens, but I have always noticed that this dish amazingly pleases his palate - either because the particles of oil (sassafras is slightly oily) loosen and dissolve hardened accumulations of soot, which, as was sometimes found (at autopsies) to adhere to the roof of the mouth of these fledgling toilers, either because nature, feeling that she had mixed too much bitterness into the lot of these unhardened victims, ordered that sassafras should spring up from the earth as a sweet consolation , - but one way or another, there is no other taste or smell that would evoke in a young chimney sweep such an exquisite excitement of the senses as this mixture.”.

But by 1840, the salup had disappeared from the streets of London and already seemed something exotic. It was replaced by lemonade, sparkling water and “ginger beer,” that is, fizzy ginger lemonade. Ginger beer sellers made their own by mixing water, ginger, citric acid, clove essence, yeast and sugar. Lemonade was bottled or, especially in the summer heat, sold from a siphon in carbonated form. There were rumors that unscrupulous traders mixed sulfuric acid into lemonade in order to save money on lemon juice.

Finally, let's talk about coffee. Coffee houses appeared in London at the end of the 17th century, but sometimes it happens that there is simply no time to sit in a coffee shop. In such cases, Londoners relied on street stalls. In the 1820s, duties on coffee were reduced, prices fell and, as a result, trade turnover increased. The coffee on the streets was of poor quality, mixed with chicory and dried carrots. However, it was not gourmets who bought it.

The mobile coffee shop was a cart, sometimes with a canvas canopy. On the trolley there were 3-4 tin cans with tea, coffee, cocoa and hot milk. Burners were placed under them to keep the contents warm. Along with the drinks they sold bread and butter, muffins, ham sandwiches, watercress and boiled eggs. Coffee was poured into mugs, which were then washed in a tub standing under the cart (the water, as usual, came from the nearest pump). A mug of coffee, tea or cocoa in the middle of the century cost a penny, a piece of bread and butter or cake - half a penny, a sandwich - 2 pence, a boiled egg - a penny, a bunch of watercress - half a penny.

Income depended entirely on the location of the stall. The busier the street, the greater the demand for coffee. The corner of Duke Street and Oxford Street was considered a tasty morsel. There stood a large four-wheeled cart, painted bright green. Its lucky owner, according to Henry Mayhew, earned at least 30 shillings daily! The busiest period of trade was in the morning, when clerks and workers went to work. Many stalls were open at night, but served a different demographic - prostitutes and their clients.

In the Victorian era, coins were in use in different denominations: half-farthing, farthing (1/4 penny), halfpenny, penny, twopence, threepence, fourpence, sixpence, shilling (12 pence), florin (2 shillings), half-crown (2.5 shilling), crown (5 shillings), half sovereign (10 shillings), sovereign (20 shillings). 21 shillings was equal to one guinea.

However, the verb to crap - “to defecate” - appeared much earlier and is in no way connected with the inventor. Most likely, his surname comes from the word cropper - an old designation for a farmer.

In the XVI-XVII centuries. Europe has not yet freed itself from the fear of famine. The food of the bulk of the population remained rather monotonous. The basis of the diet was grains - wheat, rye, barley, millet.

The “bread menu” was supplemented by buckwheat, and in the south of Europe also corn imported from America. Soups and porridges were prepared from them. Mass consumer products also included beans, peas, and lentils. They consumed quite a lot of meat - beef, lamb, pork, chicken. They prepared dishes from game - the meat of wild boars, deer, roe deer, hares, as well as partridges, larks, and quails. Pigeons were bred specifically for food. Fresh meat was expensive, so corned beef was more common on the table of common people.

The “mania for spices” was becoming a thing of the past: they were no longer used as much as in the Middle Ages. This was partly due to the emergence of new vegetable crops - asparagus, spinach, green peas, cauliflower, tomatoes, zucchini, corn and potatoes, and partly due to a decrease in the consumption of stale meat. The usual European diet also included cheeses, eggs, butter, milk, and olive oil. For a long time, Europe was limited in sweets. Sugar was first considered a medicine and was sold only in pharmacists' shops. In the 16th century it was obtained from sugar cane in a labor-intensive and expensive way. Therefore, sugar remained a luxury item, although its consumption gradually increased.

Almost half of the year fell on fast days. Then it was time for seafood. Fresh, but especially smoked, salted and dried fish significantly complemented and diversified the table. The Baltic and North Sea were fed with herring, the Atlantic with cod, the Mediterranean with tuna and sardines. There were also a lot of fish in the rivers, lakes and ponds.

