You read that headline right. In fact, the average 1950s Australian housewife probably spent more time on chores in one day than you do all week.

Before modern feminism — and without house robots to do dishes, wash laundry or cook food by zapping it with microwaves — a typical 1950s housewife did up to 15 times the amount of housework Australians do today.

The numbers are among information collected by researchers working on ABC TV reality series Back In Time For Dinner.

A typical Australian woman now spends between five and 14 hours per week on chores, according to the most recent census. (Men, on the other hand, spend less than five.)

The show's researchers found a 1953 Australian Women's Weekly article calculating one typical housewife, Mrs R Partridge of Pymble, NSW, did 77.5 hours of housework per week.

It notes the different skills required of a housewife, and estimates that were Mrs Partridge to be paid standard rates for her work she would receive £1400 per year.

Researcher Georgia McCarthy interviewed Judith Mulvaney, who was a housewife in the 1950s, noting her duties for a typical day. After cooking eggs and bacon for her husband, she washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.

Once this was complete Judy would begin processing the washing, which would ordinarily take around two to three hours. Washing machines weren't a common appliance in the 50s, so cleaning clothes involved boiling water in the copper, soaking dirty clothing in washing powder, scrubbing, wringing them out, and hanging them on the outside washing line to dry.

Then, she went to the shops to buy fresh food for dinner.

Fridges are cool

Museum Victoria holds in its collection a 1957 Colda refrigerator.

Appliances like this Colda electric refrigerator revolutionised the 1950s kitchen. ( Museums Victoria )

The fridge, according to Senior Curator Fiona Kinsey, was loved by the suburban Melbourne family who donated it.

"It was a really reliable appliance for them, and I think probably changed their lives."

Until the mid-fifties, most Australian households didn't have a fridge.

Milk was delivered daily, but having fresh meat and vegetables required a trip to the butcher's and greengrocers every second day at the very least.

This meant less choice and few snacks - the only food available was what the woman had bought for the day's meals.

The researchers for the show compiled a book's worth of recipes for the series, including 1950s favourites such as liver sausage pineapple, and tripe baked in milk.

Recipe: Tripe baked in milk Ingredients: One lb tripe, juice of one lemon, three sliced carrots, one sliced onion, two cloves, thyme, two rashers of bacon, pepper and salt to taste, two cups of milk. Method: Cut tripe into small pieces. Simmer in hot water with lemon juice for half an hour. Place the sliced carrots, onion cloves, thyme in the bottom of a pie dish. Add the bacon pepper, salt, and milk. Place tripe on top. Add milk to cover, and bake slowly for two hours. Thicken with flour. Serve hot with toast. Submitted to the Courier-Mail newspaper in 1950 by Mrs R. Mirre of Toowong, QLD.

Sent back, to the future

Back In Time For Dinner features the Ferrones, a modern suburban Sydney family of self-described foodies.

"We had sushi burgers last night for dinner," Carol Ferrone, the mother of the family, said on Monday.

For the show, the Ferrones lived each day as if in a new year, starting in 1950 and ending in the future.

The first episode sees them arrive home to find their house remodelled to 1950s style, complete with walls dissecting their open plan living space and a remodelled lounge room with a record player/radio combo in place of the television.

Carol is sent to the kitchen, where she estimates she spent four fifths of her 10 days in the 1950s.

"I did ten hours straight of housework and manual labour, which I'm not used to," she said.

"It was frustrating and upsetting for me basically losing my freedom, because that's what I felt like."

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With no fridge and no automatic washing machine, most of Carol's time was spent in the combined kitchen/laundry where she washed clothes, cleaned and cooked.

"Everything was so manual," she said.

"I have a toaster that does its own thing, now ... you press a button and it pops up when it's ready.

"In the 50s you had to stand and wait for the toaster otherwise you burnt the toast."

She said the modern appliance she missed most was her metre-wide, self-cleaning oven.

Still, in the series she lucks out with an electric stove with oven — many 1950s households were still cooking on kerosene.

Kerosene stoves like this were still in use in the 1950s. ( Museums Victoria )

"By 1955, 80 per cent of Australian homes were wired for electricity but in Victoria only 24 per cent of them had large electric appliances like stoves," Ms Kinsey said.

"It was a period when there was increasing economic prosperity and a lot of population growth.

"I think certainly by the end of the 50s that dream of owning all of your fancy appliances in your kitchen and laundry was perhaps becoming more of a reality, but at this [early] period in time it was still a bit of a struggle for many families."

A load of tripe

Tripe was still a household favourite in the early 1950s (families had got a taste for offal during wartime meat rationing), and is the first meal we see Carol cook for her family.

In 1950 butter was still rationed so the toast is served with dripping (leftover fat from the Sunday roast).

The meal reduces her youngest daughter Olivia to tears, but hers is not the only crying in the episode.

Later in the week, while delivering husband Peter his dinner, Carol finally cracks.

Looking back on her reasons for doing so, Carol said it was more than just the demands of toiling alone in the kitchen.

"The hardest things for me would have to be the lack of choice," she said.

"That was your life. You've got married and you looked after your house, your home, your kids."

Back In Time For Dinner premieres Tuesday, May 29 on ABC TV and iview.