Dining with our Ancestors

#4 - The Chimney Sweep Diet of Soot and Suffering


Listen Later

Hello and welcome to episode 4 of Dining with our ancestors, exploring what those who passed their genes to us ate, and the constraints on them, in an attempt to better understand ourselves. 

Today, a Victorian mother must sell her son into the chimney sweep trade to ensure the family has enough food to get through the winter.


You can expect to learn:

  • What a typical chimney sweep ate, how long a work day was and was his lunchbreak allocated?
  • What were more broadly Victorian pay and conditions like, how did this contribute to the wider industrial revolution? 
  • What would a typical Victorian family eat daily, how was this prepared in the same terraced houses that litter the UK today - but without modern technological proficiencies?
  • How did the practice of Chimney sweeping become eradicated, and what impact did literature and poetry have? 


Does Mrs. Jones' sale of her son actually deliver the hope of a better future?

Or does it only condemn to further misery and suffering...


If you enjoyed, please follow the podcast so you don't miss the next episode, released every other Sunday @ 5pm GMT.


Get in touch, I'd love to hear from you:

www.twitter.com/willfaconnelly


I featured on a Philosophy podcast:

https://youtu.be/OYkuW4xTZ8s


My fashion project:

www.instagram.com/burnt.berries



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Dining with our AncestorsBy William Connelly