They drank mostly natural grape wine. The true folk drink was beer, and in Northern France - cider. Their consumption was prompted not so much by the love of intoxicating drinks, but by the poor quality of water, especially in cities. There were few water pipelines. Melted snow, river and rain water were used. It was especially dangerous to drink water from rivers, since harmful waste from dyeing, tanning and other crafts was poured into them. This water was purified by passing it through fine sand, and then sold. Every day the cries of 20 thousand water carriers could be heard through the streets of Paris, each of whom delivered 60 buckets of water to the apartments of multi-storey buildings.

Francisco Zurbaran. Still life. 1630-1635

Thanks to the Great Geographical Discoveries, new drinks penetrated into Europe - chocolate, tea and coffee. Chocolate was credited with medicinal properties, but they were also afraid: in France, opponents of the drink spread rumors that black children were born to those who consumed chocolate.

Tea was brought from distant China at the beginning of the 17th century. Dutch. The fragrant drink remained the privilege of the nobility for a long time, and only from the 18th century. came into widespread use.

They especially liked coffee, which Europeans became acquainted with in Muslim countries. In the 17th century Paris was literally flooded with traveling Armenian traders in picturesque Turkish turbans. Soon the doors of numerous cozy coffee shops opened, where aristocrats, politicians and people of art met over a cup of coffee and had endless conversations. Women appeared everywhere on the streets, selling hot coffee diluted with milk to ordinary townspeople from special tanks with taps and heating. Material from the site

From the 16th century Numerous taverns opened their doors, where you could chat with friends over drinks and snacks, play cards or dice. Often such taverns became a real haven for criminals and scammers, especially in poor neighborhoods.

Questions about this material:

The study of historical chronicles showed that in the Middle Ages people, as a rule, ate simple and predominantly vegetarian food. In Burgundy they said that angels eat once a day, people eat twice, and only animals eat three times or more. In those days, days of rich feasts were followed by long days of fasting.

In 1375, Billem Beikelszoon of Biervliet (Flanders) introduced gutting of herring, which significantly expanded the storage capabilities of fish products supplied to inland areas remote from the sea.

Beef, pork, chickens and eggs often appeared on the tables of wealthy townspeople. The earnings of the city craftsmen were increasing, they began to feast on wheat bread and such delicacies as “presale” (meat of sheep grazing on the saline soils of the sea coasts), goat meat and pork.

Only poor people ate bread made from millet or buckwheat flour, brought to Western Europe in the 15th century from Slavic countries.

In the Middle Ages, watercress, radishes, parsnips and carrots were very common.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, a new type of food appeared in Italy - pasta and vermicelli.

They are believed to have first appeared in Southern Italy. Olives did not grow in the northern regions of Italy, so the olive oil used in ancient times was replaced here by butter, beef and lard and rapeseed or rapeseed oil. The only sugary substance was honey; This explains the development of beekeeping in the Middle Ages.

The most delicious dishes were considered to be highly spiced. Each city and estate had special gardens for growing various herbs; on the tables of the rich one could see such oriental spices as pepper. Various healing properties were attributed to many spices and herbs.

Food was usually eaten with the help of hunting knives, spoons, and simply with hands. Forks were used only in the kitchen. Slices of bread served as plates and napkins, but round wooden boards and wooden goblets were also used.

Salt shakers, often boat-shaped, were large in size, since in the Middle Ages people consumed much more salt than we do and seasoned their food with very hot sauces.

Michael Delahade of the University of Washington writes about medieval cooking.

We know virtually nothing about European cooking from the fifth to thirteenth centuries. The earliest written recipes appeared then, in the thirteenth century.

Medieval food is characterized by the generous use of spices, especially ginger, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg and saffron. Vinegar is often mentioned, which was made from unripe green grapes with high acidity and low sugar content. One of the most common myths about the Middle Ages is the naive belief that spices in medieval cooking were used to hide the taste of spoiled meat. Our contemporaries are absolutely sure that before the invention of refrigerators and freezers, people ate rotten foods.

Municipal records of the time, however, clearly indicate that the authorities were well aware of hygiene, and took quite harsh measures against those who tried to sell spoiled products to customers by masking their defects. After all, heavy use of spices in cooking went out of fashion in Europe in the 17th century, 300 years before the advent of refrigeration! And spices were incredibly expensive, too expensive to squander on rotten meat.

Sometimes you can find claims that people of the Middle Ages used spices to preserve food. About this, only one thing can be said: the people of the Middle Ages were not weak-minded, and they knew very well that spices do not preserve food, that they are preserved by salt, sugar, honey and vinegar.

