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I recently found an old recipe dating from (we think) the mid 19th century. It states to, "grate a stale tuppenny loaf".
How much is that? Pounds, ounces, kilograms -- I haven't been able to find a weight that I can use, and none of my older relatives know.
Location could be Cornwall, but that's based purely on where my family came from, rather than any knowledge or certainty
Does anybody on here know?
Depends when.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale
The price directly related to the cost of the wheat so would have fluctuated over time, and even where the bread was sold.
There were also several types of loaf. I think this would typically refer to white bread, the most expensive.
This is from 1765 in London
I'd say around 'one pound', but it's massively variable and not really answerable without much more context.
Assuming that a ‘two penny loaf’ is the same as a ‘tuppenny loaf’, it likely depends on the time and place, for example, in Dartford Prison in 1788 it was 19 ounces:
allowance, a two penny loaf a day (weight 19 ounces) Source
But in 1774 at Norwich Castle county gaol it had been 20 ounces (source).
In April 1766 the ‘Assize of Bread in and throughout the County of Leicester’ a two penny wheaten loaf was set down as 1lb 5oz, or 21 oz. (source)
Shrinkflation isn’t new.
In the children’s game of leapfrog, according to wiktionary, to ‘tuck in your tuppenny’ is to tuck in your head ‘perhaps named from a tuppenny loaf’. From which we might assume that a tuppenny loaf is head-sized, or child’s head sized, or that it was a rhyming slang for ‘tuppenny bread’ rather than loaf.
In 1728, according to Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife it was the amount of bread upon which, thinly sliced, you might spread a pound of butter. (Source)
So somewhere just over half a kilo or about the size of a head, depending.
