FOOD IN THE VICTORIAN ERA by CHERYL WRIGHT

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I don’t know about you, but I love to bake.

I hate cooking meals with a vengeance. But baking is something I love, and do well, and include  in most of my books.

When I was very young, no more than eight, I began to bake. My parents were both into cooking, as well as my grandfather. He had a wood stove, and taught me to bake on it. That was over fifty years ago, and unfortunately, he is long gone. Home cooking was big in the Victorian era since takeaway food did not exist.

I write historical small town romance, and most small towns of that era had stores such as bakeries, diners, cake shops and even candy stores. I have featured all of these in my books, but also have my homebody heroines baking as well.

For me, baking and cooking is part of normal life, and so it is for my heroines. As a young mother, I would spend one day a week making bread, pies, cookies, and other delicacies. All made from scratch, and by hand. (No machines involved.) This has given me the knowledge needed when writing my westerns. In turn, it helps make the stories more realistic and believable.

 

 

I’m extremely lucky that I was gifted recipes passed down through generations of both sides of the family. I have a wedding cake recipe that has served generations, and also doubles as a Christmas cake. I have pastry recipes that put frozen pastries to shame, and are relatively easy to make.

Soups were a mainstay for many of our pioneers, especially those with little money. Vegetables were mostly home-grown, and stock taken from other foods they cooked. Even gravy was made differently from how we make it today; they used the juices of roast meat combined with flour, and cooked on the stove until thick.

Even today, I make recipes that were used over fifty years ago – my daughter uses many of them as well. It is very satisfying to make food from scratch, even if it is sometimes more time consuming than buying packet foods. Our ancestors didn’t have such luxury afforded to them, and I often wonder how they coped without the appliances we use today.

All these years down the track, I can still recall my grandmother whipping cream using only a fork. We had an electric mixer, but she refused to use it, since she’d always made it without one.

My heroines are tough – they had to be, being born into the Victorian era was not an easy task. In A Bride for Noah, (Book One, Brides of Broken Arrow), the heroine has come from a life of poverty. I created that character on a great-aunt from my childhood. Her husband was a goldminer, their home had a dirt floor, and they had very little, but she made the most of what was afforded to her.

Okay… onto the fun stuff!

As a special treat, I am offering readers of this blog, a copy of my personal collection of Christmas recipes at absolutely no charge. Nor will you be asked to join my newsletter.

Download your free copy here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/dlwj4wgbcq

If you wish to join my newsletter and grab your complimentary copy of Miserable in Montana, you can do that here: https://cheryl-wright.com/newsletter/

Keeping within the theme of cooking in the Victorian era, you may be interested in my current series, Brides of Montana. You can check out the series here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084BVHXTT?tag=pettpist-20

 

Contest: I am giving a way a kindle copy of Maggie, Book Four, Brides of Montana (released only days ago) to two lucky readers. To be in the draw, please leave a comment mentioning a food that might have been consumed in the Victorian era.

Thank you for having me, and good luck in the competition!

 

Bio:

 

Award-winning and best-selling Australian author, Cheryl Wright, former secretary, debt collector, account manager, writing instructor, and shopping tour hostess, loves reading. She writes historical and contemporary western romance, and has over fifty published books.

She lives in Melbourne, Australia, and is married with two adult children and has six adult grandchildren. When she’s not writing, she can be found in her craft room making greeting cards.

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41 thoughts on “FOOD IN THE VICTORIAN ERA by CHERYL WRIGHT”

  4. Fish or pork. Great article. What a treasure to have family recipes handed down from generations past.

    • Many of the farms had a stream running through them, Julie, so fish would have been popular. Cheap too. Yes, I’m very blessed having those recipes. They are very special to me.

  6. Cakes cookies, pies, venison, bear, fish, bacon, salt pork, beef stew, beef steaks, vegetable stew, sour dough biscuits, and eggs.

  9. My mother shared an old family recipe for venison. She marinates thin steaks in lemon juice and water overnight in the refrigeration, then pulverizes it with the edge of a saucer or a meat mallet until it resembles cube steak. She slow cooks it until tender and then serves it smothered in gravy like country-style steak. It is so good!

    • It’s not something we hear about in regard to the Victorian era, but I’m certain they would have eaten venison. Deer would have been plentiful in certain area, and cost nothing.

  10. Pancakes were a staple, and biscuits. Depending on where they lived, it might be beef, pork, or wild game, too.

  11. welcome today. congratulations on your newest book. thanks for your cook book. I am like you. I love to bake but cooking is ugghhh, needs to be done and yes I agree it is more satisfying to cook/bake from scratch. Plus I know what I am consuming. I make most all of my own seasoning mixes (sloppy joe, spaghetti, taco meat, etc) I think back in the victorian times they ate a lot of meat, veggies and breads
    quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

    • They had no choice back then but to cook from scratch. Plus they did hard labor out in the fields and growing their own food etc. No wonder they were thinner!

  12. Welcome, welcome, Cheryl! I’ve seen some of your baked goods on Facebook, and they always look perfect. Golden brown, consistently shaped, and looking amazing. Wish you lived closer – I’d make you share some of those perfections with me! LOL.

    Very generous of you to give away a collection of your Christmas goodies. Best of luck on your new releases!!

    Great blog, my friend. Loved it!

    • Thank you so much, Pam, and thanks for having me. I do love to bake, as you know. I grew up baking from a very young age, and also grew up in a Victorian house. I’m sure that has helped with my stories too.

    • Soups were a staple in some households, Alicia. Most families grew their own vegetables, so soups and stews made perfect sense. Fish was usually plentiful in nearby streams, so they utilized that as well.

  14. I also hate to cook meals, but like to bake. One problem is that my family rarely eats my baked goods, even though they are quite tasty. They would rather have store-bought goodies. Shaking My Head! Then there is the problem of the tiny kitchen and limited counter space to work. Plus the cleanup. So I don’t bake much any more.

    • That’s sad, Sherry. My family love home-baked goodies. Probably because they’ve not known anything else. When my children and grandchildren (who hubby and I brought up) were little, I’d be up at 6.30am to make fresh muffins for them to take to school. There was always a batch of muffins or cakes available each and every day.

    • I’ve never made cornbread, Denise, but might have to give it a try. I like to be authentic with my stories, and tend to make anything I’ve never tried but want to use in my stories. Some I’ve made have turned out brilliantly, some not so much.

  16. Thank you for the post. I enjoy cooking and made sure our children, son and daughters, know how to cook. We all find it relaxing and enjoyable. They are all pretty good cooks, too, experimenting and creating their own recipes. My husband is a good cook which started back in high school. His widowed mom told me how wonderful it was to come home from a long day at work to the smell fresh bread baking. Thank you so much for the recipes. It will be fun trying them out. I have many early 1900 cookbooks. I wanted to find a recipe to make rice pudding like one of my grandmothers and no one had the recipe. Many books later, I think I have found it and look forward to trying it out. Sadly my mom’s recipes are gone – spiteful stepmother threw them all out (along with our family pictures).

    The traditional complete English Breakfast, containing baked beans, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, and tomatoes was developed during the Victorian era. Also Spotted Dick.

    • I’m so sorry you lost your family recipes to spite, Patricia. That is terrible. I have recipes from both sides of the family, and treasure them all.

      I have two bakers and a trainee cook in my family, which is great. Cooking has been something I’ve drummed into my children and grandchildren as well – I believe it’s very important for everyone to know how to cook.

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