Spices were a symbol, a symbol of luxury and status. They were prestigious. Cooks of our time are amazed by medieval recipes, including a good dozen spices and several types of meat. The fact is that no ordinary person can taste so many spices unless he is told about them in advance.

Indeed, medieval recipes were not written for cooks. Chefs learned their difficult craft through apprenticeship. Recipes were written for managers who made purchases. And guests learned about the contents of dishes through colorful menus, and the more fancy the holiday menu was, the happier the guests were, and the more prestige the host had.

One of the extravagances of medieval cooking were "subtleties", which were far from subtle. For example, pies, a cut in the crust of which released a flock of birds. These pies were not for eating, of course, they demonstrated the skill of the cooks. But decoratively decorated and mounted carcasses, stuffed with various meats, herbs, sausages, porridges - this was truly the long-awaited main course. In general, much more impressive than a modern flambé dessert.

Expensive spices came to English cooking with the Normans. Before this, it was influenced by a variety of cultures, from Roman to Scandinavian and, of course, French. Sugar also appeared through the Normans; before that, the British used honey and fruit juices.

Chris Adler-France points out in his book that medieval recipes were not just flights of fancy of their authors. In fact, it was a very delicate work based on Galen's theory, a combination of hot, dry, wet and cold. In the Middle Ages they already knew that poorly balanced food was harmful. There were clear instructions based on the book Tacuinum Sanitatis on how to cook, with what and in what order to serve dishes.

For example, beef was always boiled first because it was “dry and cold,” while pork was roasted over a fire to reduce its “moistness.” Fish was also fried, but in oil or fat to counteract its "cold and wet" nature. Great importance was attached to various methods of grinding food.

The dishes, which looked impressive and whole, consisted, in fact, of quite small and neat pieces. The fact is that they had to be easily taken with the tip of a knife, spoon or fingers - forks were used among kitchen utensils hundreds of years before they became part of cutlery.

Kitchen equipment of that time included knives (for cutting, chopping and chopping meat and vegetables), mortars and pestles (for crushing spices, herbs, almonds, grains, cooked vegetables and meat), colanders and sieves, cauldrons, frying pans, grates, waffle ovens , butcher's hatchets, hammers, tongs, a set of whisks for beating, a set of pieces of cloth for filtering and wiping surfaces, sand for cleaning surfaces and vats for washing equipment.

General rule. The dishes served on the tables of gentlemen: aristocrats, landowners, people in power, both spiritual and secular, differed very significantly from what ordinary people who worked on their lands and depended on them ate.

However, when in the 13th century, the boundaries between classes began to blur, the powers that be became concerned about how to retain workers, and decided to play on the love of the “hearth”, allowing the peasants to feast on food from their table.

Bread

In the Middle Ages, white bread, which is made from finely ground wheat flour, was intended exclusively for the tables of lords and princes. The peasants ate black, primarily rye bread.

In the Middle Ages, this often fatal disease grew to epidemic proportions, especially in lean and famine years. After all, it was then that everything that more or less fell under the definition of cereal was collected from the fields, often ahead of schedule, that is, just at the very time when ergot is most poisonous. Ergot poisoning affected the nervous system and was fatal in most cases.

It was not until the early Baroque era that a Dutch physician discovered the relationship between ergot and St. Anthony's fire. Chlorine was used as a means to prevent the spread of the disease, although despite it, or even because of it, the epidemic raged even more.

But the use of chlorine was not widespread and was rather determined by the type of bread: some cunning bakers bleached their rye and oat bread with chlorine, and then sold it at a profit, passing it off as white (chalk and crushed bone were readily used for the same purposes).

And since, in addition to these very unhealthy bleaching agents, dried flies were often baked into bread as “raisins,” the extremely cruel punishments meted out to fraudulent bakers appear in a new light.

Those who wanted to make easy money from bread often had to break the law. And almost everywhere this was punishable by significant financial fines.

In Switzerland, fraudulent bakers were hanged in a cage over a dung pit. Accordingly, those who wanted to get out of it had to jump straight into the fetid mess.

To stop bullying, to prevent the disrepute of their profession from spreading, and also to control themselves, bakers united in the first industrial association - the guild. Thanks to her, that is, thanks to the fact that representatives of this profession cared about their membership in the guild, real masters of baking appeared.

Pasta

There are many legends about cuisine and recipes. The most beautiful of them was described Marco Polo, who in 1295 brought from his trip to Asia a recipe for making dumplings and “threads” from dough.

It is believed that this story was heard by a Venetian cook who began tirelessly mixing water, flour, eggs, sunflower oil and salt until he achieved the best consistency for the noodle dough. It is not known whether this is true or whether noodles came to Europe from Arab countries thanks to the crusaders and merchants. But it is a fact that European cuisine soon became unthinkable without noodles.

