Where Did The Victorians Store Their Food?

Question

Where Did The Victorians Store Their Food?

3 Answers

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Answer 1

The Victorians stored most of their food in a pantry or larder.

How Did The Victorians Store Their Food?

Pantries and larders were cool stone rooms, usually located just off of the kitchen. Bread, pies, eggs, and anything else that didn’t really need refrigerating would be kept here.
Some of the richer households would also have ice rooms or iceboxes. Ice was cut from a nearby lake, and stored in stone or steel so that it would last longer before melting. This didn’t freeze the food, but it did keep it cool – the Victorians kept their meat here.
Storing food for long periods of time wasn’t really necessary: Most people would buy their meat, fish and milk on the day that they planned on using it.
Tinned meat was available from the 1860s onwards. This would have been kept in the pantry.
Jars of pickled and salted food would be kept in the pantry or cellar, depending on the size of the house.
The poor people were really poor in Victorian times. Entire families would often live in one tiny, dirty room - they didn’t even have a separate kitchen or bedroom.

Answer 2

Victorians stored their food in a larder or cellar.
They sometimes had a ice house where ice was cut from a lake and stored in the building.
They also covered food with sand and stored underground.
They had stone jars and would salt food.

As a child, I can remember having a huge block of salt which we had to break up with a knife. We'd then slice green beans and store them in jars between layers of salt to preserve them.

Answer 3

Food storage in the old days is truly "medieval"! But they had the right idea there! They realised somehow that areas that are colder or retain cold longer would help food to keep longer. And somebody had to be the first to figure out how to cure meat with salt and sugar right?