Why Was Baking The Most Deadly Job In The Victorian Era? | Victorian Bakers | Absolute History
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 เม.ย. 2021
- Four 21st-century bakers bake their way through the era that gave us modern baking as we know it - the reign of Queen Victoria. Experts Alex Langlands and Annie Gray join them to tell the incredible story of our daily bread.
The bakers have left the rural bake house and the golden age of baking behind, this time it's the 1870s and they're moving into an urban bakery in the midst of the Industrial Revolution.
Their new bakery is totally authentic and it boasts two coal-fired ovens. At this time it is coal that fuels Britain's epic industrial expansion and bread that feeds its ever-expanding urban workforce. A growing middle class start demanding 'fancy breads' for breakfast and so the bakers must now bake through the night.
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If only they understood the ease and simplicity of no-knead bread (:
LMAO these people just cant help themselves can they? An indian woman frmo india is alongside white bakers to fulfill diversity quota whne literally all bakers in vict. england were white, by virtue of being the indigenous population.
Disgusting additives are still added to food today; greed... greed never changes.
Qr
“Doesn’t that cause brain damage?”
“Not immediately”
Victorian England in a nutshell
I just heard that line. Had to pause to go back to work and saw your comment...
Doesn’t that slowly cripple people
More than likely
America since forever
35:04
@@Wishfullilith
,
,,,
Damn this show tells so much about human nature !
They were all complaining when they were exhausted or making bread that could kill people locally, but they are all happy when they get the the cheap flour and sugar from america and immediately say that even in their modern actual bakery they do not mind using cheaper product from abroad then more expensive product from local makers as long as they can make better profit and they do not care about the consequence about the product today beign produced by underpaid workers, wrking in horrible conditions, sometimes even children, just like their ancestor bakers in the 19th century didn&t care that the reason the flour and sugar from the US was cheap was because it was made by slaves and directly a product of the slave trade. Slaves were taken from East Africa to the US then the same ships would go from the US to England with flour and sugar and then from England they would go to Africa with mass produced things from the industrial revolution and these would be sold in Africa and the ships would leave Africa for the US with their loads of Slaves on them, males females and children, and on the ship the males would be separated from the women so that the women could be available for the crew, along with the children.
And those bakers felt nothing about it when they got their cheap flour and sugar, just like Bakers today and other professions do not give an F about the fact that those cheap products come from modern forms of slavery and also the destruction of countless natural habitats and the extinction of the local fauna and flora all over the planet.
Yes we haven't changed at all.
Always remember that every workplace safety regulation is there for a reason and was almost always written in blood.
Just remember that a lot of those regulations have nothing to do with safety. But was lobbied by very large companies to keep out smaller competition.
@@timesthree5757 capitalism: profits over people .
@@laurenwalker1048 you do realize that because of capitalism our poor is richer than most of the world.
I think the words yer looking for is crony capitalism.
@@laurenwalker1048 I'm all for capitalism not crony capitalism.
@@timesthree5757 nope, capitalism. I mean unfettered late-stage capitalism, which is where we are.
I love how this is simultaneously a food history documentary and a labor history documentary. We need more cross disciplinary documentaries like these. It really helps people understand how intertwined history is.
Hear,hear.
It's also medical history.
Right. And I think understanding how everything is interconnected also makes you pay deeper attention to all that’s happening TODAY. I’m with you, love documentaries like this
And a "professionals loosing their minds" video
specially focused on labor + something else
Imagine living in a time where the average adult worked 18+ hours and think to yourself on the way home, "I can't wait to get home and eat some coal infused bread!"
And that's if one didn't die, or get robbed on the way back home
They generally didn't eat the bottom of the bread, most families who could would throw it out, but yeah coal infused bread is not good for you. Makes you grateful for supermarkets.
@@Amelia7o9 no makes you greatful for modernization and education. Even without a supermarket or civilization collapse people alive today know about the dangers of certain cooking fuels and sanitation and how to cook food in a clean enviroment. A simple stove we use today would have been voodoo magic to people back then as literally anything you want to cook can be cooked on it safely and without danger for the most part
@@Amelia7o9 I know right, it's crazy how far we advanced in just a few hundred years.
Nowadays you just gotta go for a nice stroll down the street to a supermarket which gives you easy access to a plethora of safe and delicious food and ingredients to make whatever you want.
Don't forgot the chalk and sweat.
My Great grandfather died of what was called 'flour on the lung'. He had brought his extended family to Australia, and to get away from baking in London. Sadly he only lived for four years, and died in 1934. So, not just a problem of the Victorian period. He was from three generations of bakers. My son knew nothing of this, and he is, you guessed it, a baker!
If he was from a family of bakers, he probably started working in the kitchen when he was pretty young, so he probably was baking bread in the Victorian era (pre 1901).
I worked in an industrial bakery for a few years. A friend if mine had pneumonia all the time and the doctors said it was from flour dust
Woah baking must really be in your bloodline
I had a job conducting research in a medical school. At that time state institutions were not subject to federal OSHA regulations. I found that one of the electron microscopes we were using was leaking 100 times the allowable limit of x-rays.
I was only subject to that for about a year and a half. But a woman who worked on that microscope 10 hours a week for 15 years develop breast cancer in both breasts. She had a different type of cancer in each breast.
Her doctors kept asking if she’d had radiation exposure. She said no because she didn’t know the microscope was leaking.
Then I came along and found the leak. And her fatal breast cancer was explained, but unfortunately she died.
Please don’t listen to somebody that says Small businesses will be hurt by safer environment or regulations.
No one should make money by causing harm to another.
@@scothammond5736 as someone who had pneumonia once upon a time let me say what my doctor told me is that this unfortunately creates scarring a permanent scar that never goes away.
This also unfortunately makes your easily sustainable to getting sick easily and causing a life time issue with breathing. Like myself I love baking and cooking but sadly I have to use a mask these days because when I don’t I end up inhaling the fumes or the stuff from baking that leads me to wheezing heavily and breathing hard. May your great grandfather Rest In Peace🤗
I love how the bakers are so protective of their craft, and that they find it heartbreaking that people did this shows their real empathy.
