How to Live Like a Victorian

 Victorian Life was notoriously regimented, especially by today’s standards. A closer glance, however, reveals an attitude that celebrates hard work as the key to an honest living. Despite their apparent restrictions, it seems many Victorian values are just as relevant now as they were then. Below are a few of the proverbial sayings that were popular during the period:

Waste not want not
Everything was used in the Victorian country house – vegetable peel could be added to stock, bones were boiled to make glue.

Cleanliness is next to godliness
Everything was kept scrupulously clean by an army of servants.

Many hands make light work
Running a country houses required a large workforce.

Necessity is the mother of invention
The Victorians were great inventors and keen to adopt new labour saving devices.

Eat your greens
The average Victorian ate more than ten portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Meat was considered a luxury by most, and processed food had yet to appear.

Hard work never did anyone any harm
Few Victorians were overweight as most were used to hard physical work. The average adult used around 4,000 calories a day simply doing chores, twice what we expend today.

A house divided against itself cannot stand
The Victorian country house was only able to function effectively if everyone worked together as a unit.

A place for everything and everything in its place
Specialisation of rooms and people allowed for maximum efficiency. The service wings of Victorian country houses often had elaborate service wings within which each room was allocated for a different purpose.

It’s the early bird that gets the worm
Due to the paucity and expense of artificial lighting Victorians tended to get up at sunrise and go to bed soon after sunset. Servants, in particular, needed to get up early to complete many of the household chores before the family awoke.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch
Servants at Audley End were well-fed but were expected to work hard for their meals.

Authentic Victorian Recipes

Modern Chicken Pie

Skin, and cut down into joints a couple of fowls, take out all the bones, and season the flesh highly with salt, cayenne, pounded mace, and nutmeg; line a dish with thin paste and spread over it a layer of the finest sausage-meat, which has previously been moistened with a spoonful or two of cold water; over this place closely together some of the boned chicken joints, then more sausage-meat, and continue thus with alternate layers of each, until the dish is full; roll out, and fasten securely at the edges, a cover half an inch thick, trim off the superfluous paste, make an incision in the top, lay some paste leaves round it, glaze the whole with yolk of egg, and bake the pie from an hour and a half to two hours in a well heated oven. Lay a sheet or two of writing-paper over the crust, should it brown too quickly. Minced herbs can be mixed with the sausage-meat at pleasure, and a small quantity of eschalot also, when its flavour is much liked; it should be well moistened with water, or the whole will be unpalatably dry. The pie may be served hot or cold.

Source: Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches (1845), pp. 255-6.

Lord Braybrooke likes his pies to be quite highly spiced although this is quite old-fashioned now. Here we normally line the paste with the forcemeat (sausage-meat) and use layers of the boned fowl, ham and sliced mushrooms when available. I always think a few mushrooms improve any pie. A little white wine added halfway through cooking prevents the pie from drying out and imparts a nice sharp flavor to the whole. Any fowl or game may be substituted for the chicken – a rabbit or partridge works very well.

Vegetable Plum Pudding

Mix well together one pound of smoothly-mashed potatoes, half a pound of carrots boiled quite tender, and beaten to a paste, one pound of flour, one of currants, and one of raisins (full weight after they are stoned), three quarters of a pound of sugar, eight ounces of suet, one nutmeg, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt. Put the pudding into a well-floured cloth, tie it up very closely, and boil it for four hours. The correspondent to whom we are indebted for this receipt says, that the cost of the ingredients does not exceed half a crown, and that the pudding is of sufficient size for a party of sixteen persons. We can vouch for its excellence, but as it is rather apt to break when turned out of the cloth, a couple of eggs would perhaps improve it. It is excellent cold. Sweetmeats, brandy, and spices can be added at pleasure.

Mashed potatoes, 1 lb.; carrots, 8 oz.; flour, 1 lb.; suet, 1/2 Ib. sugar, 3/4 lb.; currants and raisins, 1 lb. each; nutmeg, I; little salt: 4 hours

Source: Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches (1845), pp. 278-9.

We often have this for servants’ tea in the afternoon when potatoes and carrots are in season. It is rare that the kitchen maids or cook are able to sit at a meal for longer than a few minutes, although some of the other maids are able to have a full half an hour. For that reason we often eat quickly and in the kitchen. Puddings of this type are very useful for they are filling and quick to eat.

