No More Daily Bread Life
A short history of staple foods in London. In the mid-19C, “436,800 sandwiches were sold on the streets of London every year, but all of them were ham”. Londoners were “fish-mad”: Billingsgate market sold 9.8 million eels and 7.5 million herrings a year. London bread was a four-pound loaf made with boiled potatoes. And now? There is no staple, save perhaps fast-food. Seventy pence buys a portion of chips containing 1,950 calories, “close to the total energy needed in a day” (2,100 words)
