A 1901 Home Economics Book Brings It "Back To The Future"

STUFFING FILLER AND GUNK IN OUR FOOD HAS A LONG HISTORY - A 1901 HOME ECONOMICS BOOK BRINGS IT "BACK TO THE FUTURE"

POLLUTING OURSELVES FOR CENTURIES ON ACCOUNT OF OLD FASHIONED GREED

     When I was fourteen or possibly a little older, there was some report on the television news, that was made as a public advisory, that the same ingredient used for embalming bodies, by the local undertaker, was being used in the process of baking bread, to give it a longer shelf life. I stopped eating bread for a year, until it was clarified to my satisfaction, that if I ate toast every day, I would one day succeed in fully embalming myself.
     In the movie, "The Great Outdoors," Uncle Roman, (played by actor / comedian Dan Ackroyd) if you recall, refers to the contents of hot dogs as being "lips and a--holes," which is repeated a few moments later, when the raccoons, talking amongst themselves, are pulling uneaten weiners out of the garbage pails, stored outside the cottage. Let's face it, hot dogs are seldom given a fair shake, if there is indeed a fair shake to be given. I've heard and read in the past, that additives to breakfast cereals could cause cancer, and that knowing what went into a sausage would kill you, via fright, before the actual adulteration hurt you. Rumours get a lot of traction these days, when some of the claims that have become well entrenched over the past century, are being proven as true. The human DNA found in some products tested isn't sitting well with a lot of us, especially the vegetarians out there, who had no idea there was a little meat in the mix afterall. I can remember hearing other stories, about sawdust being used to bulk-up hamburger in Germany, during the height of the Second World War. I guess the point is, somebody out there knows for sure, just what's going into the blender, along with the main ingredient as will be listed on the product label. Considering this kind of adulteration has been happening since forever, it shouldn't be any surprise then, to read about it in the pages of antiquity.
     Well, 114 years after Smiley's Cookbook, offered some good advice about the "then" processed food, our ancestors were consuming, it seems we've now, all these years later, upped the ante, and continue our merry way, to take risks with public health to make a buck. If you didn't catch part one of this two part series, regarding the text of a 1901, post Victorian era advisory, about the potential dangers of adulterated foods and ingredients, from pepper, sugar, cream of tartar, to pickles and the vinegar used to preserve them, you can archive back to yesterday's blog. How would you like a pinch of "brick dust," in your cayenne pepper? Lead in the contents of your canned goods? There's more. So let's get to it!
      Let's start with the adulteration of butter, circa 1901. "Cheap butters consist largely of the admixture of other animal fate. (I don't like this reference at all) Analysis of suspected butter can hardly be undertaken by the ordinary housewife, but the presence of butterine is probable if the butter breaks in a crumbly manner, and loses its color on being kept melted for a short time at the temperature of boiling water (212F). A preparation called 'black pepsin,' and some other nostrums, have been sold for increasing the amount of butter produced from a given quantity of milk. Their effect is to combine or emulsify the butter fat, casein, and milk sugar or lactose, together with a large percentage of water. The compound thus produced is not pure butter, and will not keep as well, but its use is not deleterious at all. To detect it, put some of the suspected (product), and an equal amount of genuine butter in two different test tubes or glasses, and melt both with gentle heat; while in one of these compounds nearly half the whole mass will appear at the bottom as water, curd, etc. So large a percentage is water that it is of course much less nutritious than genuine butter. From eight percent to fifteen percent of water appears in genuine butter, while from thirty to fifty percent is water in these compounds.
