The Victorian Kitchen - Softcover

Davies, Jennifer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0563362812 ISBN 13: 9780563362814

Publisher: Bbc Pubns, 1992

Synopsis

Illustrated with period drawings, engravings and colour photographs of the kitchen restored for the BBC television series on which the book is based, this is an insight into a bygone age. The "upstairs/downstairs" image is of maids in starched aprons overseen by an outwardly stern cook with a heart of gold, but what was life really like "below stairs" in Victorian times? Looking behind the scenes at the vast collection of equipment used, from the dusty, smoky range, which was cleaned and coaxed into life at 6 o'clock each morning, to the gleaming coppers which were every cook's pride and joy, the book also meets Ruth Mott, the cook featured in the television series. She started work as a scullery maid in an old-style country house in 1930, when mansion kitchens still ran on Victorian lines. There are details of the Victorian culinary technique of preserving; of the five meals a day prepared by the kitchen staff - breakfast, luncheon, tea, dinner and supper; and of a collection of recipes specially adapted from Victorian cookery books. Jennifer Davies also wrote "The Victorian Kitchen Garden" and "The Victorian Flower Garden".

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

If you've ever wondered how downstairs provided upstairs with all of those elaborate meals, wonder no more. Davies, a BBC producer, has written a meticulously detailed work about the nerve center of the Victorian home--the kitchen. Be warned: this is not a cookbook so much as book about cooking, although some recipes are included. The author explains how the kitchen functioned in an era when industry was expanding but stoves still had to be lit by hand at six o'clock in the morning. Chapters examine the relationship between mistress and servants, the social hierarchy of the kitchen and the sometimes Dickensian conditions under which kitchen maids and cooks had to work to yield the expected bounty. The book is filled with period illustrations and photos from the BBC series of the same name, and includes vivid anecdotes from veterans of Victorian staffs. The few recipes featured are drawn straight from Victorian sources. They have been modernized, but read carefully before trying them. If you do attempt them,, you'll produce a reasonable facsimile of a Victorian dinner--typically, with mulligatawny soup, boiled leg of mutton, potato snow and treacle pudding. Still, after you've made all of these things by hand, you may want to give your microwave a hug.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bbc Pubns
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0563362812
• ISBN 13: 9780563362814
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216