Victorian Farm; BBC TV

rosieben

there was a voucher code for free delivery too - see post #125 earlier in this thread

Caterina

DD and I watched every episode and found that some of the comments about animals were more upsetting than knowing that the animals were going to be eaten (for example at the feast when one of the men is eating the pig's eyeball and he said laughing: "this is an eye that has been looking at me" - or something like that).

Both DD and I are vegetarian (well I eat a little fish so not truly 100% veggie) and we both commented that we could never live on a farm with livestock because we could not cope with the animals being sent to be killed.

Like MrsTittlemouse I have had some childhood time in a farm (my granny's) where I saw so much animal slaughter - this was rural Sardinia in the 60's, no abattoirs for our free range animals, they just got the knife being strapped by their feet in the farmyard! This turned me into a 100% vegetarian very early on and it took my mother a lot of hard work and deceit to make me eat meat (disguised). The moment I had a kitchen of my own I stopped eating meat altogether.

I understand the need to have livestock in a Victorian farm but making jokey comments (especially on air!) is disrespectful to the animals who gave their lives - albeit unwillingly! - for the sustenance of these people.

Raksha

On the contrary, to eat an animal you've raised and ensuring as much of it is used as possible is, I believe, showing it every respect. To make a joke of it because you are actually feeling a bit uncomfortable yourself, is human.

Penelope_Penguin

Acton Scott farm opens this Tuesday. We're off to visit with my sisters and their families that day :j

Penny. x

tru

PenPen, make some room in yer inbox, will ya?

blueberrypie

phizzimum wrote: »

I;m glad they weren't too squeamish to deal with the issue of sanitary protection. It's something I've often wondered about - but most history books would never dream of dealing with the subject. I'm glad that social history is now being addressed. we learn so much more about the past (and therefore about ourselves) from the small everyday details of life than about which king won what battle.

I never enjoyed History in school, but I'm fascinated by so much of it now, and I think it's because what interests me is not the politics, the royal families etc, but the day-to-day living.

Re sanitary protection: women made their own from cloth - sometimes rags of old clothes - up until relatively recently, and indeed many women still do use cloth sanitary pads. They are cheaper, more environmentally friendly and *far more comfortable* than the disposable kind. They aren't difficult to wash either - a cold soak followed by a warm wash gets them clean.

We should remember too that women didn't have as many periods over the course of their lives as they do now. As others have already mentioned, larger families were more common (although working-class families did not usually have more than five or six children - the very large families that we hear about were actually very unusual - mostly only in very upper-class families where it was considered important to maintain the blood-lines). And almost all babies were breastfed, and for far longer than is the norm today, and between that and the mothers being less well-nourished than women today, it would have been very common for women to only resume menstruating perhaps two to three years after the birth of a child - which, with the pregnancy, means no menstruation for maybe three or four years.

phizzimum

good point blueberrypie- (and thanks for resurrecting this thread)

I hadn't thought about women menstruating less - breastfeeding made no impact on my periods, but as you said, women were generally less well fed than today.

mardatha

I think all of the things in this programme/book are worth knowing, the way things are going today we might need them.

jcr16

i've been watching the series victorian farm (on last night ) i love it. last night they made a pie for the may day celebration's. it has potatoes, onion and bacon, poss other items. and the pastry was made with suet and the liquid was hot. the farmers wife said pies used to have to have pastry which stood up own.

the pie looked fab but i can't remeber the name it was something like figgle or similar.

does anyone have an idea or recipe please ?

helyg

Sounds like it might have been a Fidget Pie? If you google it you should come up with lots of recipes.