Query:

The following is my paraphrasing of how one frugal mother managed to feed her family of eight (father, mother, six children). As I recall this was in England , circa 1880s to about 1915. Do any RPers recognize it and know what book it came from?

The mother bought a pound of meat that she minced. She made twelve meatballs from it and fried them. This is the way she apportioned the meatballs to each family member:

6 were put on the father's plate

3 went to the eldest son (in his late teens)

2 to middle son (about twelve years old)

1 to youngest son who was about five

The mother and three girls got no meatballs but it was their prerogative to wipe the pan in which they were fried with pieces of bread, getting the meat essence from whatever fat and juices cooked out of the meat.

The father got the most meatballs due to what was refered to as the breadwinner's portion. The sons got meatballs because they were growing boys.

However, there came a time when the father lost his job. After months, the eldest son and eldest daughter were working to support the family. The mother decided to change the portons to reflect this. When the father was given his plate, he looked at it and round the table at everyone else's. He told his wife that she had given him the wrong plate becuse it only had one meatball. She told him there was no mistake. His five missing meatballs had been divided among the children this way:

The eldest son got four meatballs because he had a desk job

The middle son got three

The youngest son got two

The eldest daughter also got two because she worked as a laundress, which was a physically demanding job.

The mother and the two younger girls still got to wipe the frying pan clean.

The father's feelings were hurt, and he was ashamed for losing his status in the eyes of his family.

I recall posting this before when I first read it. RPers remarked that this attitude held sway until at least the mid-twentieth century when the father and sons enjoyed this consideration in many families.

I've gone through the usual authors who might have related such a cultural attitude: Robert Roberts in The Classic Slum, George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier, and Ellen Ross in Love & Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London, 1870 to 1918, etc. So far, no luck finding it again. Can anyone help me? I will appreciate any insights you all may have about the topic as well. I don't know why this made such a vivid impression on my mind when I can't recall the source. I think it is fairly accurate in my greatly simplified memory.

I have no memory about reading anything concerning meatballs or your previous post and wondered at first if it could have come from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914) by Robert Tressell, a socialist with strong Marxist leanings. His polemic was against what he saw as a capitalist society. But on reflection 'meatballs' possibly wasn't a food-stuff so described over here. We usually referred to them as 'rissoles' . . . minced meat (often from the leftovers of a Sunday joint) cooked as you describe.

I would agree about the 'man-of-the-family' getting the lion's share, followed by the older boys especially if doing manual labour with Mother and girls coming last, however unfair it seems to modern eyes.

In fact among the 'working poor' it was uncommon for children to eat any meat during the week mostly living on bread and a little butter with perhaps a lump of cheese if lucky. Meat might only be cooked/boiled up on a Sunday.

I am able to read (via the UK Ancestry site) the reports going back to the 1840's of the Inspectors sent by the Govt to check that the various 'Factory Acts' were being implemented. The questions they asked young people were "What do you eat daily?" To which the answer usually was "Bread and butter," "Could you cook a cabbage?" "Yes, I can boil it on a Sunday sometimes with meat."

And Frieda you know all about Yorkshire pudding, served to the children with just gravy to 'fill them up'!

A hard life unless you could poach a rabbit or two without being caught.

Vee, I unconsciously could have 'translated' rissoles into meatballs because that's what Americans would have called them. But if the author actually called them meatballs, that might be a clue the book was about an American experience -- maybe in a book by Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives) about NYC immigrants. I don't know.

I'm not sure if I ever read anything by Robert Tressell. Those Marxist socialists were very vocal at that time, though, and wrote tons about their views. I'm not sure, either, that it was nonfiction. It could have been a novel because it seems like the sort of realism that Victorians and Edwardians liked in their popular fiction.

That is so interesting about the UK Ancestry site and the government inspectors asking all those questions about food and diets!

Have you tried putting your name into the Search Box with some key words? I found an old post I had written and wanted to read again, using this method.

Annpan, thanks! I did a hasty search and found a few of my old posts, but they were not the right ones. I will keep trying with different key words. I must say, however, that my old posts may haunt me. I was struck by the few I read because I didn't even recognize what I was talking about. . Sigh. I only have vague memories of the books I supposedly read.

Speaking of such books: Has anyone read Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen? I am delighted on rereading it.

There's a cartoon in the back-of-the-book Notes of a king sitting on his throne. He's telling his underling, "I'm concerned about my legacy -- kill the historians." How apropos!

Cohen tells about various great novelists who have influenced history more than many historians have done. Why? Because people have actually read what the novelists wrote. Jane Austen fans will probably like this footnote:

In a letter to her favourite niece, Anna Austen, dated 28 September 1814, Austen wrote: "Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones --- it is not fair --- He has fame and profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths -- I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it -- but fear I must." Jane Austen's Letters, 2d ed. R. W. Chapman (London, 1952).

Today I received a suggestion that the incident I tried to describe in my first post of this thread might have appeared in one of George Gissing's novels, perhaps The Nether World (1889). I did read some of Gissing so it's a possibility. Unfortunately I can't lay my hands on any of his books at this time, so I'm appealing to any readers of George Gissing who could know one way or the other.

Annpan, am I right to think you are fond of Jane Austen, except maybe for Northanger Abbey <Grin> ?

