At Home for a Victorian Breakfast

During the Victorian era, many English people shared the belief that one ought to “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper.”

In those days, most of London had breakfasted by 9:00 am, with the poorest tucking into their bread-and-butter and tea at daybreak, while the middle and working classes enjoyed more substantial fare (whether at home or in a chop-house) in time to be at their jobs by 10:00 am.

However, the “upper ten thousand,” also known as the leisure class – made up of members of the aristocracy, the gentry, officers in the British Army and Navy, members of Parliament, Colonial administrators, and members of the Church of England – might not eat breakfast until even later than that.

Whatever the time, breakfast staples to be found on most British tables included bread-and-butter, tea and some sort of protein: Eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, fish, or kidneys. Leftovers from the previous night’s dinner were a good bet to show up on the breakfast sideboard.

A Victorian gentleman might enjoy eggs, sausages, ham, bacon, or perhaps kedgeree (an Indian dish made of smoked fish and curried rice) with his buttered toast. He might even like to gnaw on some Deviled Bones, which were leftover beef or chicken bones coated with a spicy “devil sauce” like Harvey’s or Worcestershire sauce, and roasted until brown.

A Victorian lady, on the other hand, would most likely be expected to choose lighter, blander dishes. Bread and butter and maybe a coddled egg plus a cup of cocoa would be deemed appropriate for a female. A woman’s supposedly delicate constitution would not be able to tolerate spicy foods, and high protein consumption would have been discouraged, especially during puberty, as meat was held to aggravate the “illnesses” of that developmental stage.

Children also were fed bland foods – porridge, or bread and milk, was considered enough for the little ones.

Fruit was considered problematic. Was it healthy to eat fresh fruit? Mid-Victorian writers on health topics tended to think that fresh fruit caused colic and digestive problems, although the great Mrs. Beeton wrote in her Book of Household Management that fresh grapes were an effective cure for constipation (provided one did not eat the skins or the seeds).

However, by 1887, Mrs. Panton, author of From Kitchen to Garret, thought that both adults and children should eat fresh fruit regularly.

In her chapter on Meals and Money, Mrs. Panton warned that “hot buttered toast or hot fresh bread should never be served, as these two items make the butter bill into a nightmare.”

Instead, she suggests that the lady of the house – whom she quaintly refers to as Angelina – offer fruit for breakfast, with honey or marmalade (which Mrs. Panton thought was much more healthy than butter anyway). “Have nice fresh brown bread or Neville’s hot-water bread, the nicest bread made; oat-cake (2 s. a tin at any good grocers, she says); and fresh crisp dry toast,” she instructs, “and then I think neither Edwin nor Angelina can complain.”

Of course, Edwin is the fictitious husband of Angelina. This amused me, because I like to think that Mrs. Panton chose the names “Edwin” and “Angelina” after a pair of Gilbert and Sullivan characters. In the duo’s wonderful “Trial by Jury,” the plaintiff Angelina sues the defendant Edwin for breach of promise. The opera ends with Edwin and Angelina happily un-married – but it seems Mrs. Panton thought the two characters deserved domestic bliss instead!

For further reference, you may want to consult:

Inside the Victorian Home, by Judith Flanders
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, by Isabella Beeton
From Kitchen to Garret, by Jane Ellen Panton