However, in the 15th century there were still bans on the preparation of pasta, since in the event of a particularly unsuccessful harvest, flour was necessary for baking bread. But since the Renaissance, the triumphant march of pasta across Europe could no longer be stopped.

Porridge and thick soup

Until the era of the Roman Empire, porridge was present in the diet of all levels of society, and only then turned into food for the poor. However, it was very popular among them; they ate it three or even four times a day, and in some houses they ate it exclusively. This state of affairs continued until the 18th century, when potatoes replaced porridge.

It should be noted that the porridge of that time differs significantly from our current ideas about this product: medieval porridge cannot be called “porridge-like”, in the meaning that we give to this word today. It was... hard, and so hard that it could be cut.

One Irish law of the 8th century clearly stated which segments of the population were supposed to eat what kind of porridge: “For the lower class, oatmeal cooked with buttermilk and old butter for it are quite enough; representatives of the middle class are supposed to eat porridge made from pearl barley and fresh milk, and put fresh butter in it; and royal offspring should be served porridge sweetened with honey, made from wheat flour and fresh milk.”

Along with porridge, since ancient times, humanity has known a “one-dish lunch”: a thick soup that replaces the first and second. It is found in the cuisines of a wide variety of cultures (the Arabs and Chinese use a double pot to prepare it - meat and various vegetables are boiled in the lower compartment, and the steam rises from it for rice) and just like porridge, it was food for the poor until No expensive ingredients were used to prepare it.

There is also a practical explanation for the special love for this dish: in medieval kitchens (both princely and peasant), food was prepared in a cauldron suspended on rotating mechanisms over an open fire (later in a fireplace). And what could be simpler than throwing all the ingredients that you can get into such a cauldron and preparing a rich soup from them. At the same time, the taste of the brew is very easy to change by simply changing the ingredients.

Meat, lard, butter

Having read books about the life of aristocrats, and being impressed by the colorful descriptions of feasts, modern man firmly believed that representatives of this class ate exclusively game. In fact, game made up no more than five percent of their diet.

Pheasants, swans, wild ducks, wood grouse, deer... It sounds magical. But in fact, chickens, geese, sheep and goats were usually served at the table. Roast occupied a special place in medieval cuisine.

When we talk or read about meat cooked on a spit or grill, we forget about the more than insignificant development of dentistry at that time. How can you chew tough meat with a toothless jaw?

Ingenuity came to the rescue: the meat was kneaded in a mortar to a mushy state, thickened by adding eggs and flour, and the resulting mass was fried on a spit in the shape of an ox or sheep.

The same thing was sometimes done with fish; the peculiarity of this variation of the dish was that the “porridge” was pushed into the skin skillfully pulled off the fish, and then boiled or fried.

It seems strange to us now that fried meat in the Middle Ages was often also cooked in broth, and cooked chicken, rolled in flour, was added to the soup. With such double processing, the meat lost not only its crispiness, but also its taste.

As for the fat content of food and ways to make it so, the aristocrats used sunflower, and later butter, oils for these purposes, and the peasants were content with lard.

Canning

Drying, smoking and salting as methods of preserving food were already known in the Middle Ages.

They dried fruits: pears, apples, cherries, and also came with vegetables. Air-dried or oven-dried, they were preserved for a long time and were often used in cooking: they were especially popular added to wine. Fruits were also used to make compote (fruit, ginger). However, the resulting liquid was not consumed immediately, but was thickened and then cut: the result was something like candy.

They smoked meat, fish and sausage. This was due to the seasonality of livestock slaughter, which took place in October-November, since, firstly, at the beginning of November it was necessary to pay a tax in kind, and secondly, this made it possible not to spend money on animal feed in the winter.

Sea fish imported for consumption during Lent was preferred to be salted. Many types of vegetables, such as beans and peas, were also salted. As for cabbage, it was fermented.

Seasonings

Seasonings were an integral attribute of medieval cuisine. Moreover, there is no point in distinguishing between seasonings for the poor and seasonings for the rich, because only the rich could afford to have spices.

The easiest and cheapest option was to buy pepper. The import of pepper made a lot of people rich, but it also brought many people to the gallows, namely those who cheated and mixed dried berries into the pepper. Along with pepper, the favorite seasonings in the Middle Ages were cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg.

Saffron deserves special mention: it was even several times more expensive than the very expensive nutmeg (in the 20s of the 15th century, when nutmeg was sold for 48 kreuzers, saffron cost about one hundred and eighty, which corresponded to the price of a horse).

