In a continuation of the previous post – now for today’s Victorian Housewife News and Activities. Like last time, I am again making bread (or rather being forced to). It’s Vienna bread this time and I have to say today it has been a whole lot less sticky then my prior bread. I haven’t put it in the oven yet, but I’m excited. The milk bread from yesterday has been very tasty as well (even if it didn’t rise as much as I had hoped for) so I have to say, I’m learning a lot so far this month and my Mistress is turning me into a good housewife clearly.

While browsing through old internet archives for bread recipes originating during the reign of Queen Victoria I had also found some recipes of pigeon which I had jokingly told my Mistress. With how it reminded me of one of the villains in a Zorro movie, so guess what I’m making tomorrow.. right pigeon, definitely a first for me but somehow it is a staple of Victorian era cookbooks.

I have been doing my reading again as well today with the study material today “The Reason Why, Intelligible Reasons for the Various Duties Which a Housewife has to Perform, Domestic Science”. A free book from the Internet Archive for those interested, and whilst it does have a bizarre title there is plenty of outdated, but probably for the time quite decent advice in there about cooking mainly, such as the benefits of a mixed diet and tea. I feel that writing this blog not only exposes how I enjoy being trained by my Mistress in domestic servitude but that I am a massive history nerd too.

Anyway, my quest in digging through old books and magazines was to find something a good homemaker would do during Christmas (a task that was set for me to keep my occupied). And while it took a bit of browsing, finally in the “Woman’s Home Companion” (the December edition from 1900) I found a good bit on making homemade Christmas cards, so that has been added to my list of activities for tomorrow. Whilst this undoubtedly will be bringing me quite the hardship as someone who is not as creatively inclined, I did feel like it was better than what I found on the next page under “Christmas Carpentry, Small Pieces of Furniture Which Make Acceptable Gifts”. It is clear that the marketing standards of today are not what they used to be!