Sunday 25th March - Workhouse Cooking

George is currently in the middle of a history project, and has chosen to study what was eaten by the residents of a Victorian workhouse. Today was the practical session so an unusual blog today - a typical days food.
Quite a bit of research has been undertaken, but a bit of  poetic licence on the actual recipes here!

Breakfast - what else but a bit of gruel - very thin porridge, cooked with a bit of black treacle - taste was declared to be disgusting ...

Lunch -bread and cheese - apparently yeast was rather hard to come by in the country, so soda bread was the bread of choice. We made our own buttermilk substitute by mixing some lemon juice into fresh milk, and the flour was brown flour with some added oats for texture. George wanted to add some sawdust too, but I thought this dish might be the one thing we cook in the project that is actually edible, so left that one out!

This didn't hang around long - and the bread was actually delicious!

Supper was not such a success with us - a broth made from winter root veg, pearl barley and a lamb bone. Very watery and tasteless, but the chickens enjoyed the veg and barley once we strained the broth off it!