The Victorian Kitchen [Paperback]

Jennifer Davies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1992

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".

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: BBC Pubns (October 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563362812
• ISBN-13: 978-0563362814
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have always loved reading, I love a book that takes you away to another place, where you meet characters that you would love to meet or already have. I love stories that make you think and leave you wanting to know what happens after you close the final pages. Writing has become a love and pure joy. I have been a stay at home mother for over ten years, I was a Nurse and Midwife prior to this. Now that all my children are in full time school, I finally made the first steps towards understanding what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and writing just took over! It is a rollercoaster journey, which I am obssessed about and as such I decided to maintain a weekly blog to record my experiences in this incredible world of writing,please join me,

http://welshjensblog.blogspot.com

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, and constant." ~Edna Ferber


Hope to see you there I always look forward to feedback, cheers Jen.