Household Bread

Put half a bushel (more or less, according to the consumption of the family) of flour into the kneading tub or trough, and hollow it well in the middle; dilute a pint of yeast as it is brought from the brewery or half the quantity if it has been washed and rendered solid, with four quarts or more of lukewarm milk or water, or a mixture of the two; stir into it, from the surrounding part, with a wooden spoon, as much flour as will make a thick batter; throw a handful or two over it, and leave this, which is called the leaven, to rise before proceeding further. In about an hour it will have swollen considerably, and have burst through the coating of flour on the top; then pour in as much more warm liquid as will convert the whole, with good kneading, and this should not be spared, into a firm dough, of which the surface should be entirely free from lumps or crumbs. Throw a cloth over, and let it remain until it has risen very much a second time, which will be in an hour, or something more, if the batch be large. Then work it lightly up, and mould it into loaves of from two to three pounds weight; send them directly to a well-heated oven, and bake them from an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters.

Flour, ½ bushel; salt (when it is liked), 4 to 6 oz.; yeast, 1 pint unwashed, or ½ pint if purified; milk, or water, 2 quarts: 1 to 1 ½ hour. Additional liquid as needed.
Obs. — Brown bread can be made exactly as above, either with half meal and half flour mixed, or with meal only. This will absorb more moisture than fine flour, and will retain it rather longer. Brown bread should always be thoroughly baked.

Source: Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches (1845), p. 385

Batter Fruit Pudding

Butter thickly a basin which holds a pint and a half, and fill it nearly to the brim with good boiling apples pared, cored and quartered; pour over them a batter made with four tablespoonful of flour, two large or three small eggs, and half a pint of milk. Tie a buttered and floured cloth over the basin, which ought to be quite full, and boil the pudding for an hour and a quarter. Turn it into a hot dish when done, and strew sugar thickly over it: this, if added to the batter at first, renders it heavy. Morella cherries make a very superior pudding of this kind; and green gooseberries, damsons, and various other fruits, answer for it extremely well: the time of boiling it must be varied according to their quality and its size.

For a pint and a half mould or basin filled to the brim with apples or other fruit; flour, 4 tablespoonful; eggs, 2 large or 3 small; milk, 1/2 pint: 1 ¼ hour.

Apples cored, halved, and mixed with a good batter, make an excellent baked pudding, as do red currants, cherries, and plums of different sorts likewise.

Source: Hale, Sarah Josepha, Modern household Cookery (1854), p. 229.

Household Hints & Tips

In a time when conduct books were a popular mode of social instruction, perhaps the most famous of all books on household etiquette was produced. First published in 1861, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management is an instructional guide to all aspects of running a Victorian household, including the management of domestic servants, useful cooking recipes and advice on dealing with children. Below are a few excerpts from this now-iconic text: 

To Bottle Wine

Having thoroughly washed and dried the bottles, supposing they have been before used for the same kind of wine, provide corks, which will be improved by being slightly boiled, or at least steeped in hot water,—a wooden hammer or mallet, a bottling-boot, and a squeezer for the corks. Bore a hole in the lower part of the cask with a gimlet, receiving the liquid stream which follows in the bottle and filterer, which is placed in a tub or basin. This operation is best performed by two persons, one to draw the wine, the other to cork the bottles. The drawer is to see that the bottles are up to the mark, but not too full, the bottle being placed in a clean tub to prevent waste. The corking-boot is buckled by a strap to the knee, the bottle placed in it, and the cork, after being squeezed in the press, driven in by a flat wooden mallet.

Hairdressing

Hairdressing is the most important part of the lady’s-maid’s office. If ringlets are worn, remove the curl-papers, and, after thoroughly brushing the back hair both above and below, dress it according to the prevailing fashion. If bandeaux are worn, the hair is thoroughly brushed and frizzed outside and inside, folding the hair back round the head, brushing it perfectly smooth, giving it a glossy appearance by the use of pomades, or oil, applied by the palm of the hand, smoothing it down with a small brush dipped in bandoline. Double bandeaux are formed by bringing most of the hair forward, and rolling it over frizettes made of hair the same colour as that of the wearer: it is finished behind by plaiting the hair, and arranging it in such a manner as to look well with the head-dress.

Flowers

A bouquet of freshly-cut flowers may be preserved alive for a long time by placing them in a glass or vase with fresh water, in which a little charcoal has been steeped, or a small piece of camphor dissolved. The vase should be set upon a plate or dish, and covered with a bell-glass, around the edges of which, when it comes in contact with the plate, a little water should be poured to exclude the air.

Fire-lighting

Fire-lighting, however simple, is an operation requiring some skill; a fire is readily made by laying a few cinders at the bottom in open order; over this a few pieces of paper, and over that again eight or ten pieces of dry wood; over the wood, a course of moderate-sized pieces of coal, taking care to leave hollow spaces between for air at the centre; and taking care to lay the whole well back in the grate, so that the smoke may go up the chimney, and not into the room. This done, fire the paper with a match from below, and, if properly laid, it will soon burn up; the stream of flame from the wood and paper soon communicating to the coals and cinders, provided there is plenty of air at the centre.

Source: Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861)