1910s

Further Back in Time for Dinner - Series 1 Episode 2 - 1910s

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• published: 10 Feb 2017
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The Robshaw family are experienced time travellers, but this time they are going further back than they have ever been before - to the turn of the 20th century, to discover how the food we ate and the way we ate it helped shape the modern family. An ordinary house in south London is their time machine, transporting them through five decades and two world wars. Guided by presenters Giles Coren and social historian Polly Russell, they trace the incredible changes to Britain's diet and the extraordinary social transformation they reveal. This time, it is a decade of feast and famine as the family enter the turbulent 1910s. At the start of the decade, the family's servant Debbie is still doing all the cooking and cleaning. But change is on the horizon, as the first world war turns all their lives upside down, bringing freedom and opportunity to Debbie and putting Rochelle back in the kitchen. Never a natural cook, she struggles to feed the family as supplies start to run out - as they did for many families during World War I - and the war puts an end to their previously carefree lives. But the decade has its upsides too - there is respite from offal with a vegetarian Suffragist dinner, the freedom of a bike ride and an idyllic picnic and a visit from celebrity chef John Torode, but even he can't rescue 1918's fish sausages.