Most cookbooks of that period do not indicate the proportions of spices, but, based on books from a later period, we can conclude that these proportions did not correspond to our tastes today, and dishes seasoned as it was done in the Middle Ages might seem very different to us. sharp and even burn the palate.

Spices were not only used to demonstrate richness, they also covered the smell emitted by meat and other foods. In the Middle Ages, meat and fish stocks were often salted so that they would not spoil for as long as possible and would not cause illness. And, therefore, spices were designed to drown out not only odors, but also taste - the taste of salt. Or sour.

Spices, honey and rose water were used to sweeten sour wine so that it could be served to the gentlemen. Some modern authors, citing the length of the journey from Asia to Europe, believe that during transportation, spices lost their taste and smell and essential oils were added to them to return them.

Greenery

Herbs were valued for their healing power; treatment without herbs was unthinkable. But they also occupied a special place in cooking. Southern herbs, namely marjoram, basil and thyme, familiar to modern people, were not found in the northern countries in the Middle Ages. But such herbs were used that we don’t even remember today.

But we, as before, know and appreciate the magical properties of parsley, mint, dill, caraway, sage, lovage, fennel; nettle and calendula are still fighting for space in the sun and in the pan.

Almond milk and marzipan

Almonds were a must in every medieval kitchen of the powerful. They especially liked to make almond milk from it (crushed almonds, wine, water), which was then used as a base for preparing various dishes and sauces, and during Lent they replaced real milk.

Marzipan, also made from almonds (grated almonds with sugar syrup), was a luxury item in the Middle Ages. This dish is considered a Greco-Roman invention.

Researchers conclude that the small almond cakes that the Romans sacrificed to their gods were the forerunners of sweet almond dough (pane Martius (spring bread) - Marzipan).

Honey and sugar

In the Middle Ages, food was sweetened exclusively with honey. Although cane sugar was known in Southern Italy already in the 8th century, the rest of Europe learned the secret of its production only during the Crusades. But even then, sugar continued to remain a luxury: at the beginning of the 15th century, six kilograms of sugar cost as much as a horse.

It was only in 1747 that Andreas Sigismund Markgraf discovered the secret of producing sugar from sugar beets, but this did not particularly affect the situation. Industrial and, accordingly, mass production of sugar began only in the 19th century, and only then did sugar become a product “for everyone.”

These facts allow us to look at medieval feasts with new eyes: only those who possessed excessive wealth could afford to organize them, because most of the dishes consisted of sugar, and many dishes were intended only to be admired and admired, but not were eaten.

Feasts

We read with amazement about the carcasses of hazel dormouse, storks, eagles, bears and beaver tails that were served at the table in those days. We think about how tough the meat of storks and beavers must taste, about how rare animals like the dormouse and the hazel dormouse are.

At the same time, we forget that numerous changes of dishes were intended, first of all, not to satisfy hunger, but to demonstrate wealth. Who could be indifferent to the sight of such a dish as a peacock “spouting” flame?

And the fried bear paws were displayed on the table definitely not to glorify the hunting abilities of the owner of the house, who belongs to the highest circles of society and is unlikely to earn his living by hunting.

Along with amazing hot dishes, feasts included sweet baked works of art; dishes made of sugar, gypsum, salt as tall as a man and even more. All this was intended mainly for visual perception.

Especially for these purposes, holidays were organized, at which the prince and princess publicly tasted meat, poultry, cakes, and pastries on a raised platform.

Colorful food

Multi-colored dishes were extremely popular in the Middle Ages and at the same time easy to prepare.

Coats of arms, family colors and even entire paintings were depicted on pies and cakes; many sweet foods, such as almond milk jelly, were given a variety of colors (in the cookbooks of the Middle Ages you can find a recipe for making such a three-colored jelly). Meat, fish, and chicken were also painted.

The most common coloring agents are: parsley or spinach (green); grated black bread or gingerbread, clove powder, black cherry juice (black), vegetable or berry juice, beets (red); saffron or egg yolk with flour (yellow); onion peel (brown).

They also liked to gild and silver dishes, but, of course, this could only be done by the cooks of gentlemen who were able to provide the appropriate means at their disposal. And although the addition of coloring substances changed the taste of the dish, they turned a blind eye to this for the sake of getting a beautiful “picture”.

However, with colored food, sometimes funny and not so funny things happened. Thus, at one holiday in Florence, guests were almost poisoned by the colorful creation of an inventor-cook who used chlorine to obtain white color and verdigris to obtain green.

Fast

Medieval cooks also showed their resourcefulness and skill during Lent: when preparing fish dishes, they seasoned them in a special way so that they tasted like

meat, invented pseudo-eggs and tried in every way to circumvent the strict rules of fasting.

