0:00:18 > 0:00:22Delicious. Baked hedgehog.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Morning. I'm Dr Lucy Worsley,
0:00:32 > 0:00:36chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces, based here at Hampton Court.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38Another day at the office.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46As a historian though, I'm fascinated by the intimate,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50personal bits of history and the way they've shape modern life.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Oh, it's exciting, it's exciting!
0:00:52 > 0:00:57In this series, I'll be tracing the story of British domestic life through four rooms -
0:00:57 > 0:01:01the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03THEY LAUGH
0:01:03 > 0:01:07From the homes of the middle ages to the present day,
0:01:07 > 0:01:10I'll be exploring the ways that our attitudes and habits have changed,
0:01:10 > 0:01:16meeting some extraordinary people and doing some rather odd things.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19So why are we pouring Brian's urine onto this sheet?
0:01:19 > 0:01:27Quick, quick, quick! This time, from the Medieval one-room cottage to an open plan futuristic kitchen utopia.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29You've got your voom voom technology in your car.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32Why not reapply it to your kitchen?
0:01:32 > 0:01:36I'll be discovering how the kitchen came in from the cold.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40- You're not too bad for a beginner. - She bit patronising, isn't she?
0:01:57 > 0:02:00Our homes are a reflection of ourselves.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04They tell us so much about who we are and how we live.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07But the privacy, security and technology
0:02:07 > 0:02:11that we take so much for granted now are relatively recent developments.
0:02:11 > 0:02:19Houses like this have evolved over many centuries and every single room has a really fascinating history.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23This time, the room that's changed from being the lowest in status
0:02:23 > 0:02:27in the house to the place that most people want to spend time in.
0:02:27 > 0:02:28Mind the scooter.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35Most people would say that their kitchen was the most important room in the house, absolutely central,
0:02:35 > 0:02:40and it's also possible to spend a huge amount of money in your kitchen, more than any other room.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44You can get fancy fridges, enormous posh cookers.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47The technology here is just extraordinary.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51But this is only possible because of centuries and centuries of innovations.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Kitchen technologies started out with some very humble beginnings.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02Our story starts in the Middle Ages, when a peasant's home was one room
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and their whole house was the kitchen.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10It had a small fire at its centre which was the only source of heat for cooking.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12The technology here is really very simple.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17There is an oval shaped hearth stone with ridges on it,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22a very smoky wood fire and a little pot that stands on three legs
0:03:22 > 0:03:26and a wooden spoon and you can see that, actually, it's very effective.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30That's why it lasted for so long - from the Saxons right through to the Tudors.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38Kitchen supplies were totally seasonal and peasants had to forage for whatever they could get.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40They were at the very bottom of the feudal system.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45The lord of the manor owned the land they lived on, including any food sources.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50The forest was the larder of the poor but there were very strict rules to observe
0:03:50 > 0:03:52about what food you could take.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55If I came into the woods as a serf, if I took a deer, I was poaching.
0:03:55 > 0:03:57But there were sort of nasty animals
0:03:57 > 0:04:01I could take, like hedgehogs, and I could also take some of the plants.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04It's all controlled by very strict rules, and I can't take
0:04:04 > 0:04:07any wood for my cooking fire off the floor of the forest.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11I can get it out of the trees and this is possibly the explanation of the phrase,
0:04:11 > 0:04:12"By hook or by crook."
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Peasants desperately seeking wood in the forests.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20They were allowed to take what they could get with their shepherd's crooks or their reaper's hooks.
0:04:25 > 0:04:30Peasants burnt the foraged wood to avoid paying their landowner for fuel.
0:04:30 > 0:04:35They also had to give him a proportion of any food they grew, so their diet was really limited.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Maybe a bit of wheat, beans, things to make into bread,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46but if they had any animals, they wouldn't eat them - much too valuable.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50Animals would be kept for providing milk, for providing eggs or for transport
0:04:50 > 0:04:52and they cooked this stuff
0:04:52 > 0:04:56literally just here on a round half stone like this, in the middle of their cottage,
0:04:56 > 0:05:00with the exception of the bread, because that had to be sent off
0:05:00 > 0:05:02to the baking oven at the lord of the manor.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07You couldn't bake your own bread in your own home. That was done collectively.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11And the easiest thing to cook in this situation is pottage.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14A pot into which you throw whatever's available.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17And particularly in hard times or famines,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20people would literally throw what they could get into there
0:05:20 > 0:05:26and keep it on the boil for day after day after day, so it became everlasting soup.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29So all the best of medieval life is here, really.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31Food and light and company,
0:05:31 > 0:05:36and it just shows that the hearth is really the heart of the home.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39While the peasant's kitchen would retain an open fire
0:05:39 > 0:05:42for hundreds of years, great technological advances
0:05:42 > 0:05:47were being made at the very top of society, where money and resources were plentiful.
0:05:47 > 0:05:54Henry VIII's kitchens at Hampton Court were amongst the largest and most expensively equipped in Europe.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58They were a reflection of his great power and status.
0:05:58 > 0:06:04It seems like the kitchens go on for miles. There are 55 different rooms.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Some of them are used for storing things,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09like spices and sweets and meat and fish and grain.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12Some were actually used for cooking in
0:06:12 > 0:06:16and there were 200 people working here in Henry VIII's time,
0:06:16 > 0:06:18organised into 19 different departments.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22Raw ingredients would arrive at one end and work their way
0:06:22 > 0:06:27through the stages of preparation, much like in a modern restaurant.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30With a separate area for cooking sauces and boiling liquids
0:06:30 > 0:06:36on a series of individual fires, this is the earliest form of kitchen hob.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Domestic kitchens might have been run by women,
0:06:38 > 0:06:43but the Hampton Court kitchen was entirely staffed by men.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49I'm dressing up as a boy for the afternoon
0:06:49 > 0:06:54because I am going to go down to the kitchens and be a kitchen boy.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57Turn the spit I hope. That what I've been promised I can do.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03Very pleased with my cod piece. It looks impressive.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Unlike his subjects, Henry VIII wasn't too bothered about fuel economy.
0:07:07 > 0:07:12His kitchens burnt as much as six tons of wood every day.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17So then, boys, I've been working here for six years
0:07:17 > 0:07:20and I've never been allowed to play with your toys before.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Now why have you made me dress up as a boy?
0:07:22 > 0:07:23They didn't have women in the kitchen,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26basically, because women were paid less money.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30It's about showing off. You are not just feeding people in this palace.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33You are showing off the food, using it as a political weapon.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Bludgeon your opponents and part of that is by saying,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40look, I can afford to employ the very most expensive staff - 200 of them.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Is it partly because it is really hard work?
0:07:42 > 0:07:45You're producing industrial quantities of food down here.
0:07:45 > 0:07:50You're cooking enough food for up to maybe 600 members of the court, twice a day.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53But not just enough food for them to be fed.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56You need enough food for them to be spoilt, to feel special.
0:07:56 > 0:07:57Try and get comfortable.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00You may be here for some time. Just focus on the chickens.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04Just watch them. You don't have to look at the handle. Nice and evenly.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07This is true roasting, cooking meat over an open fire.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11Yes, the food that we mostly call a Sunday roast nowadays is baked in an oven
0:08:11 > 0:08:14and if you bake bread in an oven, you bake ham in an oven it's baked.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18A piece of beef in the oven does not suddenly become roast.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21I think it shows what a powerful concept it is.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Roast meat is the best meat, so they are going to call our Sunday roast a roast
0:08:25 > 0:08:28- even though we are not technically roasting it anymore.- Absolutely.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32The kitchens at Hampton Court introduced features that
0:08:32 > 0:08:36wouldn't be seen in ordinary households for centuries.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40Hampton Court was celebrated for its fancy brick-built chimneys,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43when most houses still didn't even have them.