Vee, I know that you can really get into history. What aspects of history do you enjoy most? Do you have a favorite historian -- or historians? What about your favorite historical novelists or a particular historical novel? (The same goes to anyone who would like to answer those questions!)

Friedag, have you been rummaging through my old posts?

I am on an Emma binge and watching several of the movies I collected. Comparing the casting of various characters.

Frieda, do you want the short answer?!

I first became fascinated by history when still at my very small (2 teacher) Montessori-type junior school. The older kids (7-11 yrs) worked in groups facing different blackboards and while the teacher 'taught' one of these sets the rest of us got on with writing, sums etc. I used to eaves-drop on her history lessons. They were doing the Vikings/Normans and I was hooked.

I'm interested in architecture and can 'read' it in an old church quite well . . . in fact a friend complained that I had bored her rigid during a visit to Gloucester Cathedral where I had explained to her the wonders of the fan vaulting (see it on the early Harry Potter film).

I'm not 'into' Ancient Egyptians and know little about the peoples of South America or the very early tribes in what is now India and Pakistan and the Middle East. Perhaps it is because in the British Isles we have so much information on our own doorsteps?

Favourite historian? For his TV presentation without a doubt Michael Wood, from Eric Blood Axe to the Victorian factory system he brings his subject to life.

His BBC series (also shown on PBS) about Kibworth a very ordinary village in Leicestershire, from earliest times to the present days using the villagers themselves to read from the extracts and dig up their gardens is both fascinating and informative.

Quite enough from me . . .someone else's turn . . .

Kibworth. Part One

Vee, I'll take short answers, but long answers are good too, IMO.

History seems these days to be going through one of its periodic convulsions that probably overwhelm -- and put-off -- a lot of readers who would like to write about their thoughts but feel too intimidated to do so.

I think architecture is marvelous but I don't know enough about its history. . Do you like the micro-histories, such as Brunellesci's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King or Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady? I know there are ones more focused on the British Isles -- perhaps about Christopher Wren or Nicholas Hawksmoor. You are right, I think, that there is so much history close-by in the Isles that there is not enough time for one reader/traveler 'to do' all that and the rest of the world as well.

I have a thing for Michael Wood, too. What do you think -- really think -- about Simon Schama?

I don't think meatballs ( as in spaghetti and meatballs ) are comparable to rissoles which are a crepe (or other wrapping ) around a mixture of ingredients that might be various ground meats and then are deep fried. In my opinion they are two very different things.

yoyo, English ( and perhaps Scottish Welsh etc) rissoles don't have any sort of 'wrap' around them, in fact until comparatively recently the term 'wrap' was unknown over here, we are so backward. Our rissoles are basically minced meat shaped into patties, covered in breadcrumbs and deep or shallow fried.

Frieda, we used to see a lot of Simon Schama, of whom I have never had any deep thoughts, on TV plus David Starkey who seems to have blotted his copybook with a 'remark' about slavery/racism (?) that has cost him his place at Cambridge . .. people over here need to be very careful of hurting the feelings of the woke generation. We also have several rather light-weight flicky-haired female history presenters.

I don't think I have read any books on the history of architecture, life is just too short. I did start Hawksmoor loosely based on the architect, but find Peter Ackroyd rather too intimidating/dark so I never finished it.

Vee, I loved your description of those female presenters. They do tend to flick their long hair. Part of the job requirement, long hair, is it?

I do learn some new facts from them but the content seems to be rather lightweight and they do some reconstructions in a way that makes me wince!

I second your description of the British rissole. I think an egg was added to the mince to bind the ingredients. My grandmother made mince by hand grinding the leftover Sunday roast through an ancient machine clamped firmly to a kitchen table. A crust of bread was the last thing pushed through to help clean the mechanism and add bulk to the mixture.

". . .light-weight flicky-haired female history presenters. . ."

Oh, Vee! You have a way of providing instant imagery -- I know exactly what you mean!

Peter Ackroyd can give me fits of vertigo -- he has since I read his boulder-weight biography of Charles Dickens, the one that includes the seven sections of fantasy with Ackroyd meeting Dickens in some sort of time-warp. Apparently readers like me complained so vociferously that those sections were omitted from the paperback edition. I did read Ackroyd's historical novel, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, and I enjoyed it although it is very dark.

annpan, we have the same old-fashioned mincer, much stronger than the modern electric ones. We always had cold meat on a Monday and then shepherds pie/rissoles etc the following day. Mother never bought butcher's mince as everyone knew it was made from the bits that fell on the floor so were covered in sawdust and germs!

Nostalgia seems to be one of the biggest draws to history (in books and other media) right now. Do you all think that's true? I think it is understandable from older participants' points of view, but what about from younger ones? I don't know if RP has very many (any?) younger ones left.

Frieda,

Hope you are well. I have Gissing's The Nether World. I'll take a peek. It's been a few years since I read it but the scenario sounds Gissing-esque.

PAM

I have enjoyed Simon Schama's TV programmes, but David Starkey leaves me cold, mainly because of his habit of talking in the present tense about history.

'Henry is upset that Anne has not produced an heir....'

He's not the only one, and it drives me bonkers.

Such an interesting discussion. To find your other posts, click on your name in this thread, go to Activity, and your comments, posts and reviews are listed there.

Ooh, Kath, I hate that too! It’s very popular in the US media to talk about past events in the present tense.

It's supposed to create a sense of immediacy, but instead it irritates the living daylights out of me!