The Miserable Reality of Eating Like a Victorian Servant | History for Sleep

Victorian servants did not live far from food.They lived inside it.This video enters a middle-class London kitchen in 1884, where the scullery maid washed the pots, carried coal, scrubbed grease, smelled roast mutton, handled cream sauces, polished serving dishes, and watched beautiful meals go upstairs to people who would never know her name. But below stairs, eating was different.Servants ate bread, dripping, stew, porridge, scraps, broken meats, leftover sauce, cold tea, and whatever the cook allowed from the remains of the family table. They were not starving, but they were surrounded by food that was not theirs.Because in a Victorian house, the feast upstairs and the meal downstairs were two different worlds.And the people who made the banquet often ate the leftovers.