0:08:43 > 0:08:49Chimneys were a luxury. They kept the kitchen free of smell and smoke, as well as lessening the fire risk.
0:08:49 > 0:08:56But the King himself thought his kitchens were undesirable, dirty and somewhat dangerous.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01Rich house builders pushed their kitchens as far away from their living rooms as possible.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03That whole area is the kitchens.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06There's the Great Hall, the dining room and beyond the Great Hall
0:09:06 > 0:09:09was Henry VIII's own apartments, and this is very significant.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12The kitchens are now a long way from where the King lived.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16They are no longer the focus of the household, partly because the King
0:09:16 > 0:09:19didn't want to be affected by the smell, the smoke, the noise.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22But also, if there's a fire in the kitchens
0:09:22 > 0:09:26then it didn't matter, it didn't burn down his bedroom. They were sort of sacrificial.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30This was such a good idea that other people lower down in society began to want it as well.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32The separate kitchen block.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37A practical step but it's also the beginning of the lowering in status of the kitchen.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39It is no longer the heart of the home.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46So it's not at all surprising to find that this relatively wealthy
0:09:46 > 0:09:51Yeoman farmer has built his 100 yards away from the main house.
0:09:51 > 0:09:57Like most Tudor kitchens, it still has no chimney. The smoke simply escapes through a hole in the roof.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01The kitchen of the middle class or middling Tudor household was the domain of women.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06At Hampton Court, gastronomy and excess were taken for granted.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09Here, the most important consideration was food economy.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12This has been up there for two years now.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Fresh roast meat was a rarity.
0:10:14 > 0:10:21In the middling kitchen, they preserved most of their meat by salting and smoking it.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23A bit of salted bacon that's two years old.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27Preserved meat is a luxury goods in these parts.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29It's got a lovely flavour to it.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33Pottage, cooked on an open fire, was still the main meal of the day.
0:10:33 > 0:10:39But middling householders also started to build brick ovens into their kitchens.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43Now they could bake at home, bread making became a daily ritual.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45Oh, it's exciting, it's exciting!
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Tudor people ate a loaf of bread every day.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52They consumed almost twice as many calories as we're recommended
0:10:52 > 0:10:55to have today, but their lives were far more active.
0:10:55 > 0:11:00We have a fire emergency and it's not what you think. It's gone out.
0:11:00 > 0:11:02The wretched thing has completely expired.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05Well, not to worry. That's OK. We'll light it again.
0:11:05 > 0:11:11The first job was lighting the faggots - bushels of twigs tied together with twine.
0:11:11 > 0:11:17There are references to lighting faggots like these in the oven already,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21but you would light them with little tiny bundles of twigs
0:11:21 > 0:11:24about this size and they're called pimps.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26- Are they really?- Yeah. - THEY LAUGH
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Pimps and faggots!
0:11:28 > 0:11:32- This is family viewing, this is. - That's it.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36That looks better, doesn't it?
0:11:36 > 0:11:39I'm sure that's burning more. There it goes.
0:11:39 > 0:11:46My idea is that, unlike aristocrats, housewives like us, we were essential
0:11:46 > 0:11:49- to running a little household. - Oh, I think so.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54And we had a sort of measure of power and autonomy and responsibility.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58Obviously, aristocratic women are there for a different purpose, aren't they?
0:11:58 > 0:12:03They're there to reproduce. We're here to work and get things done.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07The fire in the oven will need to burn down to ash before baking can start.
0:12:10 > 0:12:15Tudor kitchen tables were kept clean and hygienic with a mixture of vinegar, rosemary and salt.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20The vinegar is anti-bacterial and cuts through grease,
0:12:20 > 0:12:25the Rosemary acts as an insecticide, and the salt is abrasive.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28It's surprisingly like a modern cleaning product.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30All done.
0:12:32 > 0:12:38We're making very chunky, heavy, brown bread here because we're only middle ranking people.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41At court, they'd be eating fancy white bread,
0:12:41 > 0:12:44and the very poorest people would be eating bread
0:12:44 > 0:12:49maybe even made from beans and lentils and stuff like that.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51The dregs of the harvest, if you like.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56It's ironic, really, that what the Tudors wanted was white bread,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59fine white bread, and what we want today is the other way round.
0:12:59 > 0:13:06White bread is trash and we fork out loads for a good, crunchy, brown loaf like this one.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09OK, Lucy, now we are going to have to
0:13:09 > 0:13:11rake out the oven.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13Obviously mind your feet.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Once the wood has burnt to ash, it's removed.
0:13:16 > 0:13:17But it's still hot in the oven.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21Quick, quick, quick! The heat is sealed in with a wooden door.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23Marvellous.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25Oh, it's been soaked in water in water so it's quite heavy.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28So that's now going to swell, because it's wet, to fit.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30That's clever, that is.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33And we've got extra dough here which we made up earlier
0:13:33 > 0:13:35for you to put around the door and it will cook
0:13:35 > 0:13:39on the outside of that door in the same amount of time.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42- When it's cooked, the bread's done? - Yeah.- Ah!
0:13:44 > 0:13:46A basic enclosed oven like this
0:13:46 > 0:13:48could bake up to 30 loaves every day.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54So, big moment, the dough's done.
0:13:54 > 0:13:55Just a big hard yank and open it?
0:13:55 > 0:13:59- Yeah, it'll be stiff, because its welded itself to the door.- Oh!
0:13:59 > 0:14:04- You're too right about that.- Needs a lot of strength to pull that off, and then you'll get a waft of heat.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Hey, hey!
0:14:16 > 0:14:19- How do we test if they're done? - Just literally turn it over
0:14:19 > 0:14:23in your hand and pop the bottom, and if it sounds hollow...
0:14:23 > 0:14:27- Does that sound hollow to you? - Yes, and it's nice and black on the bottom.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31- That's a good sign?- Yeah. And the nice thing to know is, if we were really poor,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36we'd only get this black bit to eat, and the slightly posher people would get the upper crust.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38SHE LAUGHS
0:14:38 > 0:14:45I think that quite a lot of people who have got these sort of country kitchens, bunches of herbs hung up,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48they'd look at the Tudor kitchen and see a lot in common there.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52The oven that was like a sort of Aga.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56Use of fresh herbs, that sort of thing, you feel very close to nature.
0:14:56 > 0:15:04But I think that romantic surface disguises a huge amount of hard work, hard graft.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07It was back-breaking just trying to keep that fire alight,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11and the Tudor housewives had to do that all day, every day.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14The oven proved to be a terrible fire risk,
0:15:14 > 0:15:16especially in houses built from wood.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20As towns expanded, more buildings were built in stone
0:15:20 > 0:15:21and more of them had chimneys.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23The ever-expanding British Navy
0:15:23 > 0:15:27was demanding endless amounts of wood for shipbuilding.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30Luckily, a new fuel arrived in the nation's kitchens -
0:15:30 > 0:15:34something far more effective than the humble log.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36Coal is a bit of a luxury product today.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39If you're lucky enough to have an open fire,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41it's probably in addition to your central heating.
