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Back in time for ... Edwardian gluttony
Lamb chops for breakfast, calves’ brains for supper – the Robshaw family were in for a few surprises when they went back to the 1900s for a new series of Back In Time For Dinner
One of the unwritten rules of modern TV programming is that the people we’re watching have to have been on some sort of ‘journey’. How many have travelled this far though? ‘When you think about it, we’re probably the only family in Britain who’s lived through every single year of the entire century,’ says Brandon Robshaw with a little laugh.
He’s sort of right. You may remember the Robshaws from two years ago, as they were the British family selected to take part in a novel TV experiment called Back In Time For Dinner. The show, which involved them ‘living’ in each decade of the last century from the 1950s onwards, was a triumph. Ostensibly it was food-based but actually it was as much about lifestyle, as it saw the family of five – Brandon, his wife Rochelle and their children Miranda, 19, Rosalind, 17, and Fred, 12 – living as they would have done in each decade. That meant eating liver and dried egg in the rationed 1950s, adjust ing to their first fitted kitchen in the 6 0 s , b ei ng introduced to hummus in the 70s and fast food in the 80s and eventually coming back to a world of bagged salads and gastropubs in the 90s, all the while dressed appropriately for the era.
The show spawned several spinoffs using other families such as Back In Time For The Weekend, which looked at leisure pursuits through the decades, but now the Robshaws are back. Further Back In Time For Dinner takes them right back to the 1900s – a world of corsets and calves’ brains – and runs up to 1949, where the first series began. Effectively, this means the Robshaws will have eaten their way through every decade of the last century. Brandon is obviously tickled by the idea, and points out that his children have had a history lesson like no other. ‘And this time round, because we went so far back into history, they really were learning so much.’
Giles Coren, one of the show’s presenters, admits that there were reservations about going so far back in time. ‘One of the popular things about the first series was the recognition factor. You had people thinking, “Ooh, I remember SodaStreams in the 70s,”’ he admits. ‘You obviously aren’t going to get that with this series, so it’s a very different show, but at the same time it’s fascinating.’
Indeed it is. The show was filmed over 12 weeks last summer and the family were largely parted from their mobile phones, computers and modern trappings. Between each eightday filming block they were allowed a few days ‘break’ to return to normal life. ‘Normally that would mean coming home to 500 emails, so it did take a bit of adjusting to,’ admits Brandon. So how alien was life for the family this time around? ‘Completely,’ says Rochelle. ‘Going back to the Edwardian era felt very foreign indeed.’ Their kitchen didn’t seem entirely from a time-warp (‘nowadays you’d call it a Shaker kitchen and it would look quite trendily rustic,’ says Giles Coren), but the fact that the family were rarely expected to be in the kitchen did come as rather a shock.
Because they were replicating how people of their class – the uber-aspirational lower middle class – would live, their new life came complete with a live-in maid, the ever-willing Debbie (who in real life has just graduated from catering college). ‘Debbie did all the cooking and cleaning and the chores,’ reveals Rochelle, who suddenly found herself a lady of leisure. Every woman’s dream? Not necessarily. ‘It was the oddest feeling. My role was more managing the household than actually doing any of the hard work. I found that difficult to adapt to. I’d feel guilty watching Debbie do everything, but that’s the way it was. Everyone in that bracket had servants – not just the rich. It was very Downton Abbey, albeit scaled down.’
The family quickly discovered it was just as well they had the industrious Debbie on board because their own daily routines didn’t allow a lot of time for slaving in the kitchen. Getting dressed, they quickly discovered, was a job in itself. ‘The clothes were a big part of it,’ admits Rochelle. ‘Everything was buttoned up in that society – and the clothes reflected that. The biggest challenge was remembering what order everything came in – for me and the girls it was camisole, then corset, long stockings, petticoat and dress. When we went out we had to have hats and gloves, which the girls were forever losing!’ The menfolk didn’t have it easy either. Brandon talks of endless collar studs, tie pins, braces and cufflinks. ‘You did feel as if you were wearing a suit of armour,’ he admits.
What of the food – the pro- gramme’s raison d’être? Well, the episodes cover one of the most interesting periods in British culinary history. The start of the century is a time of sheer gluttony. Preparation techniques might be tortuous compared to today but provisions were plentiful and a middle-class family would have spent a third of their earnings on food. Records from the time showed that a family like the Robshaws would have got through 24 loaves of bread a week. Lavish eight-course dinner parties, showing off the family’s wealth and position in society, were commonplace.
