Food in Victorian Marlow.

The food eaten by different sorts of Victorian Marlovians can be reconstructed from court cases where food is stolen from larders, gardens and fields as well as businesses; reports of local celebration meals and wedding feasts; adverts put out by shops, hotels and restaurants; coroner's inquests  and crime reports that describe the meals eaten by those mentioned if it is relevant; postcards; Poor law records and many more sources.

 

Fish / Seafood:

Of course the river offered some opportunities to catch your lunch. Eels were amongst the possible wildlife that could be ensnared but they became increasingly rare during the Victorian era. The landlady of the Complete Angler Hotel, Mrs Parslow, always kept some in reserve when she could, strictly for her favourite customers.

For up to about a dozen men at any one time catching fish was not a hobby but a trade. Very few did so to sell the fish commercially, most hired themselves and their boat out to visiting "sportsmen" who wanted to fish for pleasure and benefited from the fisherman's expert local knowledge.

Changes to the river flow caused by the new bridge as well as growing pollution and over fishing meant salmon were rare by the mid century. Other fish were still present however and a few professional fisherman were still working at the end of the Victorian era. It is not usually possible to know whether those late examples were ever selling catches or only selling their expertise to allow tourists to catch their own. Another question is were other Marlovians eating any commercially caught fish from Marlow? The first fishmonger shop I've so far definitely located was in 1831 and ran then by George Draper in Chapel Street. Elsewhere in the country the majority of local fish caught tended to be rushed up to London or other major centres rather than be sold to locals. In the same way some country people complained that if they lived within transport distance of London they found it hard at times to buy the fruit and vegetables grown with abundance in their home patch because the London market consumed everything. Even access to fresh milk could be an issue.

So we can't say for certain that any commercially caught Marlow fish was available to buy here. Possibly a certain percentage could be bought from a fisherman at the riverside. Apart from the Marlow eels at the Complete Angler no reference to local fish being available at any local pub or hotel has been found by me. That doesn't mean that it wasn't served only that the proprietors didn't consider it desirable or unusual enough to bother advertising its availability.

Someone was selling herrings out of barrels in town mid century, probably a grocer. These certainly sold fish sauce and salted fish.

Oyster stalls were a popular feature of the Regatta. At the time oysters were not as expensive as now.

Fruit:

Commercial fruiterers resided very much on Dean Street in the Victorian age. All seemed to have been involved in the wholesale trade, some also retailed to the public. The Benning family in the late Victorian High Street were grocers, ironmongers and fruiterers. As well as fresh fruit they sold canned fruit such as pineapple. More about them here. At Christmas time fresh oranges and grapes were also sold in Marlow grocers for those that could afford them. It was also to grocers you went for dried fruits for your Christmas pudding or general baking. You would need to stone and stalk your own raisins at home then.

Apple pies and cherry pies are mentioned multiple times as being stolen from Marlow and Little Marlow homes. Cherries were grown commercially at a small scale around Marlow and on a large scale at Flackwell Heath. You might have bought your cherries from visiting gipsy sellers too, who were common in the area and set up at most summer fairs and events that they could. Cherries not strawberries were the archetypal summer fruit of the Victorian era.

The fruit grown by the gardeners of the wealthy residents of Marlow can be seen from the local horticultural show results. These were already in full swing by the time Victoria ascended the throne. It took until the early 1870s for ordinary people to feature in these competitions if they were not professional gardeners. Fruits grown by rich Marlovians were: apples, plums, peaches, nectarines, pears, greengages, melons, strawberries, rhubarb and grapes. Melons were grown in special pits heated by decomposing horse manure. Lovely!

Ordinary Marlovians according to the show results were more likely to be growing: apples, pears, redcurrants, whitecurrants, blackcurrants, plums, gooseberries and raspberries. Note the greater amount of bush fruit grown by ordinary people.

From the hedgerows poorer residents gathered blackberries, mirelles, sloes and crab apples (and young hawthorn leaves to snack on, until at least the 1940s!)

Vegetables:

Greengrocery hawkers were also centred on Dean Street in early times. They sold predominantly vegetables and salad leaves with fruit more likely to be sold at fruiterers. Many of those I find mentioned as involved in the green grocery trade turn out upon examination to have no shop but to be itinerant sellers going door to door or selling in the street. These were catering to the poorer residents of Marlow and nearby areas.

The poorest of all could afford to buy very little. Women and children routinely stole into farmers' fields to pull off turnip and swede tops to cook as vegetables. The court reports of the 1800s are littered with prosecutions for this. Marlow Bottom because it was lonelier was a hotspot for this kind of activity. Some of the court cases are truly heartbreaking as the families prosecuted were absolutely destitute.