0:15:41 > 0:15:46But in the late 17th century, coal came along and caused a revolution in British kitchens.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50It's much cheaper than wood and it burns at a higher temperature,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52which makes it really good at roasting meat.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56So, roast meat, which was just for the very rich in Tudor England,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59by the 18th century, it's filtering down through society.
0:15:59 > 0:16:01Roast meat is being democratized.
0:16:01 > 0:16:07Everybody still needed a way to turn the meat on a spit over the fire, but there were now alternatives
0:16:07 > 0:16:10to the underpaid scullion of Henry VIII's kitchens.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13Some of those alternatives were very ingenious.
0:16:15 > 0:16:22The George Inn in Wiltshire has a unique spit roast, the only survivor of its type in the country.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26Ivan, we're going to do something completely unprecedented here, aren't we?
0:16:26 > 0:16:29We're going to turn a spit with a dog in a wheel, which is something
0:16:29 > 0:16:32I know hasn't been done for about 200 years,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34so I this is a very exciting moment for me.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38I've roasted meat in all kinds of ways, but never with an animal before.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42What we're going to roast is the most popular meat of the 18th century,
0:16:42 > 0:16:44which wasn't beef but mutton.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Cooking with coal led to changes in fireplace design.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51Instead of burning wood on a hearth,
0:16:51 > 0:16:55new wrought iron grates held the coal above the floor.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59The roasting jack was placed in front of the fire and the dog did the work.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04If you look up the chimney, you'll see that there's a shaft
0:17:04 > 0:17:08that goes right through the chimney breast with a little wheel on it.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13And we put a woolly animal inside this treadmill and turn it...
0:17:13 > 0:17:14It's going round, I can see it.
0:17:14 > 0:17:20And the shaft turns. And the chain that you see there, which is called the jack chain, turns it.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22It's a very, very simple contraption.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25But it actually frees up a pair of hands, because this was often done
0:17:25 > 0:17:31by a human agent, and that means that they can go peeling onions or plucking a pheasant.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34I've actually been a human turn spit myself so I know what hot, hard work it is.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38It's one of the first kitchen conveniences.
0:17:38 > 0:17:45There was actually a breed of dog which was known as a turn spit or a turn cur, and it survived into
0:17:45 > 0:17:48the early 19th century and then it just became
0:17:48 > 0:17:52extinct because the mechanical apparatus just became more popular.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55I'm a bit sceptical that a modern breed will be able to do it.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58I think that they really had it bred into them.
0:17:58 > 0:18:00But it'll be fun to find out what happens.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03Come on in then, girls.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07This is Rachel and Coco the dog.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09Oh, my goodness me, you're the star, eh?
0:18:09 > 0:18:14Right, well, I think we should start, really, because the fire is absolutely perfect.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18Coco, I think we've got to get you into the wheel to see what you can do.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21Come on, girl. Where's the sausage?
0:18:21 > 0:18:24Coco has been in the wheel before. She's been practising.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Come on, Coco, you can do it.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Otherwise we're going to have to put Lucy in there.
0:18:29 > 0:18:34You see, I'm counting on Coco being able to do it, because I don't think I'm going to fit.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40- Good girl.- Second hook.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44- Clever girl.- How's she doing?
0:18:44 > 0:18:48We need to turn her and...feed her.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54I don't really... I think it's going to be Lucy doing this.
0:18:54 > 0:18:56No, no, it's genuinely turning, look, it's going round.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58Is that Coco or is it you?
0:18:58 > 0:19:00Or is it a bit of both?
0:19:00 > 0:19:02A bit of both.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04I think it's a bit unfair of us.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08It's rather like asking a poodle to do a red setter's job.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10Go on, get your legs down there.
0:19:10 > 0:19:17The trouble is, I think Coco's legs are a bit too long for this, and obviously she's not trained to do it.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20So, she's a good sport.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22I think it's time to rescue Coco.
0:19:22 > 0:19:23She's done a good job.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26There we go. Well done.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Round of applause for Coco. THEY APPLAUD
0:19:34 > 0:19:41Just as Ivan predicted, I've ended up doing this job myself as the human hound because Coco got a bit bored.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44But she will be rewarded in a few moments.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48And even in the 18th century they had loads of trouble with the dog wheels.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52There's a very amusing letter from William Cotesworth in 1723.
0:19:52 > 0:19:57He took his dog wheel out of the kitchen because the dog was always getting in the way of the fire.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00The wheel was just getting in the way, and most annoyingly
0:20:00 > 0:20:04of all the dog kept doing its business all over the kitchen.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07I want you to put the plate underneath, OK?
0:20:07 > 0:20:13And you're going to spin round in a circle like that, up on to the table.
0:20:13 > 0:20:15Can you smell that, Coco?
0:20:15 > 0:20:16Absolutely wonderful.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19- Mmm, can't wait. - This is your reward, girl.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22What's the verdict?
0:20:22 > 0:20:24Lovely.
0:20:24 > 0:20:25Top stuff.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27- Delicious.- Cheers.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29I think to Coco.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33Congratulations, little dog.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Inventive Georgian engineers got to work in the kitchen,
0:20:37 > 0:20:41inventing increasingly ingenious methods of spit roasting.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43Clockwork bottle jacks, weight-driven spit jacks
0:20:43 > 0:20:48and smoke jacks, driven by the hot air rising from the fire.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53Despite their passion for new technology and their pride in eating roast meat, the Georgians,
0:20:53 > 0:21:00like Tudor aristocrats, pushed their kitchens out and kept them away from the social centre of the house.
0:21:00 > 0:21:06Today, the smell of cooking is really a big part of a lot of people's ideas of what home is.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09If you go to somebody's house and they're baking a cake
0:21:09 > 0:21:14or roasting some meat, you go, "That's smells great, this is a really nice place to be."
0:21:14 > 0:21:16Not so for Georgian aristocrats.
0:21:16 > 0:21:21They were paranoid about having the smell of cooking penetrate their living or dining rooms.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26That was only for lower class people who could only afford to live in a single space.
0:21:26 > 0:21:32So, while today people really aspire to an open-plan kitchen-dining area,
0:21:32 > 0:21:35in the 18th century this was just not what you wanted at all.
0:21:35 > 0:21:41You wanted a huge degree of separation between your kitchen and the rest of the house.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Here at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48the kitchen is placed as far away from the dining rooms as possible.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53Just like at Hampton Court, the kitchen was still seen as noisy,
0:21:53 > 0:21:56smelly and essentially servile.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59The owners had this house designed specifically
0:21:59 > 0:22:03so that the smell of the kitchens couldn't permeate the dining room.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07The entire environment we're in is designed
0:22:07 > 0:22:10for dining separately from the kitchen.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13That's why this room is all stucco and no tapestries, isn't it?
0:22:13 > 0:22:17That's right, and apart from that we have a Victorian carpet here,
0:22:17 > 0:22:20but when this was in use it had an oil cloth.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23So, there's no textiles to hold the smell of the food or the cooking.
0:22:23 > 0:22:28Have you noticed the incense burner at the back there? It's a Robert Adam design and you could burn
0:22:28 > 0:22:32joss sticks, I suppose, to get rid of any cooking or food smells.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35I think it shows a real disconnection, doesn't it, between
0:22:35 > 0:22:38the eating, which is in this sort of elegant, sterile environment, and the
0:22:38 > 0:22:43cooking itself, which we just don't want any indication of in this very grand dining room.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47No. There's the door, and beyond the door, you don't want to know about that.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52For the diners, the kitchen was out of sight and out of mind.