If you've ever started your own yeast culture and baked from start to finish, you sort of get invested in the whole process since baking is pretty technical and you realize real quick you can lose a lot of time, effort, and ingredients, if you screw up in any part of the process before you put that thing in the oven, you'll get some sub-par end product or something you didn't really want.
So you're going to put a lot of dedication to getting it right, you grow to appreciate what goes into baking. Of course anyone can just make simple bannock, but to get a lovely loaf with good crumb AND consistently pump that out in many loafs over and over again? That takes a lot of effort.
Yeah to pop all those adulterants in there is heartbreaking to those who make their best product for friends and family. The amount of labor and little pay would have you looking for a new job or turning to crime.
They are true crafts people. There is a dedication among people who feed other people to give them their very best and using shitty ingredients would crush many of them.
Seriously people now a days literally get injured in the kitchen when baking from muscle strains to poor posture and arthritis, etc. and that’s with all the modern machines and technology, imagine how labour intensive it was back then!
To think people complain about the shit in our modern food; all our modern food additives and preservatives(E numbers for across the pond folks) are child's play compared to the shit used back then.
man it feels like literaly every job in the victorian era was dangerous.
During the industrial revolution, white hot bolts were sledge hammered and riveted to hold steel plates together. While making ships, children had to crawl around in the hull holding metal to rivet the bolts from inside. Sometimes they missed, sometimes they broke, sometimes they got sealed inside the ship. Coal miners, asbestos removal, soldiers, tree trimmers... Most jobs MEN do are dangerous, even today. So much for privilege eh?
@@sicsempertyrannishonk7197 once again...the concept of what we're actually talking about with respect to privilege goes WHOOOSH...right over your head.
PEOPLE do a lot of dangerous jobs, back then and even today...it being solely in the domain of MEN has nothing to do it.
Not surprising this is your take given you have a playlist with "What's wrong with millennials?" in it.
Generational hate is stupid and a waste of time. GTFU already.
Bruh just living in general was dangerous in the Victorian era
I think our immune systems are a little fucked nowadays because of all that poison from earlier eras.
@@sicsempertyrannishonk7197 Mhn it's almost as if men put themself in those positions and dont even give women the chance
I was a professional baker for about 20 years. I started working at age 13 in my Mom's bakery. Even with all of the modern bakery equipment we have now, it is still incredibly demanding, physical work. Even at 13 years old, I was coming into the bakery at 5am, when my Mom has been working since 2am. I went to culinary school and did an apprenticeship in baking and pastry, which was incredibly difficult to get through. When I was working in bakeries, my shifts often started between 9-10pm and I worked until 7-8am, 5 days a week. For many years, I had a second part time job making pastry for a small tea shop, I would do that 3 days a week from 8:30am-12:00pm after working all night. It took years to get to a point of making a pretty good wage that allowed me to buy a house, but even then, it was never a high paying job. No one does this work to make really good money; we do it because we love it. However, it does cost us healthwise. After 12 years or so working in the industry, I developed a flour allergy from constantly breathing in raw flour. At the 20 year mark, I had asthma symtpoms and my feet were damn near shot from daily work on concrete floors. I retired from baking at age 42 when COVID hit. I lost all of my work, and it forced me to reevaluate my physical state, and I realized how incredibly exhausted I was. I went into a whole new career in 2020.
This video has made me think of the bakers at grocery stores in my area.
Mind if I ask what’s the new career? I admire career changers later in life
My mother worked in the bakery department in Safeway. She certainly said it was demanding.
That sounds like my job. I quit after 17 years because it was just getting to much for me and I already had somehealth issues. I went from working with food to one on one sitting an 95 year old with dementia. It is rough some days but so much easier and I get to sit down when I need to where I couldn't at my last job. Even being in a lot of pain, my supervisor wouldn't let me sit.
@@acmhfmggru what about plumber?
The other day I was baking some cupcakes to bring to a casual party with some friends. However, by the time I got to the frosting, I remembered I didn't have my electric mixer with me (I lent it to my mom, and I hadn't gotten it back yet). I didn't have time to go get it, so I whipped the frosting by hand. Took me around half an hour of nonstop whipping. After I finished, and my arm was half dead, I realized why bakers in old movies are always buff, thick, and absolute units.
What ingredients did you use? It should only take about 10 minutes for a rich thick creme...
@@runed0s86 They weren't making thick creme like you'd glop onto scones or something, that's not even a common thing in many places (most of the USA doesn't use it). They were describing making frosting (doesn't say what kind, could have been a whipped cream frosting but might have been cream cheese or buttercream etc), which is a whole other story, you have to whip it so much that it's almost like making meringue.
@@ItsAsparageeseI’m a commercial baker and I can confirm that buttercream when done correctly does have a very light, fluffy, meringue like appearance, and it would be a nightmare to have to aerate and whip it by hand
"in many places they were actually locked into their bake houses by the owners"
Jeff Bezos: write that down
😂
😭😭😭😅
Oof this too real after the tornadoes
employers still try to pull that. when I was a child in North Carolina I lived near a chicken processing plant that caught fire. there was loss of life because the owners chained the doors shut during the work shift
Still goes on today. Not just him, but do you really think all the jobs shipped overseas bc it's cheaper have better conditions?
I love how visibly heart-broken the bakers get when they first add the chalk. It goes to show how dedicated they are to their craft.
I really loved some of their individual perspectives throughout the video. John Foster with his morbid sense of humour and the way he took it all in and related things to things we still enjoy or deal with today. John Swift with his reflections on the unspoken ugly compromises his forebears most likely made. Harpreet with the undue brutality of a trade which should have been more modernized and happier at the time...
The relief on his face when he realized that his family would have been baking during the later portion, without the aduluterants, you could feel his pride returning.
