Reading this is making me hungry, despite the fact I just ate dinner
I decided to start with The Fasting Girl first. I mentioned it is about this girl who in 1865 took to her bed with strange symptoms for over a decade. Yeah, turns out it was for a lot longer than a decade. She stayed in bed until she died, some 50 years later. Holy. Crap. Now I'm very much curious to read this book.
Anyway, there is a snippet from a "popular health manual published in 1873" that talks about how it was not fashionable for women to have hearty appetites (to eat heartily would be considered "indelicate or masculine." Describes me perfectly):
To dine heartily would carry with it an extreme air of vulgarity: hence, the less a young lady takes at table, the higher her preparation for refinements that are appreciated among those who think more of a fine form than of intellectual accomplishments. Light soups, rich cakes, choice fruits, and tea always, is held to be the dietary range of an exquisite woman.... Food most approved, and that which carries with it the endorsement of maneuvering mothers, anxiously looking forward to the establishment of their children in commanding social positions, even if the intended husband is a baboon, is a slice of dry toast, weak black tea, and an occasional teaspoonful of sweetmeats.
Bloody hell, no wonder fainting and stomach problems were common amongst women in that era. Definitely not a time I would have liked to have lived in, given my tendency to eat 24/7.
Anyway, there is a snippet from a "popular health manual published in 1873" that talks about how it was not fashionable for women to have hearty appetites (to eat heartily would be considered "indelicate or masculine." Describes me perfectly):
To dine heartily would carry with it an extreme air of vulgarity: hence, the less a young lady takes at table, the higher her preparation for refinements that are appreciated among those who think more of a fine form than of intellectual accomplishments. Light soups, rich cakes, choice fruits, and tea always, is held to be the dietary range of an exquisite woman.... Food most approved, and that which carries with it the endorsement of maneuvering mothers, anxiously looking forward to the establishment of their children in commanding social positions, even if the intended husband is a baboon, is a slice of dry toast, weak black tea, and an occasional teaspoonful of sweetmeats.
Bloody hell, no wonder fainting and stomach problems were common amongst women in that era. Definitely not a time I would have liked to have lived in, given my tendency to eat 24/7.