     "Milk - Adulteration of this consists chiefly in adding water to skim milk, and in mixing skim milk with that sold as new. Analysis is possible only to a skilled chemist, but a rough test is possible at home. For new milk a capital test is to pour a small quantity into an ordinary glass test tube, graduated from 0 at the top to 100 at the bottom. On allowing the sample to stand 20 hours cream will form, and its proportion can be read-off at a glance. A simple, rude test, is to dip a well polished knitting needle into a deep vessel of milk, and quickly withdraw it in an upright position. If the milk is pure a drop will hang to the needle, but the least addition of water will prevent the adhesion of the drop. Herr Szilasi proposes a new test. Put 20 drops of sulphate of diphenylamine in a small procelain vessel, and add a few drops of the milk to be tested. If even five percent of average well water is present, a blue tinge will soon distinctly appear. The test depends on the fact that nearly all well water contains some nitrate, which will cause a blue tinge in sulphate of diphenylamine; if adulterated with perfectly pure water this test would be valueless, but that is rarely done. Sulphate of diphenylamine is cheap and easily obtained of druggists. Dextrin is occasionally added to milk. To detect it add a little solution of iodine; if the least dextrin is present the milk will be tinged red. Exaggerated statements are sometimes made about the addition of chalk, gypsum, gum arabic etc. to milk. This is rarely done, and as these substances are insoluble and soon settle, it would be a stupid customer who did not soon detect their presence.
     "As a precaution against diseased milk, it is advisable to heat all milk to 160 degrees to 175 F., keeping it at that heat for about twenty minutes before being used, as that is fatal to all disease germs, and that is better than boiling it, as boiled milk is not so digestible or palatable as fresh milk. The public health is really more endangered by milk from diseased or improperly fed cows than by anything added to it, unless it is water from a foul well." Keep in mind, the date of Smiley's advisory, is 1901, before mandatory pasteurization was introduced, to guarantee the public's safety.
      "Lard - This is occasionally adulterated with alum and lime water to improve its color and add to its weight, and frequently with stearine and cotton seed oil. The latter is a perfectly healthful food, and for some cooking purposes is better than lard, but these mixed products should be sold for just what they are, and not palmed off as pure lard. The methods of analysis are not adapted to the housewife's use.
     "Sausage - The principal adulterations in this are a red coloring matter (fushsin) added to color-up the poorer meat; meal, used to give it more bulk and so add to the profit; and borax and salicylic acid, used to check decomposition. The tests are not adapted for domestic use.
     "Honey - This is adulterated with glucose and cane sugar. It is hard to get it pure. To test the comb, apply a little sulphuric acid; that will turn beeswax black, but will not affect paraffine, with which the artificial combs are made. There will be some pollen grains in pure honey, and none in artificial.
     "Confectionary - This is adulterated with aniline dyes, chrome yellow, fusel oil, tartaric acid, arsenic, terra alum, (white earth), and glucose, but it is not so extensively adulterated as many other articles, or as many people imagine.
     "Other adulterations - Among the other articles commonly adulterated are the following: Arrowroot, with other starches. Sago, with potato starch. Horse radish with turnips. Isinglass, with gelatine. Cloves with arrowroot. Ginger with turmeric, mustard and cayenne pepper. Cinnamon, with spent bark. Pimento, with ship-bread. Mustard, with yellow lake, flour, turmeric, and cayenne pepper, rarely found pure. The most practical way to obtain pure spices is to buy them in the unground state - it is almost the only way with some of them.
     "Conclusion - Many of the above adulterations are not injurious to the health, but they all reduce the strength and value of the article adulterated, and are a fraud on the purchaser. The presence of these adulterations is easily detected by the scientific analyst, but not readily by the average housewife. The extent to which adulterations are carried is little understood by the mass of the people. An official text of vinegars made in the state of New Jersey, showed that, out of 12 samples analyzed, 11 were adulterated, and only one was pure. Similar tests of spices and other articles has revealed that from twenty-five to eighty and ninety percent of the samples examined were adulterated. Stringent laws are needed to check this evil, as individual action can not cope with it."
     It all makes for a much bigger bazinga moment, when we use the all encompassing reference, "You are what you eat." I can't help thinking about what Uncle Roman said, in that movie with John Candy. I love hot dogs. What have I done to myself for all these years. I thought giving up booze and never smoking was going to give me a long and healthy life. On the other hand, seeing as I'm in good health, maybe lips and a--holes are better for us than anecdote suggests.