0:22:52 > 0:22:57But all the while, there was an army of servants slaving away downstairs.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59So, Peter, we've come down to the engine room.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02We're in the actual kitchen of the house now.
0:23:02 > 0:23:09Yes, very much like an engine room, in that enormous amount of heat, lots of fuel,
0:23:09 > 0:23:11lots of cooking smells and things like that.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13Hence the height and ventilation in the roof.
0:23:13 > 0:23:20Also, it's detached from all the polite parts of the house.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24So, the country house itself is isolated from the rest of society,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27and the kitchen is isolated from the country house.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31And how much do you think the servants in the kitchen actually saw of the state rooms?
0:23:31 > 0:23:33- Virtually nothing. - They weren't allowed in?
0:23:33 > 0:23:35No, certainly not upstairs.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38You might sneak upstairs to see a good table setting or
0:23:38 > 0:23:44you might sneak views if there was a ball or something like that, but officially this is where you live.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48Now, what I really what to know is, how did the food get from over here,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51the kitchen, into the dining rooms?
0:23:51 > 0:23:55There are several in the house. The one we've just set the table is here, it's marked "F",
0:23:55 > 0:23:59but that's a special dining room for special occasions, isn't it?
0:23:59 > 0:24:04- A state dining room.- And the everyday dining room is right over here somewhere in this separate wing.
0:24:04 > 0:24:10So the food had to get from here all the way through to here or even to here. Didn't food get cold?
0:24:10 > 0:24:16Not really, because you have footmen who work very, very rapidly.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20They take the trays and rush from here straight upstairs.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23It's only a matter of minutes to get things straight into their dining room.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25Even at the far side of the house.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28I'm sceptical about this so I'm going to challenge you to see
0:24:28 > 0:24:32how quickly you can get that hot tureen of soup up to the dining room.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Fine. One thing you'll notice - tureens have always got handles.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38You never run with a tureen on a tray.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41You'll smash the tureen and scald people, hence...
0:24:44 > 0:24:49- Straight away, are you timing? - Oh, he's gone, he's gone, he's made a good start.
0:24:59 > 0:25:00Oh, oh, oh!
0:25:04 > 0:25:06I'm going to go ahead.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25It is warm.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28- It's still warm, well done.- It is.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33In the 18th century, fine dining was a competitive sport.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35French cuisine was the current craze.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38It was considered the height of sophistication to employ
0:25:38 > 0:25:43a French chef in the kitchens of England's country houses...
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Graters? These look like graters over here.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48I'll get two different sizes.
0:25:48 > 0:25:54'And exotic French chefs demanded an inordinate amount of strange new kitchen equipment.'
0:25:54 > 0:26:00That's a pudding cloth, definitely a cake hoop, I imagine that was something like a pate pan.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04I'm kitting myself out to be a Georgian chef here.
0:26:04 > 0:26:11I've got the shopping list as written down by Mr William Verrall in 1759, and he knew what we was
0:26:11 > 0:26:13talking about, cos he worked for a French chef,
0:26:13 > 0:26:18and he knew all the latest gear these new cooking professionals were bringing into England.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21It's very, very extensive.
0:26:21 > 0:26:22I need four sieves, one of laun.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24That must be a very fine material sieve.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27I need an egg spoon, several saucepans, rolling pins,
0:26:27 > 0:26:33bowls, knifes, forks, graters, coffee mills, pestle and mortar, whisks, pastry brushes, a jagging iron...
0:26:33 > 0:26:36I don't know what a jagging iron is.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38Do you know what a jagging iron is?
0:26:38 > 0:26:42- No idea.- They work here and they don't know what a jagging iron is.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44Look at the size of that monster.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47That would hold a lot of pepper.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49Fish kettle,
0:26:49 > 0:26:53just what I want. Oh, I'm very pleased with that.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55Ah ha!
0:26:57 > 0:27:00Now, these are just the key things that I need.
0:27:00 > 0:27:07These are my vital chef's tools, my copper pans, my batterie de cuisine, as they were called.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11New French term meaning a whole range, an arsenal of pans.
0:27:11 > 0:27:16French chefs are the ones who introduced this notion of the saucepan as a status symbol,
0:27:16 > 0:27:19and they'd bring these great racks and ranges of pans that you see
0:27:19 > 0:27:24in country house kitchens, going from the big to the teeny tiny dinky one, like this.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29OK, my arm's about to fall off.
0:27:29 > 0:27:30Are you all still there?
0:27:30 > 0:27:33Come on, nobody get left behind.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36Here we go, thank you very much.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40I appreciate it.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45Copper pans aren't just for French chefs. They're also for ordinary Georgian people in their own homes.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48Pans would sometimes be bought by a man courting a woman.
0:27:48 > 0:27:53He would give her gifts of pots and pans, and she would take that as a sign that a proposal was on its way.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56The pans would become the woman's possessions.
0:27:56 > 0:27:57They were associated with her.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00If there was a dispute, she would take them with her.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03If her husband beat her, she could call for help...
0:28:03 > 0:28:07by clashing the pans, and if she had the nous she could beat him back.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10So, these aren't just status symbols, they're also women's weapons.
0:28:10 > 0:28:16Along with new kitchen equipment, the late 18th century saw
0:28:16 > 0:28:20the greatest revolution in cooking since the discovery of fire - the range.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23It was all made possible by the development of cast iron.
0:28:23 > 0:28:29The first step was placing the grate between two cast-iron ovens, but this wasted enormous amounts
0:28:29 > 0:28:33of fuel and made cooking an incredibly hot business.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37In 1802, the addition of a cast-iron plate on top of the fire
0:28:37 > 0:28:41and sealing in the chimney created the closed kitchen range.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46Economical on fuel and highly adaptable, the prototype of the modern cooker had arrived.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48With it, a smoke-free kitchen.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53Country house owners embraced the new technology.
0:28:53 > 0:29:00But kitchen ranges weren't exactly labour-saving devices for their servants.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03Out you come.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06'The scullery maid's day started at 5am,
0:29:06 > 0:29:10'and her first job was to clean and black the range.'
0:29:10 > 0:29:15This range is really pretty sophisticated and complicated.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18By the time we've got to the 1870s,
0:29:18 > 0:29:22range technology has really reached a pretty high point.
0:29:22 > 0:29:27'The scullery maid needed to make the range look as clean and shiny as possible,
0:29:27 > 0:29:31'as her reputation rested on the judgement of the head cook.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34'The maids blacked the range every day
0:29:34 > 0:29:39'with a mixture of sulphuric acid, olive oil, white vinegar and treacle.'
0:29:40 > 0:29:41Phwoah!
0:29:41 > 0:29:43Mind it doesn't go too close to your nose.
0:29:43 > 0:29:48Plenty of elbow grease there, Lucy. Really work it in.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54It clears your sinuses out, the smell of this stuff.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56Paper first.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05So before we can light the fire, we have to pull out these.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09They're called dampers, and that will make the air circulate through the fire.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12So make sure all of them are out.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20Look at that going. That's great.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23I just love this. What you don't realise, looking at
0:30:23 > 0:30:26old bits of technology, is that they do actually work.
0:30:26 > 0:30:28It's brilliant to see them in action.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Well, Team Skivvy thinks that it has completed the job.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39We'd like the cook's verdict on how hard we've worked.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41Not too bad for a beginner.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44She's a bit patronising, isn't she?