“ to be this tired and produce nothing valuable” most powerful quote for me
as an amateur cook, completely agreed-
ive only had a meal outright dud a few times, but....
bruh same
When you've never eaten unadultered bread, smelly or chalky bread is just normal. Several generations grew up getting not enough nutrition and possibly more severe health issues without ever knowing what was going on. That is scary, even today.
Too right!
Corn syrup is todays version
IM SO HAPPY NOT BEING BORN BACK THEN.
@@1320crusier Sadly I am more worried about all of the shit veggie oils.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 I mean, palm oil isn't nearly as bad as chalk, its diabetes properties don't hit you within a month, you can avoid most of them by avoiding fried food too, bread on the other hand is staple food
It's such a joy to witness the elation on their faces, as they finally get to abandon the toxic ingredients in favor of actual proper flour, butter, sugar and yeast. The pride and passion for their craft is downright touching.
This series is amazing... the perfect mix between a history documentary and a reality show of people experiencing their own profession in a different way. I also really appreciate the passion they have for their profession
but girls hated this series n think it's boring n nerdy tho
@@jake9854？
I was very happy for the bakers when they got better ingredients and were geeking out over their love of bread. You can obviously tell just how much they love their craft.
@CaraCara Well pastries are her speciality as the others are more on the normal loafing business.
I'd like to boss that Alex boy around 😉
Happy ? I was disgusted by it.
Damn this show tells so much about human nature !
They were all complaining when they were exhausted or making bread that could kill people locally, but they are all happy when they get the the cheap flour and sugar from america and immediately say that even in their modern actual bakery they do not mind using cheaper product from abroad then more expensive product from local makers as long as they can make better profit and they do not care about the consequence about the product today beign produced by underpaid workers, wrking in horrible conditions, sometimes even children, just like their ancestor bakers in the 19th century didn&t care that the reason the flour and sugar from the US was cheap was because it was made by slaves and directly a product of the slave trade. Slaves were taken from East Africa to the US then the same ships would go from the US to England with flour and sugar and then from England they would go to Africa with mass produced things from the industrial revolution and these would be sold in Africa and the ships would leave Africa for the US with their loads of Slaves on them, males females and children, and on the ship the males would be separated from the women so that the women could be available for the crew, along with the children.
And those bakers felt nothing about it when they got their cheap flour and sugar, just like Bakers today and other professions do not give an F about the fact that those cheap products come from modern forms of slavery and also the destruction of countless natural habitats and the extinction of the local fauna and flora all over the planet.
Yes we haven't changed at all.
I kept waiting for them to point out that the *reason* sugar was so cheap was not because of positive reasons, and then it never happened...
@@Ebbagull because that is not the aim of this documentary
There should be a holiday dedicated to bakers. Food is sacred and anyone willing to break their back so you can start your day just right deserves the highest respect
I really appreciate bakers and farmers in the cheese industry for fueling my diet.
There is one, May 16th, in honor of St. Honoré, patron saint of bakers - and inspiration for the delicious eponymous cake.
I think everyone working a job is important we don't appreciate just how important every job , the working class makes the world go around and without us society would fall apart .. Respect to the working classes always .. we all play important roles in society..
@@annaverano5843 The US and Canada have labor/labour day
@@Moxinea Labor day sucks because the people doing most of the grueling labor (food service, gas stations, grocery stores) don't even close on labor day so the middle class can still have modern conveniences on their day off.
My father and grandfather were bakers. My grandfather was from Scotland and moved to the states in the 1920's. My dad worked in his bakery in the 30's and early 40's before he became a baker during the war. My dad developed a reaction to all the flour and was forced to leave baking in his mid-fifties. It was a tough way to make a living with terrible hours...never heard him complain. I admire what they both did. Not for me.
Also, don't forget tobacco
I was born in Bradford UK in 64. Obviously I don’t remember my first few homes their, but at the age 3 I lived in one of the back to back houses , a one up, one down house. Mum, dad, and seven kids. Toilets outside, shared tin bath.. lol. The joys of an Irish immigrant child.. lol. And before us polish, after us Pakistani.
I’m still amazed how well documented Britain’s history is
@@moniquem783 here in the US, instead of teaching history, many citizens want to destroy it.
most of the history in my country, colonizers know more that it's people.
To be fair, they were colonisers and have never been colonised meaning, no reigning foreign government that has the urge to destroy the indigenous culture and history
@Cara you're comparing apples to oranges when they have a longer history than we do - of course there's less to document about the USA with its age only being 243. And furthermore, a true scholar of history would see just how All countries gloss over their darker days to glorify only the beautiful history. A major example being Japan and Korea and how the former refuses to acknowledge the damages they inflicted over the past century alone, and my girlfriend who lived in Russia informing how their curricula now rewrites historical scenarios rather than just omitting the gritty parts. It's egregious to assume that its only America that suffers from divisive interest in the true history of both their own culture and the world.
@@moniquem783 I know exactly what you are saying. Compared to Britain, Australia and New Zealand (I'm your kiwi cousin) are a lot younger so I think Britain is similar as our early relatives.
I've never been more grateful for my kitchenaid mixer than now.
I'm too broke to buy a kitchenaid so all my bread is by hand 😂 but even then, working out of a trough just sounds horrid
I've never been more grateful to have been born in 2001 and not 1856
Kitchenaids are amazing! They even sell giant ones with guards for kitchens!
A 30 liter commercial stand mixer sells for about $5000 and would do all of that trough work easily.
@@totoroben not exactly catered towards the average consumer.
Man it's gonna be wild when in 100 years my grandkids think the environment I worked in was horrible. Meanwhile I'm like "this is the best job I've ever had."
I watched this from the comfort of my bed with savings in the bank and a job to go to that, done correctly, doesn't endanger my health. I felt a bit weepy at times, the hard lives these people endured day after day, only to pass before their time.
Thanks for this eye-opening revelation into those that came before us.
