Flavourless Food: A Frenchman’s View of Victorian Britain (Snippet:3)

In a series of visits to Britain between 1862 and 1870, outspoken Frenchman Hippolyte Taine wrote lengthily about his impressions, and his comments-at-a-distance give us a clear and fascinating view of our ancestors in a way that no other source quite achieves.   

Like other continental visitors to these shores, Taine was disappointed with our ancestors’ cuisine, ‘it is devoid of savour… Huge helpings of greasy meat and vegetable without sauce; one is amply and wholesomely fed, but one can take no pleasure in eating (48).’

Taine also noted that the British seemed to eat larger portions and drink far more alcohol than their French equivalents. ‘these people need stimulants… An English workman is an engine whose furnace needs constant stoking with meat and spirits to keep the boiler going.’ (49)  

Quotations are from: Notes on England by Hippolyte Taine, translated and with an introduction by Edward Hyams, London, Thames and Hudson, 1957 [Translated from the French Notes Sur L’Angleterre 1860-1870]