The clergy and their cooks especially tried. So, for example, they expanded the concept of “aquatic animals”, including the beaver (its tail was classified as “fish scales”). After all, the fasts then lasted a third of the year.

Four meals a day

The day began with the first breakfast, limited to a glass of wine. At approximately 9 o'clock in the morning it was time for a second breakfast, which consisted of several courses.

It should be clarified that this is not the modern “first, second and compote”. Each course consisted of a large number of dishes, which the servants served to the table. This led to the fact that anyone who organized a banquet - whether on the occasion of christenings, weddings or funerals - tried not to lose face and serve as many goodies as possible to the table, not paying attention to their capabilities, and therefore often getting into debt.

To put an end to this state of affairs, numerous regulations were introduced that regulated the number of dishes and even the number of guests. For example, in 1279, the French king Philip III issued a decree stating that “not a single duke, count, baron, prelate, knight, cleric, etc. has no right to eat more than three modest courses (cheeses and vegetables, unlike cakes and pastries, were not taken into account).” The modern tradition of serving one dish at a time came to Europe from Russia only in the 18th century.

At lunch, they were again allowed to drink only a glass of wine, eating it with a piece of bread soaked in wine. And only for dinner, which took place from 3 to 6 pm, an incredible amount of food was again served. Naturally, this is a “schedule” for the upper classes of society.

The peasants were busy with business and could not devote as much time to eating as the aristocrats (often they only managed to have one modest snack during the day), and their income did not allow them to do this.

Cutlery and crockery

Two cutlery items had a hard time gaining recognition in the Middle Ages: the fork and the personal use plate. Yes, there were wooden plates for the lower classes and silver or even gold ones for the higher ones, but they ate mainly from common dishes. Moreover, instead of a plate, stale bread was sometimes used for these purposes, which slowly absorbed and prevented the table from getting dirty.

The fork also “suffered” from prejudices that existed in society: its shape earned it a reputation as a diabolical creation, and its Byzantine origin earned it a suspicious attitude. Therefore, she was able to “make her way” to the table only as a device for meat. It was only in the Baroque era that debates about the merits and demerits of the fork became fierce. On the contrary, everyone had their own knife, even women wore it on their belt.

On the tables one could also see spoons, salt shakers, rock crystal glasses and drinking vessels - often richly decorated, gilded or even silver. However, the latter were not individual; even in rich houses they were shared with neighbors. Common people's dishes and cutlery were made of wood and clay.

Many peasants had only one spoon in their house for the whole family, and if someone did not want to wait for it to reach him in a circle, he could use a piece of bread instead of this cutlery.

Table manners

Chicken legs and meatballs were thrown in all directions, dirty hands were wiped on shirts and trousers, food was torn into pieces and then swallowed without chewing. ...So, or approximately so, we, having read the records of cunning innkeepers or their adventurer visitors, imagine today the behavior of knights at the table.

In reality, everything was not so extravagant, although there were some curious moments that amazed us. Many satires, table manners, and descriptions of food customs reflect that morality did not always take a place at the table with its owner.

For example, the prohibition on blowing your nose into a tablecloth would not have been encountered so often if this bad habit were not very common.

How they cleared the table

There were no tables in their modern form (that is, when the tabletop is attached to the legs) in the Middle Ages. The table was built when there was a need for it: wooden stands were installed, and a wooden board was placed on them. That’s why in the Middle Ages they didn’t clear the table, they cleared the table...

Cook: honor and respect

Powerful medieval Europe highly valued its chefs. In Germany, since 1291, the chef was one of the four most important figures at court. In France, only noble people became high-ranking chefs.

The position of chief winemaker of France was the third most important after the positions of chamberlain and chief equerry. Then came the bread baking manager, the chief cupbearer, the chef, the restaurant managers closest to the court, and only then the marshals and admirals.

As for the kitchen hierarchy - and there was a huge number (up to 800 people) of interdependent workers - the first place was given to the head of meat. A position characterized by honor and trust of the king, for no one was safe from poison. He had six people at his disposal who selected and prepared meat for the royal family every day.

Teilevant, the famous chef of King Charles the Sixth, had 150 people under his command.

And in England, for example, at the court of Richard the Second there were 1,000 cooks and 300 footmen who served 10,000 people at the court every day. A dizzying figure, demonstrating that it was not so much about feeding as it was about demonstrating wealth.

