Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

The Victorians sought advice on all manner of things, and when it came to food, Mrs. Beeton was their guru.

According to the 1888 edition of her Book of Household Management, milk, she said, could be purified by preparations of which the principal constituent is boracic acid.

And she adds, "It is said that most of the milk that comes to London is treated in this way." She concludes, "Fortunately for the consumer, it is a quite harmless addition." But was it as harmless as Mrs.

Beeton believed? Microbiologist Matthew Avison has devised an experiment that tests Mrs.

That's a bare bones predecessor of what we now call a fry-up.

Fast forward to Isabella Beeton in her Book of Household Management in eighteen sixty-one, she writes explicitly about fried bacon and eggs, cementing the combination into the Victorian kitchen manual.

But even before that, there were regional sausages being made all over England.

The Cumberland sausage of northern counties was long prized for its peppered seasoning.