What pops into your mind when I say the word lunch? You're probably thinking a sandwich,
cheeseburger and fries, soup and salad, Taco Tuesday, chicken salad,
pizza. Whatever it is it needs to be something quick and easy. But 250 years ago it was nothing
like that. To a working man lunch was the most important meal of the day. He couldn't go on
without it. We just got done thinking about what happens with breakfast and that made me
think about lunch and the perfect book for that is William Ellis's book from 1750 where
he tells us all about the meals for laborers. What was life like for the working class in the
18th century? It's a question I asked myself because today most people that we think of
here in America are middle class but there isn't quite that thing happening either in America or
in Great Britain in the 18th century. Most people are working class what we would call maybe even
low class or lower middle class. They're people doing very blue collar like jobs and they have a
different kind of life than we do completely. They're working from dawn to dusk and when you
work hard like that you have to eat in a different way than we certainly do today. I mean most of us
could probably skip two meals and not even really notice it. So we're talking here about the people
who are working on farms regular field workers we're talking about blacksmiths and people that
are doing those standard jobs potters, iron smiths, tailors. All these folks are working
hard every day six days a week. And so many jobs today we commute we might commute 10 15 minutes
or an hour to get to work. Most people in the 18th century are not doing that at all they're
working rather close to home or even in their home so dealing with lunch is a totally different kind
of concept they don't have to go out to eat they are right at their home they're ready to eat there
or sometimes the meals are brought out to them they're field workers and the food is brought
out to them so they don't have to take any major break in the day but they can eat right there.
So today we typically have these three meals in the day we have a breakfast we have a lunch we
have a dinner that dinner being the large meal of the day the one that's most filling and these
other ones are just sort of fillers to keep us from getting hungry until we get to dinner but
that's not what's typical in the 18th century yes we're having something maybe very early
in the morning and then we might start to do some work and then we'll have something like a
breakfast then we'll work until the midday till about 1:00 and that's dinner that's the major
meal of the day and then later on much later on maybe even after the sun has gone down we
have a light supper and then it's time for bed. So what are we eating in this larger midday meal
which they called their dinner? Well if we dig into William Ellis's country housewives
family companion we have a lot of references specifically to dinner and they're working with
families and workmen that work on the farm and he does this great job all the way through the
book in many different spots where he says this will make a good dinner or that will make a good
dinner here on page 71 William Ellis gives us a great description of dinner he says at dinner
time which should always be at 1:00 the vittles should be in the field for it was the saying of
a noble housewife that as the men expected it at that hour if it was not brought accordingly
they would lag in their work and lose time in expecting it. Broad beans and bacon or pork
one day, and beef with carrots or turnips or cabbage or cucumbers or potatoes another day,
and a plum pudding at wheat time Harvest or plain pudding in Lent Harvest good dinner vittles.
So it's fun even as we dig through a book like this William Ellis talks about all
kinds of things that will work for a dinner some things that we would find rather strange so it'll
say something like a white pot which we would definitely consider basically a sugary bread
pudding he would consider that the entire dinner or maybe just a large pudding one of those boiled
puddings like we think of as in the Christmas carol with Charles Dickens on fire right so
that could also be your dinner your midday meal they're usually just one dish and maybe shared
within the entire family or all the workers at once things that we just wouldn't think
of as really a appropriate for lunch at all. Another great book for working class meals
is the Primitive cookery cook book done in 1767 and it's a collection specifically for meals for
working class people even this low class working people and in the back it's a list of 72 meals
and they are all over the place something like oatmeal or green beans uh dumplings which we've
done here um and many of them say this will make a good meal that this is good for the workingclass
family and many times or basically all the time they're talking about dinner here they're talking
about the main meal of the day not breakfast. In past videos we have talked about some of these
same sorts of things the Benjamin Franklin Meal which is the bread and cheese and something like
water sometimes that's breakfast uh many times that is a typical lunchtime meal or dinner time
we also have something that again we've talked about that would be breakfast which would be
oatmeal of porridge yep that could certainly be your dinner time or even something like a milk
porridge which is just milk with bread crumbed up in it and sort of heated up which not too many
people I think eat today. As we dig into what's written here the meals are large so it seems that
dinner has a lot more to do with how big the meal is how it's supposed to get you through the day
rather than exactly the type of food that we're eating. Most of the references here with William
Ellis he's talking about field workers and whether it's breakfast or dinner those meals are brought
right out into the field for them so that they can eat and then get back to work but a lot of
these other workers maybe they're a blacksmith or you know some other kind of worker in town
they are so close to home they can take a break they can go home the meals already been prepared
for them they can eat and then get back to work so it gives them a nice little break during the
day they don't have to worry about fast food or doing any great quantity of commuting.
The main dish we're going to going to do today is the one right out of the middle
of the section here it's beef with carrots and potatoes many times in the 18th century this
would just be boiled boiled beef with potatoes and carrots that doesn't sound so appetizing
so another way where they would cook them in the 18 century is to cook them in a dutch oven
we would call it a pot roast and it is so good. Our dish of beef potatoes and carrots is rather
simple we're going to take our beef and do a little bit of spicing with it salt and pepper
rub that in you could even put a little nutmeg on it if you want to and we're going to sear this in
our Dutch oven a little bit of oil and make sure to brown all the sides of this wonderful beef once
that's done we can put in our sliced carrots and potatoes add some water in that you want to come
almost up to the top of the meat put the lid on that and it goes into our oven or in this case
we're going to put coals above and below it it and it needs to be cooked at about 350° for an
hour or two the more I dig the more I kind of caught off guard but the fact that there's so
much variety here but many many circumstances these dishes are meat dishes these are fairly
lowly people really they're they're not even kind of middle class folks but meat is available for
many many of these dishes and while it might not be a high class cut of meat meat is on the
table even the dish we're cooking today doesn't need to be some incredibly wonderful cut of beef
it can be a fairly inexpensive cut and the way it's cooked still turns out wonderfully tender.
Yes, lunch for us is something simple we'll get it from a fast food restaurant or maybe we'll
bring our food in but it's just something to get us through the hungry spot in the middle of the
day. In the 18th century it is the most important meal it is the biggest meal it's basically usually
just one dish like this meat and vegetables all cooked together maybe it's one thing or
the other but it is the most substantial meal of the day. This smells so good it is such
a quick one pot meal the beef the vegetables all cooked together and well let's try it out.
Cooked to perfection this is probably the very best lunch whether today or 250 years ago.