The roads around London were neither very attractive nor very
safe. Along them was land covered with water from drains and
refuse and dung heaps. Hogs were kept in large numbers on the
outskirts and fed on the garbage of the town. Smoking brick kilns
surrounded a great part of London. In the brickyards vagrants
lived and slept, cooking their food at the kilns.
Queen Anne's drinking of tea made it a popular drink, but it was
still expensive. This habit improved health because to make tea,
the water had to be boiled before drunk. Breakfast included tea
and bread and butter, and later toast with melted butter. The rich
also had coffee and chocolate. The morning newspaper was often
read at breakfast. The chief dinner dishes were roast beef, roast
mutton, boiled beef or pork, with puddings and vegetables. Roast
meat was still the basic diet of town and country gentlemen. There
were also fowls, tripes, rabbits, hares, pigeons, and venison.
Many elaborate sauces were made. The national dish was the
pudding, a compound of steak, kidney, larks, and oyster. Drinks
included ginger beer, lemonade, barley water, coffee, chocolate,
tea, and foreign wine. Port from Portugal was introduced about
1703, and rum about 1714. Rum, made from sugar, first became
popular as a medicine, well-whisked with butter. Beer was drunk by
the poorer and middle classes. The poor could afford very little
meat now, unlike 200 years ago.
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