Food & Drink

Edwardian food could be both elaborate and rich to the point of indigestibility. But until more modern ideas about food and nutrition came into general use in the 1920s, children had a fairly monotonous diet, which tended to be high in carbohydrates and low in fresh fruit and meat. 'Many people seem afraid to give any fruit to their children, but have not the least hesitation in dosing them with all kinds of drugs' wrote Ada Ballin in 1902 (From Cradle to School). Not for the average Edwardian child, then, the oyster patties, pressed duck, ratafia trifle or pineapple which some of the adults enjoyed: even in a wealthy family a typical child's main meal at this date would be a small portion of hot or cold meat with potatoes and gravy, and another vegetable such as cabbage; and steamed pudding and custard, or milk pudding and jam to follow - a heritage which 'school dinners' were still faithfully following some sixty years later. This is perhaps no accident, as they developed from the Provision of School Meals Act of 1906, which gave local authorities the discretion to organise free lunches for children from poorer families.

The lucky few children who had more interesting food were those in liberal, middle-income families who allowed their offspring to dine with them in the evening, but this was not a typical practice. And the children of poorer families often kept going on bread and margarine or bread and jam, their only possibility of hot food being cooked potatoes and sometimes a kind of catch-all stew or soup. At home there would be a large pot into which went any vaguely edible vegetable or meat that could be got, and which was boiled up every day. In fact, most children's food was so over-cooked as to contain virtually no vitamins whatsoever.

There were some tastier elements to be had, such as fish and shellfish for those who could get it, and many of the pickles and sauces, such as ketchup, that we still have today. Savoury processed meat products such as pies, sausages, haslet and brawn were widely available from butchers and cooked meat shops.

But perhaps because Edwardian children's food was usually so bland, sweets were one of their greatest pleasures, as well as being amongst the most evocative of their memories. The writer Elizabeth Goudge (born in 1900) recalled that in her childhood 'a great many sweets could be bought for fourpence ha'penny' - unsurprising, as that's about £1 in today's money. Her own favourites as a child were satin pralines: they had a hard shell of boiled sugar, which you sucked at concentratedly until you could bite into the soft and chewy centre:  'The moment when the teeth crashed through from the outside was sheer heaven' she wrote.

The characters in her retrospective children's novel Linnets and Valerians (Leicester: Brockhampton Press, 1964) buy 'a pennyworth of peppermint lumps…a pennyworth of boiled lemon sweets…a penny ha'penny worth of satin pralines… and a pennyworth of liquorice allsorts. And out of pure goodness of heart Emma Cobley added for nothing a packet of sherbet. They did not know what that was, and she had to show them how to put a pinch of the powder on their tongues and then stand with their tongues out enjoying the glorious refreshing fizz'.

The liquorice allsorts were still something of a novelty, too: they were launched in 1898 and allegedly created by chance, the idea arising when a tray of liquorice and coloured paste sweets were dropped on the floor and mixed up.

Other popular sweet treats included 'Penny Everlasting' strips of toffee, cinder toffee (better known to many of us as 'Crunchie'), Edinburgh or Scotch rock, aniseed balls, caramels, fondants and coconut ice. Of course, there was no food safety legislation, so some shopkeepers made their own sweets, especially in villages, and their own lemonade and ice cream too.

The ice cream still often came as a 'Penny Lick' at this date, a tiny portion to be licked out of a small serving glass which was (at best) wiped between customers. This was recognised as being notoriously unhygienic even then, and because of the thickness of the glass, often gave the customer disappointingly less than it appeared to. Then from the vendor's point of view the glasses were also liable to break or be stolen. No wonder that edible ice cream cones (first patented by Italo Marciony of New York in 1903) were such a success.

Ice-cream was now firmly established as one of the pleasures of the seaside outing or holiday, along with items like cockles and mussels, whelks, fish and chips, candyfloss and sugar 'rock'. In this period, many town-dwellers had never seen the country or seaside - holidays and outings involved a lot of preparation and long, tiring journeys. The idea that everyone should have holidays is quite recent. For many families, wages were too low to afford the cost; taking time off work also meant no pay, and maybe even the loss of the job (holiday pay for employees was only introduced gradually during the 20th century). Charities such as the Fresh Air Fund, founded in 1906, organised free holidays for poor children. But older children could not always accept the offer. Any money they earned might be vital to the family; they were relied on to care for younger children; they often had insufficient clothing to take on holiday, particularly shoes.

And even in the health-giving surroundings of the seaside, the pessimists were in full croak: the magazine The Lady's Realm advised in 1905: '...Paddling is a most injudicious and mischievous custom, as it makes the feet cold and sends the blood to the head. Children whose lips turn blue after bathing should be given ginger wine... Should the child's eyelids become inflamed, dab them with cornflower petals soaked in brandy'.

And should the family be feeling hungry on its way there, the Army and Navy Stores' Catalogues of the period offered the intrepid traveller the 'Petite Luncheon Box' which came with its own fork and tin opener and 'will be found sufficient for a light luncheon when travelling; suitable to be eaten with either bread or biscuit'. Each box contained three tins e.g. boar's head, chicken and ham and plum pudding.

Fortunately there were plenty of antacids and remedies for indigestion, such as Eno's Fruit Salts, even then!

Rather better, for the Edwardian child at boarding school the Army and Navy also had a range of tuck boxes: if you could afford the £1 box from the top of the range, you could regale your pals at tea by choosing from half a cooked ham, a tin of ox tongue, a large cake, a tin of mixed biscuits, a tin of ginger nuts, a jar of potted meat, three pots of jam, a piece of ginger bread, a box of chocolates and two tins of sardines.

This is reminiscent of a similar list:
'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly; 'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkins saladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater...'

These are the contents of 'the fat, wicker luncheon-basket' which Ratty provides for himself and Mole early inThe Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (London: Methuen). This still popular Edwardian children's book was first published in 1908.