Food & Drink History: {Opinion} Be Careful What You Wish For...

As you may be aware, many food writers, bloggers, tweeters and other so called food/nutrition/wellness 'experts' tend to annoy me.

But what's really galled me in recent days are those who say we need to eat 'what our grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents ate...' 

If we think that food wasn't 'processed' or was 'additive-free' (their words) back in these halcyon good-old-days we would do well to read a little more history and give our 'like' thumbs a rest. There seems to be a body of people who think that everyone baked their own bread, made their own drink and grew their own food back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, or bought everything from some wholesome local market or guano-fed local farm, but looking back through any newspaper from that time will quickly highlight the issues that existed with food and drink poisoning or other contamination, and just how unsafe eating or drinking could be back then. We only need to think back at the plethora of chemicals available in the last century to know this - for example we used mercury-based products to prevent clubroot in brassicas, also, DDT anyone?

We can debate until be are blue in the face about whether these or any of the batch of still available controls are absorbed into our bodies but the fact remains that there was less science-based knowledge, testing and understanding back in the last couple of centuries than there is now. Sure some people grew more vegetables themselves but not everyone did, could or even wanted to. And yes, I'm being purposely selective and controversial with my points but then again so do those who spout food related nonsense...

Here's an article that appeared in an old local paper, which talks of issues in England but I'm sure that the same sentiment would/could have been applied to Ireland too.

Commercial Honesty in England

A writer, who made no small noise in the world among a certain class of individuals, wrote a book entitled “What to Eat, Drink, and Avoid.” If he were alive now, perhaps he might tell us how to avoid these things, recommend for daily food, which area adulterated, and that to a shameful extent. Unfortunately, the public generally are not up to snuff; it is only the practical chemist who can throw a light upon the matter, and show that we swallow slow poison daily, while we hug ourselves with an assurance, that by going to the best market things may be purchased “pure and adulterated.” Alas! Human weakness leads us to strange conclusions. It is not the tradesman making the greatest show who are the most honest. Allured by the greed of gain, he discovers that honesty in business is but a name, and that unless he acts like his neighbours, in his defence, he must shut up shop, or walk through the Bankruptcy or Insolvent Debtors’ Court, to throw off his liabilities.

Modern science, aided by the alembic of the chemist, has evolved many hidden mysteries, which, in some shape or other, have brought to bear upon the food we eat, in clothes we wear, and the liquid we drink. Our forefathers drank their nut-brown ale, brewed from malt and hops; they ate bread made from good wheaten flour, regardless of its whiteness; and tossed off wine that had not been flavoured, or sham age given to it by the brewers’ druggist. All things are altered in this respect for the worse. People must have their appetites tickled. Your English sausage is too common for the table. Nothing short of real German will do now-a-days, and the newer the importation the better. Perhaps, instead of coming from Germany, it may have been manufactured in Cow-cross, the knacker’s yard contributing greatly to the stuffing department; or some superannuated cow, that had been killed to save it dying a natural death, may have furnished the material; but no matter, the sausage is German, and German sausages must be good, because it is sold at a heavy price. Has no one ever experienced a fullness of the stomach accompanied with dyspepsia, without asking himself the cause? Of course, it was not the German sausage, made of well seasoned offal, like Goldner’s preserved meat. They cannot account for it. The gentleman who drank three bottles of wine after dinner and found himself the next day unwell, laid the fault to eating those “cursed potatoes.” It was not the wine, for his friend never introduced wine that would give any man the head-ache, or cause him to fall under the table in a state of giddiness; and so with those who devour sausage – they fly to something else as an excuse for their illness. 

Some people snub what is called “second bread,” because it is not so white as the loaf of the first quality. Perhaps they do not know that the chemist has taught the baker how to bleach his flour with alum and other ingredients. They may not know that he has the power to make a very white loaf out of the cheapest materials; but such is the case, and the baker who can make the whitest loaf at the cheapest price will out-distance all his competitors. 

The beer we drink is made intoxicating by the druggist’s aid; malt and hops are very well in their way, but, notwithstanding the aid of these, the beer wants body; a fullness is required to be given to it, and Messrs. Strychnine, Cocolus Indicus, and Quassia, are called in to aid the process of the mash-tub. Wine is snubbed if it present no bead, and therefore what is done to make it sparkling and beady? Mr. Arsenic is ready with his recipe to give it the required advantages. Gin, the most adulterated of all liquor, is flavoured, and made strong or rendered weak by the aid of modern discovery. 

You think you use pure colonial sugar, whereas one-half of it is adulterated with sugar manufactured from potatoes, at three half-pence a pound. As to coffee, it is compounded of chicory, horse beans, horses’ liver, and other delicacies. Your milk and cream are manufactured of bruised sheep’s brains, with sugar of lead, and other choice things from the laboratory. The young Raleighs of the day plume themselves upon being able to detect a “prime Havannah” from a sham one, little dreaming that, with the exception of the outward coating (we speak of English manufactured cigars), there is not a particle of tobacco in their composition. If a sceptic doubt what we say, he may see, in the eastern warehouse of the Customhouse, plenty of the imitation of leaf tobacco, which the authorities have seized. 

We talk of the “cup which cheers, but not inebriates,” and buy the finest green tea, brought to that state by Prussian blue, copper, and other deleterious ingredients. The nerves get unstrung, and the hands become shaky from drinking gin; and they would be shaky if the beverage of a person were green tea. There is not a thing we eat but what is adulterated or doctored in some shape or other; there is not a thing we drink but contains slow poison. Your best Witney blankets are half yarn; the gold chain you so much delight in is nothing but lacquered copper; in fact, cheating and humbug extend over every business and profession. Londoners area surfeited with drugs of one description or another. They attribute half their ailments to a want of pure air; and, in the hope of improving their health, retreat to Bleak House, Thacheray Villa, or Gothic Cottage, in the suburbs of the metropolis. Pure air is now the panacea for all conceivable ills. It is time we learned “What to Eat, Drink, and Avoid” - Dispatch

via The Carlow Post 1854

(Paragraphs added by me to aid reading - original text below)

This is from 1854 ... but ironically with a few changes to the language and examples it could have been written today and posted up on a number of food-scarer's websites. Whole paragraphs could be lifted and used by some of the confusion/fear merchants that ply their trade in the nod-along, retweet, repost social media society we now live in. After all, doesn't it sound like some of the food snobs that spout their half-baked (Hah!) opinions on social media and now also in too many mainstream publications?

Even taking the side that the above writer was just some crackpot and food contamination wasn't in reality an issue, then doesn't that play into my personal belief that some of these modern food-gurus are crackpots too?  Either way it tells a tale...

[The part about the German sausages put a wry smile on my face because we now think something similar regarding local ones, and given my distrust of promoting overpriced, local-for-local-sake products with no oversight or accountability it struck a chord.

 '...but no matter, the sausage is German local, and German local sausages must be good, because it is sold at a heavy price...'

(But don't get me started on local and the word 'cheap' again, I got enough abuse last time.)]

Next time someone says that they wish they could eat like they did back in their ancestors time show them this, and tell them to read more, question everything (yes, even this post) and - ironically I know - believe less of what you see on your screens.

It's time we looked at how we eat and drink as much as what we consume, perhaps even more so in my opinion. I'd never claim to be an expert on anything, but I do question and research as much as I can about the subjects I write about.

I take everything with a pinch of salt...

... although apparently we can't do than anymore, unless it's some kind of special salt of course!

Liam

(With the usual thanks to my local library.)