Breakfast kicks off with lamb chops while a typical midweek din-
‘The amount of meat they ate then was astonishing’
ner starts with mock turtle soup (made from a calf’s head), followed by ragout of grouse, then devilled kidneys and finally ‘Marlow’ pudding, made with beef suet. ‘The amount of meat they ate was astonishing,’ says Brandon. ‘It’s no wonder there was a problem with obesity. Everything was just so heavy.’ There are other oddities too. Poor Fred gets banished to the kitchen for the main meals – Edwardian sensibilities meant that children were not allowed to eat with the adults, and in reality spent more time with the staff. Their teeth were not deemed ready for ‘grown- up’ food either, so this bemused 12-year- old finds himself eating puréed food and is presented with porridge while the rest have their morning lamb chops.
Entertaining was a huge part of family life as the century progressed. The 1920 s saw the Robshaws throw a Blooms bury-style dinner party for the literary set – and experience a ‘loosening up’ of standards. ‘The 20s were great fun,’ says Brandon. ‘The girls’ skirts got a little shorter and dinner parties would include dancing to jazz music.’
The surprise of the whole series, though, came with the arrival of the 1930s. Both Brandon and Rochelle were surprised to enjoy this decade so much. ‘I always thought of the 30s as being the era of the Depression, of dole queues and misery,’ says Rochelle. ‘ For a family like ours though – one that hadn’t been affected by unemployment – it wasn’t like that at all. In fact it was quite a prosperous
‘It was very Downton Abbey, albeit scaled down’
time, and there were so many advances being made, not just in food – fine dining was just coming in – but in living standards and female emancipation too. Great strides were being made, but the war put a stop to all that progress.’ The national mood after the outbreak of war in 1939 was reflected on the table. ‘The change was striking in the 40s,’ says Rochelle. ‘What I found quite moving was how people attempted to replicate what they’d known. There was a shortage of eggs but people still wanted to have them on their toast – even if they were powdered eggs. And they’d make lollipops, but out of carrots with sticks in them.’ The family gamely tried all the unfamiliar food they were faced with over the course of the programme – save for one dish. Rochelle couldn’t stomach the calves’ brains that were considered a luxury in the 1900s. ‘Surprisingly the kids gave it a go, but I couldn’t,’ she says. ‘I told myself that this was an educational show, not I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, so I wasn’t going to go down that road!’ Having lived through every decade of the last century then, to which era would the family most like to be transported? The answer is surprising, even to them. ‘I never thought I’d feel this, but probably the 30s – if we were one of the lucky families not touched by the Depression,’ says Rochelle. ‘There was something quite charming about that time, so if we could be in that safe bubble, then the 1930s. What’s fascinating though is that it was a time of such optimism – when we know now that war was just around the corner.’
The original series of Back In Time
For Dinner was hailed as a perfect example of ‘intelligent’ entertainment, and tricky the balancenew one of also being achieves educationalthat but never stuffy. Giles Coren thinks it’s a programme only the BBC could make. ‘If it was on ITV there would have to be some competitive element, like the family being voted out,’ he jokes. ‘And if it was Channel 4 they’d probably get TB and diphtheria.’ It’s a return to familiar form for Giles, who started his own TV journey firmly as a food presenter, mostly as the sidekick to his friend Sue Perkins in the Supersize Me series. His last big TV venture took him into the more sparkly world of game shows , however, when he hosted the rather disastrous 500 Questions last year. Despite lavish budgets and much hype, the show failed to capture public attention Needless andto say had it ratherdied a grim rather reviews.quick death. ‘It’s one of those things in television that you just can’t tell what’s going to be a hit and what isn’t,’ Giles points out gamely, admitting that even the most experienced TV presenters never really know whether they’re signing up to a super-soaraway success or a dud. He tells a hilarious story of Sue Perkins once confiding that she felt she’d attached herself to a telly turkey. ‘She said she was filming this baking show and it may be really s*** and no one was going to watch it,’ he says. That show, of course, was The Great British Bake Off. What of the future fortunes of Back In Time For Dinner then? Alas, it’s unlikely to run and run unless the Robshaws are up for a jaunt back to the 18th and 19th centuries, which might be tricky as their eldest daughter is off to university. ‘But it’s an experience we wouldn’t have missed for anything,’ says Brandon. ‘There’s no better way to learn about history than to live it, even if you’re only play-acting.’