Street food sellers England 1814

cooeedownunder · Jan 12, 2010

I'm being a bit lazy here - I've had a quick look a few times on google with no definate answer and it only serves a line or two in my WIP.

Although I am aware of what food was eaten I need to know a cooked food or fruit that was sold from the street sellers in the poorer parts of London.

Potato? or apples?

Swordswoman · Jan 12, 2010

If you're in the East End, I regret to say jellied eels... (eeww) Could be served hot or cold, equally vile either way. The eels came from Thames mud, and would mainly be confined to the poorest areas of London.

Chestnuts in the winter, cooked on a brazier...(num)

Dickens talks about the 'muffin and crumpet boys', who were definitely street vendors - but these might be unlikely in real slums.

Louise

firedrake · Jan 12, 2010

Pies, maybe? (meat pies)

cooeedownunder · Jan 12, 2010

I originally had it as a pie seller, but not sure that they would be walking the street of St Giles selling them.

Swordswoman · Jan 12, 2010

Hmm. St Giles is hard, as it was so vile I doubt many sellers of immediately eatable food would have hung about much. It sold lots of fish, but I only know specifically of the raw variety.

Still, here's some general stuff from Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor', which may give you the kind of thing you're after:

The Street-sellers of Eatables and Drinkables,, including the vendors of fried fish, hot eels, pickled whelks, sheep's trotters, ham sandwiches, peas'-soup, hot green peas, penny pies, plum "duff," meat-puddings, baked potatoes, spice- cakes, muffins and crumpets, Chelsea buns, sweetmeats, brandy-balls, cough drops, and cat and dog's meat, such constituting the principal eatables sold in the street; while under the head of street-drinkables may be specified tea and coffee, ginger-beer, lemonade, hot wine, new milk from the cow, asses milk, curds and whey, and occasionally water.

Have you found this site by the way? If you're doing much at St Giles, there's some wonderful material.

Great subject anyway. Good luck!

Louise

Having problems with the link. It might be possible to cut and paste, so here it is in 'plain':
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45147

cooeedownunder · Jan 12, 2010

Thanks for the link Louise,

I've used that site for a bit information before.

I think I might just have to get the food I need from a little further away.

Puma · Jan 13, 2010

Louise's post made me remember the nursery rhyme - peas' porridge in the pot, nine days old - and they certainly wouldn't have thrown away left over in the pot soups they might still sell, especially in the poorer areas of town. Puma

cooeedownunder · Jan 13, 2010

A love the idea of soup but I need to get it from one place to another - I can't see them giving away bowls.

firedrake · Jan 13, 2010

cooeedownunder said:
A love the idea of soup but I need to get it from one place to another - I can't see them giving away bowls.

I would suspect that if you were wanting to buy soup from a street vendor back then, you'd take your own container and have them fill it up.

eta: just thought I'd post here so you can ~~drool~~look at my avatar again.

cooeedownunder · Jan 13, 2010

firedrake said:
I would suspect that if you were wanting to buy soup from a street vendor back then, you'd take your own container and have them fill it up.

eta: just thought I'd post here so you can ~~drool~~look at my avatar again.

LOL

My delima is that Isabel comes across a poor hungry little boy and decides to go get him some food. Although circumstances will stop her being able to go back and get him the food, I need her to pass a seller of food before she comes across the boy. As she will be coming down Tottengham Court Road I think I might just have her notice a shops or something.

Sarpedon · Jan 13, 2010

yeah, piemen are the classic food vendors of 19th century London. It was a common custom to gamble with the pie man with a coin toss. If you won you'd get a free pie, and if you lost he'd get your penny and you'd get no pie at all.

cooeedownunder · Jan 15, 2010

Sarpedon thanks too

I just found and interesting article on both the pie and eel sellers

http://pie-and-mash.com/history.shtml

Day O' · Jan 16, 2010

Why not just bread? Bread was the number one consumed food for most of history. Historical Economists use its price to judge inflation. You could make it more St. Giles like by describing saw dust or something in it. They added a lot of 'fillers'(yum) to food in low end areas back then. However, few people cooked in the poorer areas, most ate 'fast food' from vendors, so there would be a variety of vendors even in that area.

Just my thoughts.

Here's a link to some pictures from 1790 which is a little earlier, but close enought in time I think.

http://www.georgianindex.net/vendor/vendors.html#TOP

cooeedownunder · Jan 16, 2010

Day O - what an interesting link - thank you!

Street food sellers England 1814

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

Swordswoman

Resilient and kind

firedrake

practical experience, FTW

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

Swordswoman

Resilient and kind

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

Puma

Retired and loving it!

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

firedrake

practical experience, FTW

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

Sarpedon

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day

Day O'

****************

cooeedownunder

Grateful for the day