0:30:45 > 0:30:47And can you hear the fire roaring?
0:30:47 > 0:30:49- That's a good thing, isn't it? - Wasting heat.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51Oh, we're wasting heat?
0:30:51 > 0:30:53No, you're wasting heat up the chimney.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56- You need to close the damper, please.- I'm sorry.
0:30:56 > 0:30:58So we only pull that out when we're cooking something?
0:30:58 > 0:31:02To get the air through so you get a good draw on the fire.
0:31:02 > 0:31:08'The head cook developed an intimate knowledge of her particular range and its quirks.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11'It took great skill to cook without a thermostat.'
0:31:11 > 0:31:15It takes a while for the oven to get hot. At least an hour.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19And then the skill of the cook - she puts her hand in and feels the heat.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22You need to know what a slow oven is, a moderate oven, a hot oven.
0:31:22 > 0:31:28It's controlled by the dampers and the amount of fuel you put on the fire.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31So, throughout the day, it would have been continuously
0:31:31 > 0:31:33refuelled with coal.
0:31:34 > 0:31:39'By the Victorian era, the industrial revolution had led to an explosion in manufacturing,
0:31:39 > 0:31:44'and the introduction of an incredible array of new gadgets to the kitchen.'
0:31:44 > 0:31:48I thought that kitchen gadgets were something from the 20th century, but I'm wrong.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52The Victorians have invented everything already, haven't they?
0:31:52 > 0:31:56They certainly did. At a kitchen like Shugborough, they would have wanted the latest item.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59As soon as it was patented, they would have it.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03- That's the vegetable chopper and mixer.- Like a food processor.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07Look at that.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10That's circa 1890, that one.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13So, this is another fixture for it.
0:32:13 > 0:32:18It goes in there and this slices carrots or whatever into strips,
0:32:18 > 0:32:24and Victorians just loved mincing and pureeing and squashing their vegetables up into weird shapes.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27Have you seen that, I think it's Mrs Beeton, she says, "Never eat a carrot
0:32:27 > 0:32:31- "unless you've cooked it for 90 minutes"?- Goodness. Yes, yes.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33I know how this works.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38Saved all the hand whisking.
0:32:38 > 0:32:40Another whisk.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43No, that's an instrument of torture. Look at it.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46- What's that one?- Potato ricer.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50Cooked hot potatoes and push it through
0:32:50 > 0:32:53and then you've got potato looking like rice.
0:32:53 > 0:32:55I've got one of these at home. Excellent mash.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58- What's this?- A cherry stoner.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01Couple of cherries.
0:33:01 > 0:33:03Ow.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05Have you got a stone?
0:33:05 > 0:33:11- It's worked!- Yes, yes!- That's ingenuity, isn't it? I love it.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13'This was the age of the ice box.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16'Food was now kept cold in a rudimentary fridge -
0:33:16 > 0:33:20'a wooden cupboard which was insulated with cork,
0:33:20 > 0:33:23'lined with tin or zinc and then filled with ice.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26'But the proliferation of copper pots as well as the new kitchen gadgets
0:33:26 > 0:33:30'only added to the scullery maids' workload.'
0:33:32 > 0:33:37I'm cleaning a copper saucepan here with salt and lemon,
0:33:37 > 0:33:39and it's amazingly effective.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43The scullery maid by the late Victorian age
0:33:43 > 0:33:47is more important than ever because her job
0:33:47 > 0:33:50has been made a thousand times more complicated
0:33:50 > 0:33:53by the big Victorian upheaval in dining habits.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58The most significant change for centuries in the way people ate.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02Until this point, the table would be laid with all the dishes at once,
0:34:02 > 0:34:05and it's like a buffet as we would call it today.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Each diner selected what they wanted from a range of dishes.
0:34:08 > 0:34:14Then, in the 1830s, the new style comes in and it's courses, as we would know them today.
0:34:14 > 0:34:19The first course, taken away, the second course, taken away, the third course, on and on.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21It's a really grand dinner.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25And each of these courses requires a clean plate and clean cutlery,
0:34:25 > 0:34:27so we get the diversification of cutlery.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Things like fish knives are invented, and dessert spoons.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34A really grand dinner for 18 diners
0:34:34 > 0:34:38might produce as many as 500 different utensils,
0:34:38 > 0:34:42and they've got to washed up by the scullery maid, by the pot boy,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44all without rubber gloves.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50'Just as country kitchens were built in a separate block,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53'the middle classes tried to do the same thing,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56'within urban constraints.'
0:34:57 > 0:35:00This is a typical Victorian middle-class house.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05Although this street is really posh now, originally this was a relatively rough area.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09But this type of house had been invented a long time before,
0:35:09 > 0:35:11in the building boom of Georgian London.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15Space was at a premium in the city. Houses didn't have room for separate kitchens.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19They were squeezed in sideways and the kitchen went down into the basement.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21So here we've got a very clear demarcation.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26The basement down there is where the smells, the dirt, the coal was kept.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28It was all overseen by the kitchen maid.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32It was quite separate for the genteel parts of the house upstairs.
0:35:32 > 0:35:37'Thomas Carlyle, the 19th century's best-known historian,
0:35:37 > 0:35:40'moved here with his wife, Jane, in 1832.'
0:35:40 > 0:35:44So, you notice as we've turned the corner, we get the cheap carpet
0:35:44 > 0:35:46- because only the servant is going to see it.- Oh, yes.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50It's a bit Spartan in here, isn't it?
0:35:50 > 0:35:55Well, it's not unusual for a middle-class townhouse.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57This is about average.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01We're very used to seeing rather grand country house kitchens.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04Well, when I was at Shugborough Hall, it was vast and fancy and complicated,
0:36:04 > 0:36:08but this is pretty functional and it's multi-purpose.
0:36:08 > 0:36:09This is a bedroom as well for the...
0:36:09 > 0:36:13It is, I'm afraid, the bedroom for the maid.
0:36:13 > 0:36:18Well, not a long commute. I suppose this little corner of the room,
0:36:18 > 0:36:23the uncomfortable-looking chair and the tiny bed, are the cook's home.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26This is work and this is home here. That's it.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30They didn't expect to do this forever. This wasn't a career.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32This was a stage.
0:36:32 > 0:36:37'The Carlyle kitchen may look Spartan, but it had the wonderful conveniences
0:36:37 > 0:36:43'of Victorian urban infrastructure - gas lighting and, crucially, water on tap.'
0:36:43 > 0:36:47And what you've got here is a very small, for them very large, boiler.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50It held two gallons, and so, for the first time,
0:36:50 > 0:36:56they had hot water that they did not have to heat in kettles over an open fire.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01Because running water was supplied by private companies, it wasn't a public utility,
0:37:02 > 0:37:06it only came into the houses two, sometimes if you were lucky three hours a day.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10So houses like this had cisterns built and you stored the water
0:37:10 > 0:37:13and then you could have it as a huge convenience whenever you wanted it.
0:37:13 > 0:37:16This is where they did the washing up, right?
0:37:16 > 0:37:22This is where they did the washing up. So, the cold water came in here, hot water came out off the range.
0:37:22 > 0:37:26There was, of course, at this stage no detergent.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30You actually used soap that was shaved into pieces and rubbed to a jelly.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33And you can see it's not very deep.
0:37:33 > 0:37:35It's also rather inconveniently low.