Cookbooks of the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, along with spiritual literature, it was cookbooks that were most often and willingly copied. Around 1345 to 1352, the earliest cookbook of this time was written, Buoch von guoter spise (Book of Good Food). The author is considered to be the notary of the Bishop of Würzburg, Michael de Leon, who, along with his duties of noting budget expenditures, was collecting recipes.

Fifty years later, the Alemannische Buchlein von guter Speise (The Alemannic Book of Good Food) appears, by master Hansen, the Württemberg cook. This was the first cookbook in the Middle Ages to bear the author's name. A collection of recipes by Master Eberhard, cook of Duke Heinrich III von Bayern-Landshut, appeared around 1495.

Pages from the cookbook "Forme of Cury". It was created by King Richard II's chef in 1390 and contains 205 recipes used at court. The book is written in medieval English, and some of the recipes described in this book have long been forgotten by society. For example, “blank mang” (a sweet dish made from meat, milk, sugar and almonds).

Around 1350, the French cookbook Le Grand Cuisinier de toute Cuisine was created, and in 1381 the English Ancient Cookery. 1390 - “The Forme of Cury”, by the cook of King Richard II. As for Danish collections of recipes from the 13th century, it is worth mentioning Henrik Harpenstreng's Libellus de Arte Coquinaria. 1354 - Catalan "Libre de Sent Sovi" by an unknown author.

The most famous cookbook of the Middle Ages was created by the master Guillaume Tyrell, better known under his creative pseudonym Teylivent. He was the cook of King Charles the Sixth, and later even received the title. The book was written between 1373 and 1392, and published only a century later and included, along with well-known dishes, very original recipes that a rare gourmet would dare to cook today.

For Russia and Ukraine throughout the centuries, the saying has been true: cabbage soup and porridge are our food. As a matter of fact, from ancient times, people in our country ate mainly bread, cereals, and root vegetables such as radishes and turnips. Porridge is the main food of both rich and poor, it’s good that at least there is variety here, they ate millet, millet, semolina, and buckwheat. A popular dish was tyurya - flour diluted with water or milk. Potatoes appeared later. Wine was drunk only in the south; in the northern regions of Russia they preferred vodka. In general, as you understand, cuisine largely depended on the climatic factor. The harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables in Russia is limited in time; they didn’t know how to preserve fruits like they do now, and in general I find it hard to believe that they ate fruits and vegetables at all in Russia back then.

The difference between the table of the rich and the poor was the amount of meat and pickles. Food served as a division between classes. At the very top were the boyars, below them the clergy and the lowest class were the peasants. But the boyars were also divided into classes, at the very top were the tsar and the feudal lords, despite the higher variety of dishes among rich townspeople, Russian cuisine at all times retained its national features.

Significant improvements in the variety of dishes began only after the death of Peter the Great. For example, Peter the Great's menu consisted of porridge, jelly, cold pig in sour cream, sour cabbage soup, roast duck with pickles, Limburg cheese, and ham.

Ordinary people ate bread, porridge and meat on holidays.

In other words, at all times in Rus' there was food of very low biological value, this is exactly what modern nutritionists would say

How many years did people live before? How long did people live in the Middle Ages?

How long did people live before? Many of us are sure that before the 20th century, people rarely lived to be 59, and sometimes even 30 years old. It's really true.

Many examples of how many people lived in Russia before can be emphasized from classical literature, as Gogol wrote: “the door was opened to us by an old woman of about forty.” Tolstoy talks about “Princess Marivanna, an old woman of 36 years old.” Anna Karenina was 28 years old at the time of her death, Anna Karenina’s old husband was 48 years old. The old pawnbroker from Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was 42 years old. And here’s a little bit from Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 years old entered the room.” Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin’s “The Snowstorm” was no longer young: “She was in her 20th year.” Tynyanov: “Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those gathered. He was 34 years old, the age of extinction.”

Lifespan of the first people according to the Old Testament

Mortality in ancient times. How long did ancient people live?

More interesting phrases from classical literature: “a very old man with a stick, 40 years old, entered the room, he was supported by the arms of young men of 18 years old.” Cardinal Richelieu was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the La Rochelle fortress described in The Three Musketeers.

So, so that at the age of 40 you are not dragged on a stretcher by 28 year old guys, it is better to give up traditional Russian food in the form of bread, porridge, cabbage soup and other things. One can only think, why did people live so little, while all the products were natural, so to speak, people did not yet know what GMOs were, by the way, in Russia they are afraid of this GMO like fire, but everything is proof that in the old days the absence this GMO did not lead to increased life expectancy, in Russian cuisine there was a tradition of not frying, but cooking in the oven, many products were cooked on low heat, so to speak, which does not seem to be very harmful to the health of a raw foodist?

