Food regulations from Pleiestiftelsen Hospital, 1881 

Food regulations or weekly dietary lists were the norm at many institutions in Bergen. Food was served according to a fixed system, the same dishes week after week. One week after moving in, residents would know what would be on the menu for the rest of their stay.

This was the menu at Pleiestiftelsen in 1881:
Sunday and Thursday: Meat Soup with bread
Monday: Salted herring, potatoes and bread, and gruel
Tuesday and Friday: Rumford’s soup with bread
Wednesday: Fish with potatoes and sauce, and milk gruel
Saturday: Fish with potatoes and sauce, as well as milk soup

The food regulations carefully specified amounts by weight and volume for all meals. Everyone received the same amount, regardless of age, gender and whether they were able to work and were active or not, which provoked reactions from the residents. Even in the first annual report from Pleiestiftelsen Hospital, there are reference to complaints from patients, but they are more or less dismissed as misunderstandings, the result of the transition from life at home ‘where the diet is more adapted to volume than to real nutritional value’.

For those living monotonous lives at the institution without much to look forward to, the food must have been very important. The food regulations set out that people could receive extra provisions, but the reverse was also the case. Bad behaviour and minor offences were punished by the sick being ‘deprived of part of their diet’. One of the last residents recounts in an interview what they referred to as ‘grey soup’, which some people were given for all their meals for a period, to encourage better thoughts.

Photos: Bergen City Museum.