L
The really sad fact about this is not that people endured these horrible conditions, but because it was still a better life than many had at the time. Just look up Victorian Crawlers to see how low it really got. Watching documentaries like these gives me thanks for all I have today.
That was a depressing read.
@@Neuromancer23 Those times were depressing.
@@jessh4016 lmao no they don't
@@jessh4016 right and I'm sure you "meet" lots of them while you walk past them disgusted.
@@hughrealman50 I have the image of a person stalking homeless people as they beg on the street, then picking through their pockets to count the change.
Is that what they’re saying they do, if they say a thing like that with such confidence?
I've been working at a bakery for a little more than two months. We have all the standart equipment of a modern, middle sized bakery: two 40kg electric dough mixers, two smaller 5-15 lt mixers for more liquid, cake-like batter mixers, a machine that devides dough and rolls it into buns, it can proccess up to 6kg of dough at a time, a molder for long buns.
My first three weeks were hell. Absolutelly hell. My feet hurt, my back was screaming, my hands were sore and inflamed. It ended in tears, with me crying to my boss telling her that I just can't, I'm in so much pain. She sent me home to rest for a longer weekend.
I am way better now, got into shape. I litterally lost 8kg on this job. I AM RIPPED. The best workout of my life. And I've been working in physical jobs since I was 12.
The working conditions in this bakery scares me.
What’s it like being a weak girl
can relate, men still get disappointed when I say I don't bake bread but pastries. I'm literally so fragile 😔. but I do help sometimes if they need some help on busy days
I believe you, a lot of carrying heavy equipment and pastry trays … constant hand workout from kneading and shit… standing for 8+ hours daily..
What a surprise the average worker was shitfaced from morning till evening.... 😅
@@Patrick3183 calm down babe, we all know you're weaker 🤣🤣
I recall growing up there was talk that people before the 20th century had short lives. However, I found while working my genealogy that people in the pre-industrial period, if they survived childhood, would often live well into their 80s. It was the generations living during the industrial revolution who died in their 40's, 50's, and 60's.
So fudge numbers to get desired numbers? So let's not count people that die of cancer that way we can say people live to their 90s
@@diegoflores9237 Go pick a fight somewhere else troll.
Very interesting, thank you
My inlaws owned their own bakery but both began as a baker and cake decorator for safeway. In later years he developed emphysema and lung issues and couldn't breathe from flour dust so they retired.
A friend of mine here in the USA has severe COPD from working in the bakery of a well known commercial cookie factory. She worked there in the 70s 80s 90s and was never given a mask to wear and never warned of the consequences of breathing in flour dust. This manufacturer should be held accountable but she is so sick, she is too tired to fight a corporation. Bakers beware, wear a respirator
Please help her fight them.
As a fellow professional baker, I really feel their disgust of adding chalk. That would be outrageous if done these days. This is why we have food authority and regulations.
People moan about bureaucracy, but in food industry this is exact reason why they exist. There are always people who cut corners and compromise quality for profit. ALWAYS. And if you let them, they will take advantage of loopholes.
They just replaced chalk with calcium propionate, don't pretend the regulations had anything to do with it besides making jobs for state dogs.
@@foetusdeletus6313 Ok there there. Here is your aluminium foil, now go play with other nut cases
@@saunajaakko699 5 shekels have been deposited into your account for defending uncle sam and Zion, good job, pup.
You say this; however, the addition of chalk was likely a good thing for the average Victorian with a subpar diet. Chalk (calcium carbonate) is a necessary nutrient... It's good for you in moderation and not bad at all.
@@saunajaakko699 That man isn't a conspiracy theorist. Loaves baked in the UK today are REQUIRED to be made from fortified flour... Fortified flour is going to contain added iron, thiamin, nicotinamide and calcium carbonate (CHALK). Chalk is a necessary nutrient. SOURCE: The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998
My great-grandfather was a baker during the depression and my grandpa told me that they did really well because people always needed to eat. He would even give out what was left at the end of the day to people who couldn’t afford food. But unfortunately he got lung-cancer from the flour and died young.
There's just something fascinating about seeing the bakers in a slight black-and-white coloring due to the ash and soot from their baking that makes this production that much better.
When you consider that at the time that bread was being adulterated, milk in cities was also being adulterated. Cows in the city dairies were fed the mash from beer-making, often almost exclusively, and milk was both watered down (often with not the cleanest water) but had plaster mixed in to whiten it and make it look less watered-down.
"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.
Sounds, “delicious.”
@@lavinialadlass9432 I know, right?
I actually started to tear up by 26:00 because you'll see how they're so miserable. It hits different when Duncan/John (the dude who has a great great Aunt who established their now-5th generation bakery) looks so crushed at the thought of how his ancestors have to do this thankless task and even cut corners in a brutal era.
Don't look up how coca cola is made, it will make you drown in salty eye liquid.
Oh my God, me too. You can suddenly feel the restoration of dignity later when they use wheat flour,
@@imdhepchannel7153 finally! Someone who could relate to me!
@@patmonte8426 actual cringe
@@LolLol-yn4gw it's not like yours is any less cringe with someone named lol lol
This is why I always treat with respect anyone I know who works and make good food for me.
I loved how excited they were at the end to work with ingredients they were more used to. This was a fantastic show. I love history and the Victorian era.
I've been a baker for almost 20 years now. I've made bread and croissant dough in 200-250 lb batches before, but of course with huge mixers. I remember wondering (and dreading) what I'd have to do if the power went out or the mixer broke down. I pretty much promised myself that if it came down to my boss telling me to mix it by hand, I'd quit on the spot. Glad I never had to do that after seeing this lol
Lol- my boss had flood lights installed for when the power in our bakery goes out ! 😭 we have huge antique gas ovens with stones so we just keep right on baking 😭😭 we luv capitalism
@@jo-eo9ld The glory of capitalism is that if someone is working their staff to death or in dreadful conditions, eventually no one will want to work there and the problem self-corrects. Either they do better or go out of business. In the end it's completely voluntary.
