Mostly water: an 1849 recipe for 'famine soup'

Famine memorial in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Image: First Daffodils

Just what did people eat during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s? 

During the famine, government-run 'workhouses' provided accommodation and food for the destitute, in return for labour. All 130 had been overflowing since the end of 1846.

But the food was scarce inside the workhouse, too. This recipe, recorded in an 1849 letter and reported on the Waterford County Museum website, was designed to feed over 800 people – each of which would receive a pint containing 87g (3oz) of solid food.

• 92 gallons of water 
  
• 69 lbs of flour 
  
• 2½ stone of parsnips 
  
• 2½ stone of turnips 
  
• 7 lbs. of beet 
  
• 7 lbs. of onions 
  
• 14 ounces of pepper 
  
• 7½ lbs. of salt 
  

Hat-tip to the Famine Commemoration Kilrush 2013, who posted the recipe on their Facebook page last night.