0:37:35 > 0:37:38I don't think this has been ergonomically designed.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41No, but remember a lot of the servants were only about 14 or 15,
0:37:41 > 0:37:46and they grew much later, so possibly it was ergonomically designed for small children.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48Oh, dear.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52'A middle-class woman's duty was to manage her staff,
0:37:52 > 0:37:57'but Jane Carlyle's management style was somewhat problematic.
0:37:57 > 0:38:02'In 32 years, she got through 34 maids.'
0:38:02 > 0:38:04She had, shall we say, an unfortunate manner.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07She was particularly hard on her servants.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11- She did have some genuine problems, though, didn't she?- She did.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14- Like the terrible drunken cook. - There was one servant, Helen.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18One night, the Carlyles came home and they couldn't open the front door.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20Finally, they pushed and pushed,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23and there as Helen lying dead drunk on the mat.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26Scottish Helen was causing the door to not open.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31And another time she go so aggressive and unpleasant they had to lock her in the kitchen.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35So, that relationship, as you can imagine, didn't last.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37I'm worried about all these women who got the sack.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39What do you think happened to them?
0:38:39 > 0:38:44Well, a few who were congenitally drunk probably had problems,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47but the power balance was pretty even.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50We think of it as being all in the employer's favour,
0:38:50 > 0:38:53but there was a huge pool of people wanting servants.
0:38:53 > 0:38:58I mean, Jane has problems precisely because they don't need her.
0:38:58 > 0:38:59She needs them.
0:38:59 > 0:39:04It wasn't quite this sort of top-down power thing we see it as.
0:39:04 > 0:39:06It wasn't all Upstairs Downstairs.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11'Servants were constantly commanded to "waste not want not".
0:39:11 > 0:39:17'One of the maid's many jobs was to do what we would now think of as the household rubbish and recycling.'
0:39:17 > 0:39:22So, Judith, I've got here a week of modern waste
0:39:22 > 0:39:26and I'm hoping you can tell me what a frugal Victorian housewife
0:39:26 > 0:39:28would do with all this stuff and not just put it
0:39:28 > 0:39:32straight into landfill, like so many people do today.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35I am, as you can imagine, really looking forward to this.
0:39:35 > 0:39:41What would Jane Carlyle have instructed drunken Annie to do with all of this lot, then?
0:39:41 > 0:39:45Well, jars we keep.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48We take them back to the greengrocer who refills them.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52Tinned food was certainly available.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55It started to arrive at the very beginning of the century.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58It was developed for soldiers, so they could actually get food
0:39:58 > 0:40:02to the front without it all being green by the time it got there.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05And am I right in thinking that the tins were then
0:40:05 > 0:40:08- sold to a scrap merchant afterwards and reused?- Absolutely.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12- Right, wet waste.- Oh, my God!
0:40:14 > 0:40:17Well, of course, most of this isn't waste, either.
0:40:17 > 0:40:19Oh! My goodness.
0:40:19 > 0:40:21What would Jane do with stinky old fish heads and bones?
0:40:21 > 0:40:27Well, as soon as the fish was eaten, that would get put back in the pot for soup.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29Oh, along with bones as well?
0:40:29 > 0:40:32No! What a disgraceful Victorian housewife you are.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34Immediately after the meat has been cut off,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37you take it and put it in the stock pot.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39That's soup. That's an awful lot of very good soup.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42And then when the bone is clean, do you sell it to the rag and bone man?
0:40:42 > 0:40:46If you have a dog, the dog gets it first,
0:40:46 > 0:40:49and after the dog's had a go at it,
0:40:49 > 0:40:51then it goes to the rag and bone man.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54And don't forget, you're not giving it to the rag and bone man.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57You're selling it. Because he's making a good living off this.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Now, what about vegetable peelings?
0:41:00 > 0:41:04Again, not waste - stock. After the stock,
0:41:04 > 0:41:08the cook tended to keep a bucket with unusable food scraps
0:41:08 > 0:41:10and it was called wash.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15And all of this went into the bucket,
0:41:15 > 0:41:20and the wash man would call and he too bought your food scraps.
0:41:20 > 0:41:24This was not something you paid to have taken away. And they went
0:41:24 > 0:41:27to feed pigs and, of course, that's where hog-wash comes from.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29- Pig food.- Pig food.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32Well, finally, we've got a very significant waste product
0:41:32 > 0:41:37in the Victorian house - dust and ashes from the fireplace.
0:41:37 > 0:41:42A huge amount of this was produced because the Carlyles burned a ton of coal a month.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46This was the one thing for which there was actually a waste collection.
0:41:46 > 0:41:51Dust, as this was called, was indeed collected by dustmen.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54- Ah! In a dustbin.- In a dustbin.
0:41:54 > 0:41:59But, again, a thrifty housewife would not say that that was waste
0:41:59 > 0:42:03because these cinders could be rescued
0:42:03 > 0:42:06and then they're used in the kitchen range. You re-burn them.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09- I see. Yeah.- So, the real thing to remember when you look at this -
0:42:09 > 0:42:14we always think about waste as stuff it's difficult to get rid of.
0:42:14 > 0:42:21A thrifty Victorian householder would look at this and think, "But this has value!"
0:42:21 > 0:42:25Any servant who threw this out would deserve to be sacked
0:42:25 > 0:42:29because she's getting rid of a huge amount of goods which have economic value.
0:42:29 > 0:42:31She is, in effect, stealing.
0:42:36 > 0:42:41'Victorian poor people had never experienced the luxury of a separate kitchen.
0:42:41 > 0:42:43'Their kitchens were still used for cooking,
0:42:43 > 0:42:47'eating and leisure, just like in the medieval peasant's cottage.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51'However, with gas lighting and the cast iron range,
0:42:51 > 0:42:53'new technology finally arrived here, too.
0:42:53 > 0:42:59'Domestic life for the upper and middle classes was about to change as well.
0:42:59 > 0:43:02'When millions of men left for the battlefields of France,
0:43:02 > 0:43:06'working women abandoned the kitchens of country estates
0:43:06 > 0:43:10'for the higher wages and improved conditions of wartime jobs.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14'Many of the servants never returned, and, after the war,
0:43:14 > 0:43:20'the middle and even upper classes suddenly found they had to fend for themselves in the kitchen.'
0:43:23 > 0:43:26'But in the early 20th century, a new wave
0:43:26 > 0:43:28'of labour-saving appliances appeared
0:43:28 > 0:43:34'and the majority of British homes now had a gas supply in their kitchens.
0:43:34 > 0:43:39'The earliest examples of gas cookers are now exhibits at the Science Museum.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42'They were marketed as wageless servants.'
0:43:42 > 0:43:45They must have appeared to be almost miraculous because
0:43:45 > 0:43:49you could cook without coal, without dirt, without dust.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52These gas cookers were invented in the 19th century,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54but by the 20s, they were really taking off.
0:43:54 > 0:43:59'The other big breakthrough in cookers was the invention of
0:43:59 > 0:44:01'the regulo, or thermostat device.'
0:44:01 > 0:44:03You could control the temperature of your oven.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06You could put things in and know exactly when they were going to be cooked.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10The advertising material for this model said that now,
0:44:10 > 0:44:15your wife or daughter could prepare your dinner with absolute precision.
0:44:15 > 0:44:21'By the 1930s, a third of Britain's homes had an electricity supply.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24'Electric cookers were invented at the end of the 19th century.
0:44:24 > 0:44:30'Immediately, a battle began between the gas and electricity companies
0:44:30 > 0:44:32'and it's been raging ever since.'