@@wingy200 There's the invisible hand at work. One problem, if labour is unskilled enough and work is in high enough demand, you can get away with those conditions. Who cares if everyone working there quits at once, theres a group of employment ravenous soon-to-be bakers waiting at the door
@@CaptainShenanigans42 I never had guaranteed automation at any job Ive ever had, if the power goes out you do it manually, thats common sense not a reason to destroy a company wtf is wrong with people so lazy and quick to turn on anyone providing a job!
Has no bakery owner ever heard of a backup generator? This is 2022 FFS!
Every time I learn more about Victorian English cities it sounds like one of the most horrible, inhumane societies I could imagine. How anybody survived boggles the mind
G'day,
Yeah...
Funny, that.
The Tribes which had overpopulated their Ancestral Homelands, huddled in Industrial Slums...; they
ONLY
Colon-ised and
STOLE the resources of
EVERY other Tribe on the
Planet - whose
Ancestors had done a
BETTER Job of
Conserving their
Ecology...;
The
EuroPeons
ONLY
Colon-ised and
Trashed the
World -
To bring
The
"Benefits of
Christian Civilisation and
World's Best Practice
To the
Ignorant benighted
Heathen
Savage
Barbarians -
Who clearly did not
Deserve their traditional ancestral Homelands, or Resources - because they don't know how to
Man-Age their Country,
In order to
Maximise
PROFITABILITY
While satisfying
Europeon Market
DEMANDS...
Who'd've thunk they came from a place which raised them all to be
Selfish
Turds..
For
CENTURIES...?
Who knew ?
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Many kids… sooo many kids, like people were just pumping them out
Just wait until you hear about the Romans
@shiftmym9079 the cool thing about birth control is that it made child abuse less profitable and encourages innovation, since there is now more money facing fewer child laborers. Basic economics.
the architecture was the only good thing but all the bad victorian architecture was demolished so who knew
I loved watching this. I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought a whole wheat loaf. Its paper bag has an illustration of victorian era bakers doing their job.
A newfound respect to early bakers in this era.
Reading & talking about it in school is NO WHERE NEAR the understanding this video gives.
thank you, thank you . . . THANK YOU.
20+ years ago, I was a history grad student and took a number of "social history" courses. These courses would cover topics like this but reading about 19th century Victorian bakers doesn't hit home as powerfully as watching history visually demonstrated as in this vid. Seeing the bakers in this video sweat and suffer while working under 19th century conditions creates much more empathy than just reading words in a book ever could.
That’s your subjective opinion why are you acting as if it’s fact
@@Shoegaze- Because they're stating their own experiences, which are a fact for them. The silly cat in your pfp would be ashamed of your rudeness
@@KyzenEX most intelligent white woman
Treacle is also high in iron, potassium, manganese, calcium, and other minerals that would have been difficult for them to come by. They might not have known it, but treacle was a smart choice.
Treacle has become very expensive and that's if you can find it in the regular shops.
molasses was also really popular to put into the bread itself instead of sugar (it was cheaper) which has a ton of nutrients, and is super high in calories. It's kinda like the indigenous mesoamericans putting ashes into their corn (which nixtimalized it) and not realizing that was allowing them to absorb vital nutrients
the chalk would even have been a high source of calcium, but the other adulterants...
Funny how if they had been willing to eat whole wheat instead of white bread, it would have been cheaper and more nutritious.
@@miss.guidedghosts7858 They actually were aware of it. South American indigenous have some of the most knowledgeable practice in this regard. Modern perspectives in regards to health are much less so.
@@TheRealSamPreece oh deadass? that's cool!
After watching this video, I have new found respect for my predecessors.
I’ve been a professional baker for the past 40 years. Even with modern equipment, it’s still back breaking work.
I’ve worked in a small town bakery and as baker for a summer camp/conference center. The former job was much more demanding, physically, and with longer hours, 12-14. The conditions were much more difficult despite modern machinery because of the older building. The customer area had AC that worked. In the kitchen, it was useless. We’d run four fans and illegally keep the back door open. Even then, temperatures over 100 F. in summer were nothing unusual. In winter, we’d freeze. The camp was much newer and had more automated equipment to eliminate heavy lifting such as needing to lift bags of flour, sugar, carry pans to the ovens, etc. The hours were standard eight hour shifts. Strangely, though, the more difficult job was more satisfying in terms of creativity, cordial relationships with coworkers and customers.
*Adding alum to dough*
"Doesn't that cause brain damage"
"Not immediately"
"Oh ok"
*Later on: takes a massive bite of the alum bread*
I think they only ate the chalk one
@@jeremyscungio16 I'd hope so.
@@jeremyscungio16 You literally watched them eat the alum bread and discuss how disgusting it was...
@@Fitz1993 you believe everything you see on a show? It could have been just normal bread for all we know. It isnt real life. I wish people wouldnt over use “literally”
@@Unkn0wn1133 Yeah ok Aristotle... That's a really fucking stupid way of thinking when you're watching some innocent show about baking.
As an avid baker (was making hotcross buns whilst watching this) I found this episode exceptionally awe inspiring. I now have a new respect for bakers of old & 'our daily bread'.
hot cross buns!!! yes!!!!
Absolutely LOVE to see the pride these bakers have! Sheer joy in their work is infectious!
Absolute respect to our bakers and farmers, civilisation, no matter how advanced it is, can not live without these crucial part of society.
I've worked in a bakery and I can tell you, the passion and pride that goes into the product is real! I was relieved for the bakers when they finally got their hands on normal flour again!
I shed a tear watching the dude coming to terms with the choices his ancestors likely made.
Me too! I was so happy for them…and suddenly inordinantly proud of American wheat and it’s naturally high gluten content!
I never thought I would watch an hour on bread. It was fascinating, and I got completely sucked in.
Yeah, I thought the same when I looked at the length. Yeah I have 52 minutes for bread.
