Simple day, simple food

urrirru in Reflections • 14 days ago

I love reading about the life of people in the 19th century. This morning I was reading articles about the street food of London in the early 1800s. For very little money, you could buy hot food from street vendors. For example, a large hot baked potato ( 300 grams) with butter and salt cost only 1/2 a penny. Many working people first warmed their hands (with gloves) with it and then ate the potato and warmed themselves inside.

In this painting, “All Hot,” by Samuel Stanesby from 1804, we see a baked potato vendor.

And this is a drawing of a baked potato seller, 1851.

"The Baked Potato Man" by H.G. Hine and W.G. Mason, from Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor" v.1. Caption reads: "Baked 'taturs! All 'ot, all 'ot!" From a daguerreotype by Beard. 1851.

You can read more about 200-year-old fast food in this article https://vichist.blogspot.com/2010/04/fast-food-generation.html

For example, a pint of hot pea soup cost half a penny. In 1850, you could buy a portion of hot eels (5-7 pieces) in broth for half a penny. This food was available even to the poorest classes. Half a mug of coffee, tea or cocoa cost the same halfpenny in the 1850s, in my opinion this is inexpensive compared to modern prices for coffee :)
But overnight stays were expensive: to spend the night in a doss house in London in the first half of the 19th century, you had to have as much as 4 pennies with you, and this was the lowest price.

And now I want some hot potatoes. I'm alone in the house now and I decided to go to my garden for vegetables. In the morning I walked several thousand steps to the garden and back, a pleasant walk in the fresh air.

I picked out a large potato and weighed it. 300 grams, not bad, I thought.

I weighed 3 onions from my garden. 230 grams, excellent.

I took 7 pieces of delicious tomatoes and put them on the scales. 323 grams

I added 3 tablespoons of sour cream (100 grams) to the tomatoes.

I boiled potatoes with onions. And figured that my portion for lunch would be 900 grams. Okay, I like to eat well.

I sprinkled some salt on the boiled potatoes and onions and voila, my simple lunch was ready.

I didn't buy any groceries today. Probably spent 20 cents on sour cream and 1-2 cents on gas, salt and water. But if I had gone to the store today for groceries I would have spent $10. Now I'm sitting here full and happy, writing this post. And I also managed to buy ETH for 2400 usdt this morning at a price of $4420, which also gives me positive vibes. For this post I will get some HIVE and my HP will be even bigger, HBD stack too. It's not life but a dream :)

I love these simple days. The food is healthy, the expenses are minimal, my income far exceeds my expenses on these days. There is plenty of time for reflection and for Hive.

I also found one person on Hive yesterday to talk to. That's good too. People need communication, especially on topics that interest them in this life.

It's 5 p.m. for me, I need to call my wife and find out how the kids are doing, I'll be visiting them in the capital in a few days. But for now I'm alone, alone with my thoughts, alone with my garden, alone on a sandy road near the forest, in a hat under the bright sun and a small bag in my hand.

#food #alive

14 days ago in Reflections by urrirru

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hivecurious 14 days ago

!ALIVE
!BBH
!INDEED 👍

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emeka4 14 days ago

The food really look healthy and less costly to make as a meal.

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urrirru 14 days ago

Why shouldn't it look healthy? I didn't use a drop of chemicals to grow it :)

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beelzael 12 days ago

What was a common daily wage for a industry worker or something like that back in those days? That comparison is always the interesting one. How many hit potatoes can I eat from my salary?

I love living in Ecuador for the cheap and good veggies. Plenty of options, some organically grown on purpose and more expensive, but most in little backyard gardens, without any money to buy chemicals, just compost and Chili based insecticide and other traditional garden helpers. All that sold on Sunday on the indigenous market. Amongst the "regular" veggies, but it's fairly easy to spot what's what. I spent 80$ a month on food, 100$ if I eat out a couple of times.

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urrirru 12 days ago

In 1850, the average worker received 20 shillings a week or 240 pennies. Women received half as much. A worker received 960 pennies a month and could buy 1,920 baked potatoes on the street, 250-300 grams each, with his salary. I think raw potatoes were 3 times cheaper and a worker could buy 1,900 kilograms of potatoes. This is quite a lot, now in my country 1 kg of potatoes costs 0.5 - 0.7 $, but the salary in the province is about 400-500 $. Although a worker could buy more potatoes at that time, their housing was very expensive and many lived in cramped houses, clothes were also more expensive.

You have very low food expenses and quality vegetables. My own vegetables are enough for only half a year and I buy vegetables in the supermarket (of course they are worse than vegetables from my garden). For a family of 4, I try not to buy food daily for more than $ 10, but it is difficult. I spend $ 300-400 on food in the fall and spring, when I am in a big city.

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beelzael 12 days ago

Potatoes are cheap and good here, too. Last year, we had a scarcity, leading to prices around 30-35$ for 50kg bags of the big potatoes, the ones used for fries. Like that 300g beast you have in the picture. So everyone planted potatoes, and as a consequence, those same bags were around 8$. But not organic at all.

I accidentally grew a couple of potatoes with my tomatoes in the pots on the balcony... They had apparently fallen into the dirt I was using :-D I hope the compost has enough nutrients for both plants.

The official salary here is $470 plus benefits (social security & health insurance), but most workers are unofficial and make less. I know of some "better" restaurants paying their workers $1,25-1,50 per hour while charging high food prices. It's a small town, and in the rural areas it's worse. Still, they can make a lot of potatoes with that.

The idea of baked potatoes as street food is great, too. Here, everything is deep fried or super sweet or typical stuff like hot dogs and burgers. There is one exception - Cevichocho, a mix of Lupin Beans, tomato sauce, onions, cilantro. Plus tostado, roasted corn, and for those who like it a touch of chicken or pig skin. I love that (without the animal), and was a very regular customer when I still went to the market each day for the restaurant. Costs $0,50 for a little bag that doesn't fill you, but let's you hang in until the next wave of customers passed.

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