0:44:32 > 0:44:35Now, gas was originally in the lead,
0:44:35 > 0:44:40but it was reserved for people of a regular and quite a high income. Bills were presented quarterly.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43In the later 19th century, though, they begin to introduce
0:44:43 > 0:44:46the penny in the slot machine for poorer customers.
0:44:46 > 0:44:51And this is partly because of the challenge being presented by the new electricity companies.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55They were very keen on their product. This poster here says how great electricity is.
0:44:55 > 0:45:00It's safer than gas, simpler than gas, better than gas in every way!
0:45:00 > 0:45:02But electricity did have many disadvantages.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06It cost about ten times as much as it does today,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10and, until the National Grid was finished in 1933,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13the current was different in different towns or even homes,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15because all the suppliers couldn't agree.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20So this meant that the cooker companies were reluctant to invest in electrical cookers
0:45:20 > 0:45:25because each one had to be localised and personalised to the exact circumstances of the householder.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29These were part of the reasons that electricity lost the battle
0:45:29 > 0:45:33and gas became the supplier of choice to the nation's cooking hobs.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40'The electric fridge appeared in the early 1920s, but because electricity
0:45:40 > 0:45:44'was much more expensive than gas, it was a luxury item.'
0:45:44 > 0:45:48So this is the next step forward from the Victorian ice box.
0:45:48 > 0:45:51The refrigerator, all powered by electricity.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56This is a great big model from 1932, as the advertising poster up there tells us.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01"Size is so important for the housewife who owns a refrigerator."
0:46:01 > 0:46:05Big whoppers like this cost a lot of money - the equivalent to a whole month's salary.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08So they weren't common. Most people still had their fridge
0:46:08 > 0:46:13being a marble slab in the back of the larder, but if you knew someone who owned a fridge,
0:46:13 > 0:46:15they might invite you round for a special fridge party
0:46:15 > 0:46:19with all the different courses laid out on the different shelves.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24This is the General Electricity Refrigerator Cookbook of 1927.
0:46:24 > 0:46:26It's full of fridge recipes
0:46:26 > 0:46:29and here on this page there's a picture of people
0:46:29 > 0:46:31having a party in their evening dress,
0:46:31 > 0:46:33getting their cocktails out of the refrigerator.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35It shows it was a real special occasion.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41'Once more compact, modern appliances were available,
0:46:41 > 0:46:45'interior designers and furniture manufacturers
0:46:45 > 0:46:48'could completely re-assess how kitchen space was used.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51'This is the commodious cupboard.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55'A free standing multi-doored larder and scullery combined,
0:46:55 > 0:46:57'it became a British domestic standard.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01'In Germany, the innovative Frankfurt kitchen of the late 1920s
0:47:01 > 0:47:04'emerged as the prototype for all fitted kitchens,
0:47:04 > 0:47:09'but America would ultimately have the biggest influence on the British kitchen.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13'When rationing finally ended in 1954,
0:47:13 > 0:47:18'Britons embraced the kitchen style of their American wartime allies.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23'With its integrated functional use of space and its labour-saving devices,
0:47:23 > 0:47:25'it was marketed as the ultimate in modern.'
0:47:25 > 0:47:29ADVERT: In the kitchen, and that's where most women spend most of their time,
0:47:29 > 0:47:34we find labour-saving innovations like an oven at eye level. And about time too, eh, girls?
0:47:36 > 0:47:41And a double purpose stool, so that the housewife can sit down to do the ironing
0:47:41 > 0:47:44and with steps so that she can get to the high cupboards.
0:47:46 > 0:47:51'To experience the height of post-war kitchen gadgetry,
0:47:51 > 0:47:57'I've come to see the home of 1950s enthusiast Joanne Massey.'
0:47:57 > 0:48:00My goodness. Time warp.
0:48:00 > 0:48:02What a fabulous fitted kitchen.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06So, this was one of the very first designs you could get?
0:48:06 > 0:48:10- Yeah. It's an English Rose kitchen. - Made by the people who made Spitfires?
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Yes, apparently so. They're all made out of metal.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16You could literally get the cooker to match, the fridge to match, the boiler to match.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20Everything is integrated as kitchens are now, really.
0:48:20 > 0:48:26So it would be great to be able to display things and have, for example, your Kenwood Chef out.
0:48:26 > 0:48:31Here we have a very popular magazine of the time called Practical Householder.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33"Modernise your kitchen."
0:48:33 > 0:48:38That shows you basically how your kitchen would have been really during the 40s,
0:48:38 > 0:48:43and then you could turn it into this lovely, modern, fabulous kitchen.
0:48:43 > 0:48:48And this would show you how to make the cupboards and everything and you could even...
0:48:50 > 0:48:54- Build your own refrigerator! - How exciting is that?
0:48:54 > 0:48:56Oh, my goodness.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58Look at this.
0:49:00 > 0:49:02So, there you go.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04It's a true hostess trolley.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08So, you can pop all your dishes and stuff out of the oven.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10And you can go and serve them up.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13And wheel it into the dining room and serve everything.
0:49:13 > 0:49:17"Your dinner's coming, darling."
0:49:17 > 0:49:22'Whereas Victorian kitchens relied on the sweat and skill of the cook,
0:49:22 > 0:49:27'the '50s technology boom aimed to liberate housewives from kitchen drudgery.'
0:49:27 > 0:49:35So this is your ultimate 1950s gadget. The Kenwood mixer.
0:49:35 > 0:49:38I saw something like this in the Victorian kitchen.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42They did have a sort of mechanical mixer, but the great innovation is the electricity.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44It's a truly labour-saving device.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46Thank you.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50'The enormously popular Kenwood Chef promised to help the housewife
0:49:50 > 0:49:52'produce better meals and even tastier cakes'.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54Let's see how the Kenwood handles all that.
0:50:01 > 0:50:03Oops.
0:50:03 > 0:50:08'The mixer was invented in 1950 by Kenneth Maynard Wood,
0:50:08 > 0:50:10'an ex-RAF engineer.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14'And it was marketed with the slogan "Eye appeal is buy appeal."
0:50:14 > 0:50:17'By 1968, ten million had been sold.'
0:50:17 > 0:50:18There you go.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26Lucy, are you glad you wore your apron?
0:50:29 > 0:50:32How much mess can two people make?
0:50:32 > 0:50:37So, do you think that it's true that a 1950s housewife was a happy little home-maker?
0:50:37 > 0:50:40I think it was a liberating time for all of them because
0:50:40 > 0:50:43during the war, they did have a taste of life outside the home
0:50:43 > 0:50:46and had to go and work in the factories.
0:50:46 > 0:50:50That was the first taster for them of freedom from the kitchen sink,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53but then a lot of them did go back to that.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57I think it's quite ironic, really, that the war and the air force
0:50:57 > 0:51:01sort of gave us these labour-saving technologies
0:51:01 > 0:51:06and Britain's victory allowed women to go back into their twee little kitchens.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09OK. Let's get them into the oven.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16'Designers came up with a new labour-saving layout
0:51:16 > 0:51:20'of sink, cooker and fridge, known as the golden triangle.
0:51:20 > 0:51:25'It claimed to reduce the housewife's movements by 90%.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30'By the close of the 1950s, the modern kitchen we're all still so familiar with had arrived.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35'And even if the reality wasn't available to everyone, they could still dream.'
