Absent Food in Poverty
Varadaraja V Raman argues in "Food: Its Many Aspects In Science, Religion, and Culture" that the "Absence of food can occur under two conditions: voluntary and involuntary" (969), the latter being what I will explore in this post to its extremity through the focus on poverty and not being able to afford foods to ensure survival, let alone to enjoy.
Although "The Absence of Appetite" cannot specifically be applied to this post, as those suffering in poverty certainly have an appetite for food, I will still explore absent food and its many manifestations, including absent food under the rubric of deceit and how those in poverty often fall victim to unfortunate crimes of Adulteration.
Sharman Apt Russell states a staggering statistic in Hunger: An Unnatural History, that "About 800 million chronically malnourished people live in the world" (207). Although the poverty rate has improved significantly in the UK over the last ten years and food banks are helping to feed those who need it the most, malnourished people are still represented vastly in literature and continue to be an area of focus particularly by English novelists, from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, texts in which the protagonists are both orphans who struggle to feed themselves properly often due to no fault of their own.
George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier is no exception to the cruelties of such poverty. From working conditions to housing situations to how much a family typically earns, it becomes apparent early on in the text that the lives of the poor that Orwell encountered in this report of working-class life in the English Northern towns is incredibly bleak, even travelling to work is a hardship in itself. Food is also a topic of discussion in the text and it is incredibly sparse throughout, even when it is present it is described in a very unappealing and dirty way, making the absence of food and not eating often better than the option of eating the unsanitary meal or snack.
A passage that really sticks with me in regards to unsanitary food, due to the disgusting image it leaves in my mind, is one located towards the beginning of the text. Orwell writes that the bread-and-butter he ate at the Brooker families lodging house "had often been cut overnight and always had thumb-marks on it" (Orwell 14) that each slice was "gripped firmly under that broad black thumb" (ibid).
The fact that this family was one of the more wealthier examples of the Northern working class is shocking to me, as food still remains unfit for consumption and is simply repulsive to the privileged reader. The sad reality is that those living in these lodging houses and the people making these foods at the time had no option but to eat what they had made and not throw it away, as they really could not afford to waste anything.
Moreover, the passage also, although through human error, is an example of Adulterated foods which were very common in the families of those living in such poverty. John Burnett argues in Plenty and Want: A Social History of Food in England from 1815 to the Present Day that "there can be no doubt that adulteration was one of the factors which helped to make the poor poor in the middle of last century" (Burnett 117). Adulterated foods are impure, unsafe, or unwholesome foods, just like the bread in The Road to Wigan Pier but often they are soiled deliberately to save money and to con those less fortunate. From the watering down of beer to milk, the latter having "added water in amounts ranging from 10 to 50 per cent" (Burnett 242) it is clear to see just how badly people were scammed out of the very little money they had.
Absent food is thus again an entirely negative concept. Whilst absent food is obviously awful for those that are going hungry and simply cannot afford to eat as they would rather not go without food, absent food is also negative for those who can afford something, although very little, to eat, yet are being tricked into believing a product is something which it is not.
Who are we to trust when even those in poverty are being lied to when in reality they should be helped?
Although "The Absence of Appetite" cannot specifically be applied to this post, as those suffering in poverty certainly have an appetite for food, I will still explore absent food and its many manifestations, including absent food under the rubric of deceit and how those in poverty often fall victim to unfortunate crimes of Adulteration.
Sharman Apt Russell states a staggering statistic in Hunger: An Unnatural History, that "About 800 million chronically malnourished people live in the world" (207). Although the poverty rate has improved significantly in the UK over the last ten years and food banks are helping to feed those who need it the most, malnourished people are still represented vastly in literature and continue to be an area of focus particularly by English novelists, from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, texts in which the protagonists are both orphans who struggle to feed themselves properly often due to no fault of their own.
George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier is no exception to the cruelties of such poverty. From working conditions to housing situations to how much a family typically earns, it becomes apparent early on in the text that the lives of the poor that Orwell encountered in this report of working-class life in the English Northern towns is incredibly bleak, even travelling to work is a hardship in itself. Food is also a topic of discussion in the text and it is incredibly sparse throughout, even when it is present it is described in a very unappealing and dirty way, making the absence of food and not eating often better than the option of eating the unsanitary meal or snack.
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| George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier which describes the lives of real people in poverty as a somewhat constant battle - a struggle to even make it to work everyday |
The fact that this family was one of the more wealthier examples of the Northern working class is shocking to me, as food still remains unfit for consumption and is simply repulsive to the privileged reader. The sad reality is that those living in these lodging houses and the people making these foods at the time had no option but to eat what they had made and not throw it away, as they really could not afford to waste anything.
Moreover, the passage also, although through human error, is an example of Adulterated foods which were very common in the families of those living in such poverty. John Burnett argues in Plenty and Want: A Social History of Food in England from 1815 to the Present Day that "there can be no doubt that adulteration was one of the factors which helped to make the poor poor in the middle of last century" (Burnett 117). Adulterated foods are impure, unsafe, or unwholesome foods, just like the bread in The Road to Wigan Pier but often they are soiled deliberately to save money and to con those less fortunate. From the watering down of beer to milk, the latter having "added water in amounts ranging from 10 to 50 per cent" (Burnett 242) it is clear to see just how badly people were scammed out of the very little money they had.
Absent food is thus again an entirely negative concept. Whilst absent food is obviously awful for those that are going hungry and simply cannot afford to eat as they would rather not go without food, absent food is also negative for those who can afford something, although very little, to eat, yet are being tricked into believing a product is something which it is not.
Who are we to trust when even those in poverty are being lied to when in reality they should be helped?
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