Mrs Bird's Victorian World - Nottingham Industrial Museum

Welcome to Mrs Bird’s Victorian World – Victorian Recipes and Family Puzzles.

Come and meet Mary Ann Bird, our costumed interpreter based in the Stove Room most Saturdays or Steaming Sundays. She will tell you more about life in her modest Victorian kitchen. Mary Ann Bird is an able baker and you might be lucky to have a chance to taste her recipes taken from Eliza Acton’s (d. 1859) Modern Cookery for Private Families; Britain’s first cookery books aimed for the domestic reader. The book introduced the listing ingredients and suggested cooking times for each recipe. Later Eliza’s Modern Cookery was eclipsed by the success of Isabella Beeton’s bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), which included several recipes plagiarised from Eliza’s work. In case you missed the opportunity, we have displayed the recipes, click on an image for full instructions!