0:51:35 > 0:51:38- Shall we try them, then?- OK.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42Let's see how successful Mr Kenneth Wood was.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45Not bad!
0:51:45 > 0:51:48I have tasted better.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53If I were a genuine middle-class housewife, sitting here in 1959,
0:51:53 > 0:51:57I'd have reached the end of a decade of unprecedented prosperity.
0:51:57 > 0:51:59Wages nearly doubled.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02It was £6 a week, the average wage at the beginning.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05By the end of the decade, it was £11 a week.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09And tax had dropped, too. It had gone from nine shillings in the pound
0:52:09 > 0:52:12down to seven shillings in a pound, so there was more money in people's pockets.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15They were going out and buying fitted kitchens.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19As the prime minister said, Mr MacMillan, "Britons have never had it so good."
0:52:24 > 0:52:27'But not everybody had it so good.
0:52:27 > 0:52:32'By 1963, three million people were still living in terrible housing conditions.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36'When the Government embarked on its 1960s rebuilding programme,
0:52:36 > 0:52:41'its new blocks of flats did have modern, fitted kitchens.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45'Credit became more widely available when hire purchase laws were relaxed.
0:52:45 > 0:52:49'This allowed less well-off people to invest in new kitchen white goods.'
0:52:49 > 0:52:53Hire purchase is one of the greatest assets of the modern community.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58It enables us to fill our homes with beautiful things we could never otherwise afford.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01It raises our standard of living.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05'With new, clean and more spacious housing available,
0:53:05 > 0:53:09'the modern kitchen had finally arrived in working-class homes.
0:53:09 > 0:53:15'Meanwhile, the urban middle classes were buying and doing up dilapidated 19th-century houses.'
0:53:15 > 0:53:18The squares particularly took the middle-class fancy.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21Paddy Godfrey, an actor, is one of the newcomers.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24There's something splendid about these houses.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26They're so beautiful when you get down to the basics.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30When you get down to the basic material, and you see the Georgian details.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32And having uncovered the mouldings,
0:53:32 > 0:53:37one has got a bug about uncovering everything.
0:53:37 > 0:53:39All over the country in the 1960s,
0:53:39 > 0:53:44young couples were ripping up their Victorian kitchen basements.
0:53:44 > 0:53:45They were taking out ranges,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49knocking down walls and creating open-plan kitchen-diners.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52They were reclaiming this part of the house as a social space.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54A place for family, not for servants.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57They were pioneers in the 1960s, but they were creating a way of
0:53:57 > 0:54:01using houses which many, many people aspire to today.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04'Having spent all their money creating open-plan kitchens,
0:54:04 > 0:54:07'hunting for cheap antique Victoriana became chic
0:54:07 > 0:54:11'among young middle-class people.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15'Terence Conran led this new style in home decor
0:54:15 > 0:54:17'and along with open-plan kitchens,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21'he introduced Victorian-style reproduction crockery
0:54:21 > 0:54:24'and cheap pine tables to the country, through Habitat.'
0:54:24 > 0:54:29I've always been fascinated by the below the stairs objects
0:54:29 > 0:54:35of the Victorian era which were made as very useful, simple objects.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38The design of them probably really wasn't considered as such.
0:54:38 > 0:54:40They just had to do their job,
0:54:40 > 0:54:44and I found these objects very satisfying and very beautiful.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47They have certainly influenced my taste.
0:54:47 > 0:54:52'Patricia Whittington-Farrell was such an avid fan of Habitat
0:54:52 > 0:54:56'that she ended up working there in the early 1970s.'
0:54:56 > 0:55:02I loved shopping in here. I never had the money, but I loved looking round and getting ideas.
0:55:02 > 0:55:07So, you were pressing your nose up to the window thinking, "This is great," even before you worked there?
0:55:07 > 0:55:11Oh, absolutely. I was obsessed, I think.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13It was my new world.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16I think all my friends were, too. Everybody was.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19This is how we want to live, this is the new us,
0:55:19 > 0:55:23young mothers, young babies, you know, bit of money in our pockets.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25There wasn't credit then, of course. We had cash.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29There was an awful lot of entertaining at home
0:55:29 > 0:55:31and, because of the new properties we had,
0:55:31 > 0:55:34I had a kitchen with a shelf unit up the middle
0:55:34 > 0:55:37with all my beautiful things on, and a dining room the other end.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42So people could actually see you cooking, and we'd sit and have five-course meals and foreign meals.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46Spaghetti bolognaise and all sorts of interesting things.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51There was a funny story - a lady came in and she bought a spaghetti jar.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54She brought it back and it was in pieces in the bag,
0:55:54 > 0:55:57so we called the manager because any complaints we had to report,
0:55:57 > 0:55:59and he said, "Well, what's the problem?"
0:55:59 > 0:56:02So she said, "Well, when I put it on the cooker, it broke."
0:56:02 > 0:56:05So, he said, "Well, why did you put it on the cooker?"
0:56:05 > 0:56:08She said, "It wouldn't fit in the oven."
0:56:10 > 0:56:15'Open-plan kitchens went mainstream in the 1980s, helped by the extractor fan.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20'The kitchen became the place to eat and socialise.'
0:56:20 > 0:56:22How about this for design technology?
0:56:22 > 0:56:25In the future, if you want a new kitchen designing,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28you simply take in the measurements to a design shop
0:56:28 > 0:56:31and here in front of your very eyes, they can design it on a computer.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35The foodie revolution followed. Foodies were intensely interested
0:56:35 > 0:56:40in the quality of their food and treated cooking as a performance.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43The kitchen had now become somewhere to entertain guests
0:56:43 > 0:56:46and demonstrate your culinary skills.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54By the early 1990s, over £1 billion was being spent on kitchens in the UK every year.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58It's now the room we spend the most money on in the home.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01The expensive fitted kitchen is a status symbol.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04Packed with gadgetry, it's really something to show off about.
0:57:04 > 0:57:10This is about total control, wealth, power and technology.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13Where you've got your voom-voom technology in your car,
0:57:13 > 0:57:16why not reapply it to your kitchen?
0:57:16 > 0:57:20In one sort of technological space, you can have
0:57:20 > 0:57:27a sort of Aga-bound country kitchen with sort of accessory dog.
0:57:27 > 0:57:32And n another, you can have this rather more obvious expression
0:57:32 > 0:57:34of shiny imperviousness.
0:57:34 > 0:57:39Where this is the dream of modernity, as seen from the 1970s, almost. If you projected..
0:57:39 > 0:57:43If you'd done Tomorrow's World in the 1970s,
0:57:43 > 0:57:48What Would Kitchens Be Like?, well, they would be quite like this.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50'In the story of the kitchen,
0:57:50 > 0:57:55- 'technology eventually triumphs over back-breaking labour.' - Smells great!
0:57:55 > 0:57:59'Once it was the only room in the house, then it was an out-building,
0:57:59 > 0:58:03'now it's a high-tech space that many aspire to.'
0:58:03 > 0:58:07It was amazing discoveries and inventions like electricity,
0:58:07 > 0:58:10the thermostat, the gas cooker,
0:58:10 > 0:58:14which allowed the kitchen to become the focus of family life once again.
0:58:14 > 0:58:15So, after 700 years
0:58:15 > 0:58:19and now without the back-breaking labour and the smell,
0:58:19 > 0:58:23the kitchen has retaken its rightful place at the heart of the home.
0:58:32 > 0:58:36Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:36 > 0:58:39E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk