food
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The Fat Wives’ Club
Historical attitudes towards portly people, particularly women, have ebbed and flowed over millennia. To a lesser degree, leaner people have also been a subject of derision. It’s almost impossible to find examples of societies where attitudes had made peace with weight diversity– including ours. During the latter half of the Victorian era, a school of…
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Victorian Haute Cuisine Collection #2
If you’ve not long been following the Victorian Underground, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’re a foodie account. Rest assured that we definitely aren’t. However, we do believe that one of the lesser explored cultural subjects is restaurants, their chefs, customers, and the food they serve. That’s why we cover the cheap slop houses…
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Aunt Fanny’s Miracle Kitchen Collection
Some light relief for you all. Aunt Fanny from Huddersfield was a renowned baker and maker of disgusting looking but delicious tasting cakes, pastries and confectionery. Legend has it that she was also something of a perfectionist as we can see in photograph #6. Her tantrums were ‘thunderous’ according to one employee’s diary. Our team…
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The Festival of Grime Collection #2
Some more delightful images from the Festival of Grime for you. The costumes of the moth children in photograph #4 and the stick insect in photograph #7 are my personal favourites. However, the carnival float of an Indian elephant in photograph #8 is also impressive. Such a rig would have taken many hours of hard…
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“The War of the Magic Mushrooms” Collection #1
Some of these images might look like they belong in the Victorian Hoax collection, but our experts and researchers have assured us of their authenticity. Today’s collection centres around an unusual incident which took place at a now dissolved village in Yorkshire called Skail (pronounced ‘Scale’). Records show that Skail was 3 miles from any…
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The Victorian Slop House Collection #2
Today we visit another slop house of yore called the Besel Blit. This establishment was a traditional slop house with all the trimmings. The menu had one course and two options: wet slop (photograph #3) or dry slop (photograph #4). People would often flip a coin with friends. Heads a friend would have to pay…
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