On the same boat. But watched all of it and want more.
@@GinsuSher same
Have you seen the BBC's various Farm series yet? Alex Langlands did several of them, and they're equally as engaging and interesting. There was a medieval castle series, a Tudor Monastery Farm series, a Stuart era farm called Tales from the Green Valley, they also did Edwardian, Victorian, and WW2 farms.
Agreed, i was so engrossed That it wasn't until the end when the baker was stacking the rectangular loaves on the table that i remembered that i had also worked in a bakery at a Jewel/Osco for 6 months stacking loaves on trays then loading them into freezers. Cold, lonely, fast paced whip at your back work. Guess it was a repressed memory.
40:27 "To be this tired having done nothing valuable is heartbreaking."
That's it, I've figured out what I **don't** want in a job. God bless this program and god bless her for her frankness.
This was an excellent show. I've never been more enthralled by an episode on TH-cam. Thank you for such an inspiring story. You have a new subscriber!
Im a farmer boy. used to work hard and long time. caring heavy food to the animals and all. My friend once invited me to make bread like they did before. After 1h I broke down and had to rest. You cant even understand how hard it is to mix flour and water
My great grandmother told me that some bakers in the capital where she was born, could keep your christmas roast or similar you got from the butcher hot when the ovens where cooling down(her family was busy and couldn't afford to be home and make it themselves, so they bought it almost completly done). It was cheap and the bakers earned a little extra on the side.
Yes, this was common particularly as people back then (as in some places now) didn't always have an oven. I have to say the best roast I have ever had was out of an old brick bakers oven.
In South Philly a few bakeries charge a small fee to cook your Thanksgivings or Christmas Turkey.
@@JohnThomas-lq5qp I am not from the States and have little knowledge of the demographics of Philadelphia. Is South Philly a working class area?
@@kesfitzgerald1084
yes it is; diverse immigrant population, with historically large Italian and Irish population.
@@petesmitt thank you 😊
I just love these documentaries, thank you so much absolute history, these documentaries are priceless. I am so glad they exist.
That photo is a time machine. People in the future will find it and have no idea when it was actually taken. 😂
Two of my great-uncles were bakers in Victorian times. I thought they’d made a step up to an easier life than being agricultural labourers like the rest of family, so this video was a real eye opener. One died at 54 and the other at 53, so they made it about ten years longer than the average. 😳
I'm a retired baker who worked at a small bakery for years and we worked all night. We made roughly 2500 loaves and 1500 dozen buns and 1000 dozen specialty buns. We also made 500 dozen cookies it wasn't too bad but when we only had a 2 man crew instead of a 3 man we worked 12 hours instead of 8
I've never really liked bread, but this documentary has made me appreciate it a lot more for it's very existence. Bakers are amazing and i hope one can maybe provide me a bun or loaf that will change my opinion on them.
The difference between a freshly baked, homemade bread and a store-bought bread is like night and day. All store-bought breads have legal additives to "improve" them in some way or another.
homemade is made with usually just 5-6 ingredients, not to mention it's fresh. It's soooo good.... I like round loaves because they have a nice, thick, kinda chewy crust.
I finally get to see Alex getting a break from the manual labor!😂 I've watched all of the farm and castle shows and absolutely adore them and the cast. I'm so happy to see one of them again ❤ There needs to be more shows like these that show a day, week, year in the life of our ancestors. These shows make more understandable the lives of our ancestors than do the documentaries with pictures and commentary, though I love those as well. Seeing real people tackling tasks using era appropriate gadgets and methods is so much more effective. I also loved the series showing people and families and the interactions of each era as well. Terrific.
As a baker straight out of school, i did 18hour shifts especially around easter. But nothing like that. You heard stories from the old hands about the mixing troughs of yesteryear. But the mind boggles seeing that. I had great uncle's who would have been baking circa 1900 so they would have missed the early part but they came from a line of family bakers, who would have been involved in some of that stuff. It's crazy to think that we used to moan about machinery taking away jobs, wishing for the good old days before supermarkets. Not sure the good old days were that good. And we have a social safety net and none of them did. Very humbling, very informative. What a great docudrama.
When I started we mixed sponges in huge troughs and wheeled them into proof boxes before the first shift. It was much easier when we changed over to brew tanks. The flour was drawn over to them by a vacuum system and the only thing we had to add was the bagged brewers yeast we bought from Anheuser Busch. We had smaller tanks attached to the mixers for the Guard (calcium propionate) and other chemicals.
It should be noted by you that the machines present their own particular dangers not the least of which is the high voltage necessary to run them. I had a friend who was a maintenance man who was blinded two weeks and burned badly when he arced a 660 breaker box with a screw driver. The fact that he wasn't hurt when it blew him 30 feet across the makeup area was a miracle. Easier rarely means safer.
There's no such thing as the good old days, that's for certain. Maybe a few little things made life feel more rewarding.
My grandparents grew up in the middle of the Canadian plains on isolated farms and were pulled from school in 3rd grade to work, else the family may starve.
I was a baker for a year. I left because I hated my bosses and their ill treatment of me. I wanted to be a baker because my great grandfather had gone into this business in Mexico. He had 2 types of bakeries, the one for miners & the one for the Europeans and the Middle Easterners. To wonder if he might have done this too when he first started makes me sad. But then, I think of his little green English book with bread recipes & his notes in the margins and I hope that he didn't suffer so long before he found success in clean & pure bread.
Mexicans are almost always amazing at cooking, baking, anything about making good food. Bet your grandfather was amazing too
@@OffTheWagons Its all that expat german blood in the mexis that makes them so good at using ovens.
Ah I hope you still carry a love for bread
Respect to your abuelo.
@@OffTheWagons Mexicans are good at pretty much everything they put their hands to.
Well done! This achieves the gold standard of history teaching.
Loved this! The horror and beauty of it all ending with that photograph. What an experience.
