Night Thoughts While Baking Oatcakes

Source: Jan de Vries lecture, 2/13/2008

Here we have a graph covering the period from the War of the Pragmatic Sanction to World War I, showing for six global cities the male day-laborer wage divided by the cost of 2000 cheap calories--rice in China, polenta in Milan, rye in Leipzig, and oats in Amsterdam and London. It suggests that in 1740 day laborers in Leipzig, Beijing, Suzhou, and Milan could barely keep body and soul together--if their work was not too strenuous, and if they did not have too many non-working dependents.

By contrast, male day laborers in London and Amsterdam appear to be living the life of Riley: only a quarter of their wages needed to be set aside for the basic caloric requirements, leaving the rest for dietary variety and fortification, clothing, shelter, dependents, entertainment, and so forth.

But this is if people in London ate oats. And people in London did not eat oats. Oats were for Scotsmen--and horses. Englishmen ate wheat bread. And calories from wheat-based bread were two to three times the cost of calories from oats.

So were workers in London in 1740 as miserably poor as workers in Milan, Leipzig, and Beijing, spending most if not all on their income on bare caloric maintenance in the form of the grain typical of their time and place? Or were the workers of London relatively rich--and deciding to spend their relative wealth on the superior taste and mouth feel of yeasty wheat bread rather than leaden oatcakes and on the associated symbolic declaration that they were proud and free Englishmen, not benighted barbarous Scots (or horses)?

Comments

[shah8]

One of the features of living/observing life and reading books by Pollan and Pomeranz is realizing just how hard it is to get people to eat sensibly.

People want to eat what they want to eat. Exactly that. As with little children, who are merely like little people so much of the time, people will not eat food that is strange to them, and they will not eat food that is not *descriptive* of them in some way.

Me?

I'll eat anything. Well, maybe not that japanese fermented soy...and maybe not brussel sprouts, and maybe not...

[David Moles]

Or was the price of oats low in London because oats weren't in demand as people food?

[contactlenzen]

The feature of observing life is indeed by reading books by Pollan. I don't think its hard to get people sensibly.

[John Tofflemire]

What is more interesting about this chart is what is says about the relative economic opportunities is each of these places. Day laborers may also be migrants, attracted to a location because of economic opportunities, so, in that sense, this chart may be a proxy for relative economic prosperity in each place. That London and Amsterdam are at the top of the heap in 1738 is not surprising given that northern Europe had by that time surpassed Italy as Europe's economic center.

What is surprising is that Milan is so low in the table, in fact, comparable to China. On the other hand, China's decline as a global power began, roughly, around 1500 which does also, roughly, match Italy's decline (at least measured by De Gama's 1497-1499 voyage to India which altered the balance of economic power from Italy to northern Europe). Perhaps it is a measure of how far both declined in that interval.

What is also interesting is how Amsterdam slips and Leipzig rises to roughly the same level during the post industrial but pre-telecommunication era of the early 19th century. London (and the UK) clearly rise to the top of the economic heap in that era. However, these three European cities all rise as the post-1850 industrial surge leads to massive urban growth in northern Europe. Milan (and presumably a now largely rural Italy) are largely left out of this prosperity.

A fascinating post and chart. Thanks.

[mistah charley, ph.d.]

Orwell (writing in the 1930s) asserted that if British workers were able to (willing to)live on rice and onions that British wages would have fallen even lower.

[chiasmus]

E.P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century" (Past and Present 50, February 1971):

"By the end of the century feelings of status were profoundly involved wherever wheaten bread prevailed, and was threatened by a coarser mixture. There is a suggestion that labourers accustomed to wheaten bread actually could not work--suffered from weakness, indigestion, or nausea--if forced to change to rougher mixtures. Even in the face of the outrageous prices of 1795 and 1800-1, the resistance of many of the working people was impermeable."

[Denis Drew]

I can't argue with E.P. Thompson, but, I would have guessed a high-low mix: enough wheat bread to satisfy some urgings of the pallet, enough oat cakes to save for other fun -- diminishing returns at work.

The tragedy is that with the onset of industrialization and much higher worker productivity, the checks and balances of the labor market went out the window in ownership's favor and formerly decently paid Londoner workers were reduced to oat cakes three times a day.

[hmd]

Or perhaps the appropriate comparison is not rice, but millet or something?

I don't really know, but I'm suspicious about the distinctions here.

[Doctor Jay]

Sure you'd eat wheat bread, but what about your morning porridge, you know, the kind Oliver Twist wanted more of? And if "feelings of status were profoundly involved" might not folks get the oats in secret? Maybe the worker had found a good bargaining position: "we will get sick on oats". I think people will become very pragmatic while starving, while remaining unreasonable in discourse with others.

[Bloix]

The bread throughout the land is made of such grain as the soil yieldeth; nevertheless the gentility commonly provide themselves sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, whilst their household and poor neighbours in some shires are forced to content themselves with rye, or barley, yea, and in time of dearth, many with bread made either of beans, peas, or oats, or of altogether and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better… For, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continueth in each town and market without any just cause (except it be that landlords do get licences to carry corn out of the land only to keep up the prices for their own private gains and ruin of the commonwealth), that the artificer and poor labouring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven to content himself with horse corn — I mean beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils: and therefore it is a true proverb, and never so well verified as now, that “Hunger setteth his first foot into the horse-manger.”

Harrison, William. A Description of Elizabethan England. Vol. XXXV, Part 3. [1577]
The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/35/3/.

[jerry]

Eating? I thought most of the populations were:
a) drinking the rice (sake)
b) drinking the rye (whiskey)
c) drinking the oats (stout)
d) drinking the grapes and using the polenta as cat litter.

