Gruel- A Tribute To Oliver Twist

Is it worth the waiting for? If we live 'til eighty four All we ever get is gru...el! Ev'ry day we say our prayer -- Will they change the bill of fare? Still we get the same old gru...el!

My dad’s favourite musical is Oliver Twist; it is partially because of this that it is now rightly my second favourite Dickens novel(just beaten by David Copperfield). I can hardly finish the Victorian period without paying tribute to the many people who were on the streets during the time. Tea parties are all well and good but with so many children on the street, what did the people in poverty eat? Anyone who is familiar with Oliver or even Dickens himself would know that in the workhouse they were fed primarily on a diet of gruel. I can only assume that this must have been the least nutritious food I have come across throughout my journey.

         So I was faced with the question of how best to pay homage to these starving children? I decided that for a day I would eat gruel for my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can’t imagine it provides too much energy as it is mostly water. I picked a day when I was busy, it would be a pointless endeavour if I were to do nothing strenuous all day as the children were forced to work all day. On this day I had to work myself, not quite workhouse standards but I find a full day of work exhausting as it is. I used oatmeal boiled in water to create my ‘gruel’, it looked unappetising but that I expected.

         During breakfast I found the taste so offensive that I ended up leaving half the bowl. This was a dire mistake as after a full morning of running around at work I was starved. At 1p.m I had my lunch and eagerly ate the whole thing despite its lack of taste. By the time I came home I was shattered and could have easily eaten twice the portion I had for my dinner- I found myself echoing Oliver ‘please can I have some more.’ By late in the evening I was already hungry again but I slept through the night and when I woke up the following morning I was still tired and my body felt run down.

         I had always been aware that the workhouse conditions were dire. But only one day of eating like a workhouse child has taught me so much more about what their life was like. It would be interesting to see the effects after a week of eating gruel, though I can’t imagine it would be too healthy for the body. I could barely survive after one day. One thing I have learnt is this; if I had been alive in Victorian England there is absolutely no way I would have survived on that kind of diet.