The answer is that Russian cuisine is very different, for example, from the Mediterranean; if you look at what they ate in Ancient Greece and in medieval Russia, the difference is obvious.

Ancient Greek cuisine

Ancient Greek cuisine had its own drawback in the form of a limited number of crops grown. Ancient Greek cuisine relied on three basic products: wheat, olive oil and wine. Information about ancient Greek cuisine came to us from literary sources, including the comedies of Aristophanes. The basis of food was bread, sometimes soaked in wine and maybe with the addition of dried fruits and olives. The poor and beggars ate grass and root vegetables. The rich ate lying down and sometimes overdid it too much. As we already understood, the basis of the diet of the ancient Greeks was bread; wheat was often soaked before making flour from it; in this we can see an analogy with how modern raw foodists germinate grain. There was no yeast in those days; wine yeast was used instead. The dough was baked in a clay oven. Barley was considered a simpler grain than wheat; making bread from barley was much more difficult; it was first fried and only then ground into flour.

But we remember that the ancient Greek philosophers lived until real late old age, which means not the age of a very old man like Pushkin, but really the age of 70-80 years.

Of course, this is thanks to the fruits and vegetables that grew almost all year round in Greece thanks to the warm Mediterranean climate. In Ancient Greece, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, beans, peas, lentils, melons, watermelons, apples, pears, pomegranates, quinces, plums, almonds, turnips, radishes, cucumbers, various citrus fruits, olives and grapes were grown.

In Ancient Greece, naturally, they did not know what sugar was; figs, dates and honey were used instead; these products were available only to the rich and were generally forbidden to be exported from the country.

Meat in Ancient Greece was eaten, again depending on financial capabilities. Consumption of fish was also high. Rich peasants kept chickens, geese, goats, pigs and sheep. The poor could be content with small wild animals, for example, they ate hares or squirrels. Nevertheless, even then the Greeks ate sausages and sausages; of course, this was only available to the rich. In the villages, people ate eggs and drank milk, and made goat and sheep cheese. The Greeks knew how to make red, rose and white wine. Wine was usually mixed with water. The Greeks rejected Eastern elegance in cooking and gastronomic delights, noted the too luxurious table of the Persian kings, unlike the Persians, the Greeks emphasized the unpretentiousness of their cuisine, but in the Hellenistic to Roman periods, the Greeks abandoned Spartan cuisine and restrictions, of course this applies to the rich. By the way, in Ancient Greece, it is believed that vegetarianism first appeared; it was precisely the voluntary refusal of meat. But what’s interesting is that vegetarianism was more typical for philosophers, people of mental work; famous Greek athletes were on a meat diet.

Until the age of 80, philosophers, mathematicians and other scientists lived in Greece. Only in the 20th century did average life expectancy in the world begin to approach the levels of Ancient Greece. Look: Euripides, the playwright, lived about 76 years, Archimedes - about 75, Aristarchus, the astronomer - about 80, Philemon, the author of comedies - about 99, Diogenes, the philosopher - 77 or 91. Plato, the philosopher - 81. Xenophon, the writer - 75. Democritus, philosopher - 90 or 100. Hippocrates, doctor - 90 or 100. Socrates (executed) - 70 years. Euripides, playwright - about 76. Aristides, military leader - about 72. Pythagoras - about 80. Solon, statesman - about 70. Pittacus, tyrant of Mytilene - about 80 years.

One could become a senator in Sparta or a public judge in Athens only after 60 years of age. The philosopher Isocrates wrote his main work, a treatise on education, at the age of 82, and at the age of 98 he committed suicide by starving himself to death.

How long did the Russian tsars live?

But, for example, Peter the First lived 52 years, his wife Catherine the First 47 years, Catherine the Second 67 years, Ivan the Terrible 53 years, Elizaveta Petrovna 52 years, Peter the First’s father Alexei Mikhailovich 46 years. Grandson Peter the second is 14 years old, grandson Peter the third is 34 years old. Great-grandson Pavel the first is 46 years old, niece Anna Ioannovna is 47 years old, Nikolai the first lived 58 years, but Alexander the second is 62 years old, Alexander the first is 47 years old. But note that many European rulers also lived short lives: Charles the Twelfth was 36 years old, but, for example, Louis the Fourteenth was 76 years old.

I. N. Nikitin “Peter I on his deathbed”, dies of kidney stones and pneumonia at the age of 53.

If you look at how long modern British monarchs live, you can come to the conclusion that kings are real long-livers compared to ordinary people. If Russian kings and queens lived only 40-50 years, then ordinary people, if they could survive childhood, could live to a ripe old age, namely somewhere up to 40 years.