Literally just got home from my job (at a bakery lol) and was feeling sorry for myself that I have to lift 25-50 lbs of frosting, dough, etc, for 7 hours straight...
Suddenly feeling like maybe that's not so bad after all, haha. (Still hard but wowee it sure could be worse. So glad I'm not a victorian)
No trolleys and lifting equipment?
@@angelaalbury986 I very much doubt he has to do it constantly for 7 hours; I do parcel delivery with parcels in that same weight range but it's intermittent, so not onerous at all.
thank you
Yall need to invest in a lifting table dolly. U can dump whatever at near ground level wheel it to another work station and by miracle of the screw u can lift 500lbs to about 6' high. They sell shity ones at hazard fraught.
I lift pavers between that weight all day and come home feeling good about myself that I can endure some hard work
People really do forget how physical a job baking can be. I used to knead my bread dough by hand when I made some, but after being diagnosed with a chronic pain condition it just became impossible, the process of making a small batch of dough that made two loaves of bread would leave me bed bound for days on end recovering. So we got a good strong stand mixer with a dough hook and it is world's and away easier the only thing I have to do now is scrape the bowl to make sure everything gets incorporated properly and shape my loaves
I'm glad your chronic condition isn't stopping you from making bread. Seeing the passion the bakers in the documentary and comments have for their bread is a pleasant surprise to me.
I don't think anyone would forget that Baking is a very physical Job. But I damit I never thought it would be the most Dangerous Job in the vctorian age.
When I was making my own bread I used a bread machine. Tip the ingredients in (in the correct order), press the button, come back when it beeps and the whole house is smelling of fresh baked bread.
I complicated the process by grinding my flour by hand each day, but the bread-making part was gloriously easy.
People really underestimate the efficiency boost of a well made tool
Seeing the history of a trade your a part of is amazing.. and honestly it gives you respect for those long gone. so much work
Educational, entertaining and informative; time well spent!
I'm a casual baker at best, and seeing chalk being added to the flour horrified me.. if I were a true baker, I would've cried at that scene...
Yea and it was pretty much needed because of widespread calcium deficiency
It truly was hard work baking. As for chalk being added, today people still bake with bleached flour and enriched flour. As for me when you know better, you do better. Economically you do what you can, with what is available and what you can afford.
@@Crossano True. A lot of 19th century children of the working poor and destitute were born with deformed legs bones and deformed pelvis bones due to calcium deficiency, which could spell death for girls/young women during labour if they got pregnant. And chalk at least isn't harmful to health when swallowed. Where it gets nasty is when dough was adulterated with worthless "bilk" stuff like sawdust/sawmill wood shavings (as human gut biome can't digest cellulose) or plaster to make the bread loaf heavier, as it was sold by weight.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog and alum was added a lot, I believe.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog plaster??? 😱😱😱
Laws to fine workers if they don't weigh bread, no laws to keep them from being locked underground for 16 hours in a hole full of soot, flour, and smoke. What a wonderful society.
Simply well done in keeping this documentary interesting, and inspiring.
I was a journeyman baker for a few years, an experience I’ll never forget, but man that job is made for only a select few people lol
40:30 "to be this tired having done nothing valuable is just heartbreaking", sadly we are still up to this day
Life expectancy 42? I'll let my 41 year old baker husband know that I'll soon be looking for a candle maker 😂😂
A butcher might be a better provider. 😂
I'm a butcher.
something they forgot to mention was that sawdust was another additive to have less flour involved which is obviously not good to be in bread, and they put about 50% sawdust
This was an exciting and wholesome production, great work to all of you!!
Can confirm: Victorian baking is TOUGH. I used to volunteer at a museum's rural Victorian bake kitchen. It's hard, sweaty, and time consuming, but incredibly rewarding. Nothing beats it when visitors tell you your baking is delicious. 🥰
Your sweat is... Delicious? Ew
@@runed0s86 yum
Sweat bread? *MonkaS*
they sweating a lot, natural human salt
@Karl with a K if you really could help winners win, why are you a loser? No offense, i'm genuinely curious. Those 21 subscribers seem to think a pyramid scene would better help them achieve success (maybe that's why they dont tell their friends about your content). Not really a "winner" are you?
My grandpa got Baker's lung and nobody expected him to live long but he is now older than 80 and still going strong. Thankful for modern medicine and bakers
That’s great, did they cure him?
@@nofurtherwest3474his immune system, probably kicked in
Bakers lung is a fakers lung. He used the non-delete add-ons without knowing and is thus negative value.
Is he negative value when compared to the other “skilled laborers” specifically those in the known bake houses?
Absolutely fantastic episode!
I used to make pizza from scratch and i would have to kneed for 15 minutes and it was horrible and hard, it was a work out. I cant even imagine doing this
I've been making pizza weeky and all of my own bread since the start the pandemic. There is a learning curve and it's quicker than it was in the beginning. But here's the thing, it's still a long process and I am using a stand mixer and other modern tools. This must have been hell for these baker's
@@christines3638 have you got some good tips? my dough always turns out terribly
@@becky-kn6vc add enough flour to your dough and make sure to knead until the dough is soft, don’t stop when it’s still rough, you really want to develop the gluten. You don’t want your dough to be stick either, by the end of kneading it it shouldn’t be sticky and shouldn’t be rough either, just a round perfect ball.
If it’s still rough you still need to knead and if it’s still sticky you need more flour. Make sure your yeast is alive before you start and maybe try to follow a recipe.
Allow time for proofing, make sure your dough doubles in size before baking.
Make sure to add enough salt and/or sugar (or else it will not have flavor) and that is why I recommend a recipe to follow.
Bread isn’t hard. Good luck ✌️
@@becky-kn6vc I haven't tried bread but for pizza I've found if you can leave the dough in the fridge for several days you can get away with less kneading.
@@dianalove539 thank you so much i will try some of these tips next time i attempt to make bread :D
I was the head baker 4 5 years at five star established restaurant in Pasadena California... people have no idea what it takes to produce had made bread and the variety of types of bread...I actually appreciate all bread makers.From the past , present and future..Thank you for this episode quite interesting and close to my heart..
