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There was now a big gap between the rich, which included the middle class, and the poor. The poor would breakfast on bread and jam and tea. Many of the meals would be stews with cheap cuts of mutton but meat was not an everyday food. For Sunday lunch they would have meat but often in puddings to make it go further and boiled vegetables. A normal tea would be bread and butter but they might have some cake, usually home cooked, on Sunday. Many working people would have no way of cooking. Pies would be made at home and taken to the local bakers to be cooked. One of the problems here was that many people would do this, so how did you recognise your own pie when you came to collect? The answer was to put elaborate patterns on the pastry crust which covered the pie. The rich might well have four meals a day. Breakfast was eggs, kidneys, bacon, sausage followed by muffins or toast and tea or coffee. Lunch was cold meats and then mid-afternoon there would be tea and cakes. In the evening there was supper or dinner, the biggest meal of the day. On Sunday the rich would have the big meal mid-day to give servants the rest of the day off. Sugar was now less of a luxury and sweet shops were opening in the towns and cities. Unlike today though, these shops were aimed at adults. However, sugar imports were seen as supporting the slave trade and 300,000 people took part in a sugar boycott for a while.

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