he Victorian middle class was nervous of pleasure, not in feeling it, but in showing it: any outward exhibition of pleasure should be controlled, so a sensual appreciation of food, any rolling around the mouth of an oyster for example, would be deeply shocking; it would in fact be vulgar and reminiscent of the working class. So anything that gave any possible potential pleasure was viewed with suspicion, as being an instigator towards the road to ruin and social downfall. Food must be eaten with a show of decorum; if hungry, one should never show it; meats should be sliced small and thinly; one should eat slowly, masticating thoroughly. A mouth bulging with food was disgusting and to speak while the mouth was full, well, again only the working class male behaved so. A social dinner party was viewed as a minefield where the civilised veneer could crack to show the Darwinian beast beneath. There was nervousness as to what food could do to one. (Though the subject of this book does not cover drink, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the Temperance movement grew in power in this century.) Food should be tamed to make it powerless, and the only effective way of doing that was to make it uninteresting and unattractive.
Victorian Middle Class Attitudes towards Children and Food
The Victorian era used food as a moral weapon to condition the young. Various writers throughout the century wrote books on child-rearing, which were eagerly bought by a middle class anxious over matters of moral guidance. Dr Pye Henry Chavasse was one of the most authoritative and best-selling of these authors: ‘His tone appears to owe more to a vengeful deity’ than anything else. His view' on desserts and cakes was extreme:
I consider them so much slow poison. Such things cloy and weaken the stomach and thereby take away the appetite and thus debilitate the frame. If the child is never allowed to eat such things, he will consider dry bread a luxury.
Notice the child is ‘he’. New emphasis was given to the doctrine of original sin by the revival of Protestantism and the growth of non-conformist religions, hence children were viewed in a new and darker light. These tots were bundles of original sin which had to be disciplined and purged from it. It was considered that food was a strong persuader. This attitude continued until well into the next century. [289]
Links to Related Material
- The Decline of British Cooking and Its Consequences for the Poor
- Transportation Technology, Milk, and Disease
Bibliography
Spencer, Colin. British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History. New Yoek: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Last Modified 26 June 2022