The Analysis Of The Changing British Food And Drink In The Victorian Age

As a new discipline, the history of food is studied for a short time without enough famous references. However, the function of food and drink in social life is essential because to people bread comes first. There are always political, economical and cultural reasons for each change in contents and rituals of food and drink. The relationship between them is so closely connected that neither can be divided from each other. The culture of food and drink which is not changeless improves vigorously in a spiral way, enabling people to discover the civilizational progress of other social fields by studying the culture of food and drink in different periods.The Victorian Age (1837-1901) is the key turning point for English as well as one of the most glorious and greatest phases, in which the Britain becomes a world-famous country as the Empire on which the sun never sets. The advancement of constitutional monarchy, the scientific and technological fruits of the industrial revolution and its persistency in the policy of overseas expansion lead the Britain to be the hegemonist of the whole world. The research of this period mainly focuses on economy and politics, and few studies the life of average Englishmen. But from the historical point of view, the aim of my thesis is to discover what, how and why the changes of the culture of food and drink happen in Britain by comparing the specific food, rituals for dining, kitchen utensils, dish wares and so on of different periods in19th and early20th century. Since the victorian period there was a huge gap between the poor and the rich as well as among different areas. Urban poor and workers at the bottom of the society were sometimes in danger of starvation. As to rural workers, they were better, but they were different in regions. For example, it was poor in south, southwest and east, better in shires alone the coast and Wales, and best in north and northwest where fast-developing industrialization provided many job vacancies. The economical condition of rural workers was gradually improved. Totally the food and drink in northern areas was better than that in south. In addition, growing faster than any other social group in Britain, the middle class ate more and better than before.Although there was still a gap of living standards in Britain, affected by the rapid progress of science and technology caused by the industrial revolution, the british food and drink developed in the mass. There were important changes in kitchen and dining room, including the kitchen appliances and dish wares whose performances were improved. At the same time the rituals of dining were also changed. The time of breakfast, lunch and supper was finally fixed. Rich people especially those middle-class families craved for a higher social position. They strictly followed the rituals and hoped to be accepted by the uppertendom. All of these influenced not only the Britain but also the other countries in the world through the british expansion, and at last formed the modern criterion. Moreover the industrial revolution created two great accomplishments that promoted the british culture of food and drink. The canned food brought a new era of mass-production and forced the former family-based workshop eliminated. And the invention of the technology to preserve food fresh helped promote the international trade and develop the automated manufacturing which enriched the british food and drink but ruined the English farmers’ profits causing the great depression in agriculture in19th century.The culture of food and drink reflects the real society. None of us can never eat or drink, most spending more than ten years on that in life. People work hard for cramming themselves with food, so it is reasonable to analyze the civilization of a country by studying food and drink of the society. To understand the culture of food and drink within different periods, and to discover the reasons why people behave like that, we need to look back from a historical aspect and look at the nature through the surface. The subject of this thesis is to study the living standard of Englishmen and the culture of food and drink in Victorian period.