1865-1900 american food?

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• 1 Louise C // Jul 9, 2008

  the gilded Age was a time when hearty eating was fashionable, and the those who could afford it ate big meals. it was an age when it was fashionable for women to be well-built rather than slender, full-figured women were admired.

  A menu for a typical dinner of a well-off family was:

  Oysters, consomme, baked fish, cheese souffle, roasted chicken, creamed potatoes, green peas, celery, raspberry jelly, crackers, cheese, sherbet, sponge cake, meringues, fruit, and coffee.

  obviously, poor people would not have been able to eat anything like that. Poor people who lived in the country might have been a bit better off than poor people in towns, as they would be able to grow their own vegetables, perhaps hunt for food etc. Poor people in towns would have led very hard lives, working long hours for small wages, and probably not have eaten a very nourishing diet. Some poor women were so badly nourished that they couldn't even manage to feed their own babies, and had to buy milk, which because of lack of refrigeration and insanitary conditions at the dairies, was often contaminated. A third of all babies in immigrant neighbourhoods died before their fifth birthday, and the milke they drank was one of the reasons, as well as bad food, lack of sunlight, and dirty streets.