Swedes themselves by the way were usually grown in the South as animal feed and not for human consumption. A World War 2 propaganda campaign by the government convinced us to give them a try as they were cheap and easy to produce en masse at a time of food shortages. The few cases of Marlow folks stealing swedes not just their tops would have been cases of the most dire desperation. Public prosecution for this would have been utterly humiliating. It was the social equivalent of being caught stealing grass to eat. 

Nettles were certainly eaten as a nutritious soup and stew ingredient, especially by gypsy families but others too, not necessarily out of poverty. Giant puffball mushrooms were once common in fields near the river and provided a large feast for those who found them. Mushrooms as a whole were much loved by Victorians, with mushroom ketchup a popular homemade condiment.

Watercress was grown by early Victorian times between Marlow and Medmenham as well as at Little Marlow. It was a very popular vegetable throughout the era both cooked and raw. 

The vegetables and salads grown by the gardeners of the wealthy residents of Marlow are described in reports of local horticultural shows are described throughout the era: cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, celery and cauliflower feature most highly. Not often entered into shows but highly fashionable throughout the era was sea kale.

More ordinary citizens entered such shows from around the early 1870s. Women as well as men were then growing prize winning crops. Vegetables grown by these more humble householders were: lettuce, marrows, peas, turnips, onions and carrots. Probably, judging by seed stock advertised by Marlow seedsmen (stand alone businesses or a sideline for ironmongers) we can add beetroot as well as brussel sprouts and broccoli to that list.

Allotments arrived in Marlow in the 1880s.

Herbs, Spices etc:

Wild garlic could be picked (sneakily) in Marlow churchyard as well as in the countryside around town.

Exotic spices were easily available at the grocery shops in the town centre, if you had cash to spare. Preserved ginger was a favourite in Victorian England eaten as both a sweet and used in baking, especially around Christmas.

Meat:

The most popular foodstuff to steal from Marlow household pantries was bacon, followed by cheese and pies*. These pies might be sweet or savoury. What meat was in the "meat pies" is almost never specified.

The most common meat stolen from shops after bacon was pork.

Any local, personal or national event celebrated by a dinner in the Victorian age tended to be centred around feasting on roast beef. Marlow records show here was no different than elsewhere. By far the most usual Victorian Christmas dinner given in ordinary family homes, workhouses and in places hosting workplace, charity or Sunday school festive dinners was roast beef and plum pudding not the turkey or goose of popular imagination. Actually this was the standard year round celebration meal for Victorians. The "plum pudding" became "Christmas pudding" for a few weeks every year when it was served at Christmas time aflame with some holly on top. So Marlow celebration dinners throughout the year featured plum pudding.

The "Excelsior pork pie" was a speciality of Death and Son bakers of Marlow. They operated in both West Street and the High Street at different times. 

Butcher's shops were in the High Street, West Street, Spittal Street and Chapel Street. A biographical portrait of Rachel Hall a butcher of West Street has previously been published on this blog here See also my posts on butcher Jason Povey, who got involved in political bribery here and Emily Carter a Victorian butcher of Spittal Street here.

Some of the Marlow butchers had stalls at Marlow Market in Market Square once a week. This had become solely or mostly for meat by the 1870s.

By the 1880s some meat could also be bought from grocer's shops. They had long sold bacon which they might cure on their own premises but to sell other meat was something of a stepping on the toes of the butchers.

Poaching rabbits kept many a Dean Street area family from going hungry but it also cost them heavily in terms of fines and lost income from jail time.

Bakery:

Marlow had no shortage of bakers. These all sold flour for home baking as well as their own baked products. Some also functioned as corn dealers. Most were also pastry cooks selling sweet baked goods ranging from little penny cakes for one person to large celebration cakes. Only the wealthy could afford to buy the latter. Marlow bakers advertised ready made birthday and iced Christmas cakes by the 1880s. Early Victorian Christmas cakes were non alcoholic and usually not iced or served with marzipan. They were intended as a plain, easily digestible dessert alternative to rich plum puddings for the children of the family. If Marlow bakers or confectioners supplied the Twelfth cakes that were popular in the early and middle 1800s for Twelfth Night parties I cannot discover it. 

Confectioners mainly sold sweets but sometimes functioned as pastry cooks as well and so also offered cakes and pastries, especially in the pre Victorian era. They might be grocers too!

In Victorian times home cooks could pay to bake their own pies and breads in the bakers' ovens after the bakers themselves were finished for the day. You have to remember that many early Victorian, and some later Victorian families had no oven at home or only a tiny one. 

Gingerbread stalls featured every year at Marlow Fair and the Regatta. They were a magnet for children.