@Karl with a K why do you keep commenting that? What the hell is wrong with you!?
@@karlwithak.Let's just call it sustenance alright, because bread is very close to a full nutritional profile.
Absolutely fascinating! I love to watch to this kind of history and any thing with Alex in it is going to be interesting 😊
Absolutely eye opening reality shows us how much worse life could be and was and yet how wonderfully good we have it now… I needed that reminder
Videos like this make you appreciate the little things that we take for granted. I can go to my pantry, and have good quality flour, and sugar. Without even a second thought. But back then, and even in some places now. That isn't possible.
Every time I hear about how poor the conditions of the average working class family were back before about 1920, I am very glad to live in modern times.
I am not a baker, but I was a cook for a long time and work as a waiter. I don't even know if they had proper full service restaurants back then, and I would certainly be poor and living in these conditions.
People on welfare now live much better than blue collar workers even 60 years ago.
I love videos like this, bc they feel like the camera operator just jumped back in time and started recording peeps
I really enjoyed learning so much in this video! Well done!
I'm not sure which is worse, kneading with their feet, or rivers of sweat.
Read up on the number of bug parts and rat hairs that are legally allowed in chocolate
@@jakehuffman4041 That's true of all canned and packaged food, also. But I don't read it because I'd rather not know. I mean, I make bread at home by hand, so I know there's dead skin and hair from my hands in there, but I like to think whatever I buy from a bakery was kneaded in a Hobart.
Well sweat I guess. It is salty, but it probably has other stuff too. Feet could be properly washed first and then it wouldn't really be much worse than using your hands.
it's OK anyway. Bread undergones high-temperature processing, so all foreign and pathological constituents are sure to be killed. You'd better think of your favourite restaurant's cook preparing barehanded a veg salad you're eating raw
I used to work with a baker who would blow his nose into his hands and then work with the dough..... He said that it wasn't a problem as it would all be sterilised when baked....I would hope most bakers would be more hygienic than that though!
Watching these documentaries it's safe to say that the Victorian era was just the era that it sucked to live in, no matter who you were and what class you belonged to. It's just for some it sucked more than for others, but in the end of the day I wouldn't wanna live in that era bo matter what.
If you were of the aristocrats
@@ultracapitalistutopia3550 even for being an aristocrat. The things they'd have to do for hygiene, the amount of times they'd get dressed in a day, the treatments and operations they'd have to go through in the case of an illness or injury... It was not a pretty world.
Sure, better to be an aristocrat than a coal miner, but compared to today I'd take a million times to just be in an average income family than being even an aristocrat during those times.
@@blame7121 or maybe be killed because someone wanted your position.
Unless you were Jack the Ripper XD
I’d say the Victorian era was better than any previous era, you gotta remember humans have struggled since the dawn of time
Very nice documentary it has effort and heart and passion. Love it
This is fabulous! Thanks for doing this
24:31 The sheer look of indignation/frustration as he proclaims, "Welcome to the future." This is also how I feel about the food they sell in supermarkets now - a lot of additives that ruin the taste.
I worked in a grain mill for around two years. While I was more of an office person, the office was connected to the mill side, where men mixed ground up corn into feed, then added other ingredients that were in the form of minerals and vitamins. In short, we made cattle and hog feed. While I worked there, I had asthma-like symptoms and used an inhaler. Another man I worked with had COPD. There were times when some of the workers walked in the door, white as a sheet from all the dust coming off of the grain. When I took that job, I had no idea it could be dangerous, but after I left the place, my symptoms cleared up. Haven't used an inhaler since.
So much appreciation to the humility of this bakery team, through their experience both modern bakers and testing Victorian techniques is quite a learning lesson comparing between two different time periods.
Astonishing the amount of work has gone into this kind of work back then. Thank you for illuminating that. 😌
Absolutely brilliant🙌🏾Sooo well done guys👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾really quite enjoyed that🙏🏾Thanks a ton✨And major hats off indeed to the Victorian baker!! That was painful to watch at times🥺they were warriors.
"... Doesn't that cause brain damage?"
"Not immediately, it doesn't."
Quality British humor.
What the historians skimmed over is the adulteration of flour from the Millers. At some point flour was not all wheat, but additions of milo, rye, barley... (Alum would have been used as a whitener or flavor enhancer). You would have already had calcium carbonate (or the stone equivalent) added in automatically with the stone grinding. The price of wheat, vs the price of barley could be significantly different, and the addition of these grains would have changed the way the end results of the overall taste and weight of the bread. This practice of adding other grains in with wheat flower is common practice today. Mormon flour in the U.S. has about a 10% barley added to it. Up until a certain point grains were sown, grown, and harvested by hand, and it wasn't until the industrial revolution that farming was able to outpace the growing demands of the Bakers... So, the adulteration of flower was most likely commonplace long before the 19th century.
39:24 they talked about it, even when shortly..
@Karl with a K that's idiotic, sprouted grain bread is probably healthy than whatever crap you consider "food" nowadays
@Karl with a K Well, that's rather dramatic... 🙄 Didn't think it was possible for anyone to hate something as delicious as bread!
@Karl with a K Yes, words aren't dramatic unless they are used to exaggerate, and stating that bread isn't food is doing just that.
But you called bread a grain-based food in your last comment so I think you just meant that it's not a nutritiously dense food and people can't survive on it indefinitely.
@Karl with a K Are you denser than crappy bread? They referred to an art piece as an example showing a frame of reference for the physical build of some humans at the time. They never said nor implied that statues eat. Jfc I literally eat keto so I'm far from being part of Big Bread but ffs make comments that are rational
Best documentary I have watched this year!
One line of of my ancestors owned a substantial flour mill in Silesia from about the mid-1800s and made a tidy fortune off it. Milling was big business, probably in no small part because of all the stuff you were allowed to add to the flour.