[Ken]

This debate continues today. It is relatively easy to create a tasty, nutritious, balanced (lots of fruits and veggies) menu for the cost of food stamps. I know, because I have done it. But there are those who continue to insist that people in this country remain underfed, or that obesity is a problem of inability to buy the right foods, because people prefer to eat out, or to buy packaged foods, or whatever.

[Ben Hyde]

Framing the choice of which standard, oats v.s. wheat, dominates as a matter of personal preference sort of narrows down the search don't you think?

[Martin]

So, does the fact that you are cooking oatcakes mean that you think that a recession is, indeed, imminent?

[Nordic Mousse]

jerry is onto something. except he missed out hop-based um... nourishment... which is what Brits are said to prefer

[Martin]

So, does the fact that you are cooking oatcakes mean that you think that a recession is, indeed, imminent?

[Maynard Handley]

I personally find it amazing that people looking at this graph immediately jump to Marx. IMHO the graph screams Malthus.

And, to beat my standard drum, this is, of course, why we're all doomed. Even as the Titanic heads for the icebergs, the bulk of the population is fighting over who gets the best cabins rather than thinking about the interaction of the ship with the natural world around it.

[anon]

I don't think rice would be the staple in Beijing in 1740. The poor in Beijing probably ate a combination of sorghum, millet, and wheat flour, supplemented with soy protein and some new world crops such as corn and sweet potato.

[Denis Drew]

Ken,
You ate a "tasty, nutritious, balanced (lots of fruits and veggies) menu for the cost of food stamps [insert here "on $3/day"]. Whose orchard did you spend your nights tip toeing through? :-)

[Gene O'Grady]

Isn't 1740 just about the time the rate of alcohol consumption in London (as gin replaced beer) hit what is sometimes considered the all time world per capita high? I presume that means people were replacing food with booze, but I'm not sure.

[PSP]

Ken and Shah8,

I doubt you intend to say this, but the meaning I extract from your comments is that your solution to Malthusian overpopulation consists of telling the peasants to appreciate their gruel, and abandon their desire for beef and beer, because gruel is better for them.

[Roger Albin]

Oats may not be relevant. Rye is the more typical grain of the poor in nothern Europe.

[shah8]

No, I was more or less remarking on the lengths that people will go to to eat familiar food. Nothing to do with Malthusian limits.

[Colin Danby]

I'd love to hear more about the oatcakes -- a recipe?

I was raised on oat porridge and like the stuff, but I know plenty of people who just don't consider it food.

Elizabeth David's _English Bread and Yeast Cookery_ is a great combination of rich historical archive and functioning cookbook. Its underlying story is that tastes move toward what she disdains as "factory bread," and all the interesting breads she digs up, with whole grains of various kinds (including various oatcakes) gradually disappear. You can tell a related story about the eclipse of long-fermentation and wholer-grain breads in Italy and France.

Ideas about status-appropriate food seem to be a big part of it. I also wonder about the industrial org of bakers and millers.

[Colin Danby]

It would also be nice to hear more about the Ken diet, for practical and academic reasons (my efforts to eat healthily are over-reliant on the Whole Foods salad bar): my sense is that to get to $3 a day you'd have to lean heavily on rice and beans, or some similar combination, with carefully-bought fruit and veg around the edges. Even when I go slumming at the QFC, veg isn't cheap.

[Ken]

I'm not saying anything of the sort. What I am saying is that on current food stamp allowances (in Virginia, ~$120/week for a family of four) one can eat more or less what my family normally eats on my mid-6-figure income (most important differences being to substitute canola oil for olive oil and white vinegar for balsamic vinegar, and to bake bread rather than buy it).

I decided to conduct my experiment after reading an article to the effect that it was impossible to eat healthfully on food stamps and realizing that the food stamp allowance mentioned in the article was only slightly less than my normal food budget.

I kept very careful records of what I bought and what I made, and I'd be happy to send them to anyone interested.

[Colin Danby]

Any chance you could post a summary here, Ken? It would be great to have it on the 'net somewhere.

[Ken]

Hi Colin,

The fact that you're going to the salad bar should be your first clue... :-). The first and most important rule of eating well on the cheap is that all value-added activities (chopping, mixing, whatever) should take place in your kitchen.

A summary of my diary would be difficult, as I've assumed that I start with nothing in my cupboards, and therefore I have to buy all my staples and amortize them over the next several weeks. But if you're really interested, send me an e-mail address to kap5017@hotmail, and I'll send you what I bought and what I made.

[P.M.Lawrence]

There are two things that are conspicuous (to me, anyway) by their absence from this discussion:-

- no mention of potatoes (yet the early 19th century allotment movement specifically contemplated providing "potato grounds" for the poor); and

- the fact that, until remarkably late, households often had non-cash subsistence resources and so did not rely wholly on cash wages but used those as a top up (when that effectively ceased in the UK, as wages in truck couldn't buy essentials the way cash could, the Truck Acts became necessary and the allotment movement tried to turn back the clock by providing that sort of subsistence resource).

[Colin Danby]

Ken: your e-mail bounces back but I can be reached at danbyc at gmail.com

I wonder if food stamp budgets have a built-in assumption about prep time. I used to make bread routinely, but you need to be home over much of a day to see it through its risings.

[Rebecca Ray]

And the American homeless are rich - since they choose not to eat the plentiful street rats, which serve as food for poor Indians and for cats. Sticking to "people food" like McDonald's shows that it's their own ignorance and/or pride that keeps them hungry.
But seriously, if we're wondering why people don't give up their human dignity for more calories, we have a dim understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of poverty.