Death and Sons bakers produced their own biscuits called the Marlow Pioneer Biscuits [South Bucks Standard 22nd February 1895, advertising accessed via the BNA March 2021]. Our grocery shops also sold ready made biscuits and cakes by the 1880s.

A biographical post on the Sawyer family bakers of Marlow is on the blog here.

Dairy Products:

Most Marlow grocers were also cheesemongers. Stand alone cheesemongers seem to have no presence though they did in earlier times. Advertised cheeses in Marlow were all hard cheeses and none were said to be locally produced. Stealing cheese from householders was quite common.

Bread and cheese was THE working class packed lunch of the 1800s. Poor little Thomas Lunnon aged 7 had just such a lunch stolen from him right from off his school premises in Little Marlow in 1892 [South Bucks Standard 7th October 1892]. He had carried it there in a basket.

Ice cream was usually made at home but those not able to do so could enjoy a portion from one of the several ice cream sellers who pushed their special barrows around the streets in the summer. Most of these were not local men. Many regarded the ice cream men a nuisance because they tended to attract a street-blocking crowd of children and adults. One such seller from Reading found himself in court after he was accused of causing traffic chaos on Marlow bridge with his barrow. The police observed 40 people gathered about him. Let's hope supplies held out! 

If you wanted to make your own you could buy ice for your churn from the fishmonger. Homemade iced desserts because they were difficult to produce were very much a status symbol. Vanilla ice cream was the most common but brown bread ice-cream made with toasted sweetened brown breadcrumbs was also a huge favourite in this era. I made some myself and I can only say it left me cold!

Milk was available from several town dairies or directly from some farms. 

Poultry and Game:

Both were typically bought from poulterer's and in poultry's case sometimes directly from local farmers. The farmer's wife typically had charge of this side of the business. For more on the early Victorian poulterer John Way of the High Street see here.

Stealing fowls from farms and homes was very common in Victorian Marlow. Reports of thefts which are not also accompanied by reports of the successful arrest of the guilty parties are unusual so perhaps the Marlovians responsible weren't very good at it.

Poaching for pheasants was a Dean Street speciality!

Nuts:

Walnuts were grown as a crop on almost every Marlow farm. They were much loved by Victorians who pickled them while still green and made walnut ketchup as well as utilising them in ways we would be more familiar with today. As they were valuable they were targeted by thieves.

From the countryside filbert nuts could be gathered in places. While beech nuts are edible cooked and plentiful around the town I have not found any reference to their use by Victorian Marlovians.

Almonds were very popular in Victorian cooking and found at the grocers, who also sold chestnuts in the winter. I have yet to find any reference to hot chestnut street sellers in Victorian Marlow.

For visitors:

The Compleat Angler, the Greyhound Hotel in Spittal Street, the Two Brewers in St Peter's Street, and the George and Dragon on the Causeway all specialised in catering for the picnic and boating parties that came to visit Marlow.

By the 1870s the mess left behind by picnickers on the banks of the river was already considered a nuisance [Bucks Herald 18th August, page via BNA February 2021].

Great Western Railway offered special picnic party fares to Marlow from London and elsewhere. Favourite nearby spots were the fields near Gossmore in Marlow, Quarry Woods at Bisham, Winter Hill and Bisham Woods.

Picnics in the Victorian era were very substantial affairs. A tea kettle was usually brought along and a spirit stove (coffee was not the done thing). A typical picnic contained multiple joints of meat, savoury pies, cold desserts (including the beloved plum or "Christmas" pudding), salads, fruit fresh or stewed or both perhaps with biscuits to dunk in the latter, fruitcake and gingerbread. Yes all of that. There might be sandwiches, though not always. Picnickers might just take bread rolls as an accompaniment to the other dishes. If they did take sandwiches it wasn't the cucumber ones we often associate with the era. They were for afternoon tea and considered too insubstantial for a picnic. A cucumber to be chunked and offered as a snack usually went along however. They weren't insubstantial in calories though. Their cucumber sandwiches were often spread with both butter and cream. 

*****

* my calculation. Thieves must have felt it was their lucky day when they broke into William Suthery's Little Marlow home in the 1850s and found all three ripe for the taking!

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

Related Posts=

Food in 1700s Marlow here

Historic cost of living in Marlow, including the cost of many food items from different specific Marlow shops in the Victorian era here

The Poaching Perrys here

The temperance movement in Marlow here

A Victorian Christmas in Marlow here

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this material for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.

Thank you to Jane Pullinger for her family's information.  

Also of use= 

Royal County Directory for Beds, Bucks and Berks, 1876. [Marlow market information]

South Bucks Standard 23 September 1898.