Dangerous Products and Food in Homes of The Victorians

Freaks In Food Consumption by Guy Elliott Mitchell

      Consumers the world over, and not alone in the United States, as has often been asserted by magazine writers, are very fastidious in their selection of articles of diet. Peculiar as it may seem, this selection is not made with the idea of procuring something which will please the palate or which is nutritious, but more with the regard to the effect upon the eye of the object sought. Sometimes, too, there is a hide-bound conception of how a certain food should be and nothing can break the public of this fancy. The Department of Agriculture, a year or so ago, found that the English people would not purchase a consignment of American sweet potatoes, the sole complaint being, that while the tubers were of good color and satisfactory in every other respect, there were sweet in taste. The English conception of how a potato ought to taste was certainly a compliment to Irishmen.

      Butter, an article of food supposed to be purchased for food reasons alone, depends largely upon its flavor and perhaps, still more upon its color as to its quality when it comes to purchased. With the fine fruit produced by horticulturists through modern means we find that attention has been paid more to the color and shape of the product even than to its quality. The most productive of blackberries, while large and beautiful, are, if anything, inferior in flavor to the wild ones found along the roadside. Red apples are the leading favorites of this sort of fruit. An instance of this is the Ben Davis, one of the best sellers and certainly the poorest eater.

Artificially Colored Meats

Victorian's took great pride in baking, purchasing
or consuming white breads, some of which had
very harmful additives like chalk, alum to
make them more appealing to the consumer.

      Meat dealers have found that corn beef, cured ham and some salt meats find a much more ready sale where, in the process of curing, some saltpeter has been added to impart a bright red color. Sausages and other forms of minced meat are frequently colored by analine dyes, as are also the wrappers of some sausage and ham. The obtain more ready sale in competition with uncolored goods. Porterhouse steak, the most expensive cut of beef is in high favor, whereas beef coming from the neck, equally as nutritious and as palatable, it is stated, if suitably prepared, sells as a much lower price.

      At this time of the year the high liver who goes to the swell hotels and restaurants and has a particular kind of game served him because it has a peculiar "gamey" flavor and tenderness, may not realize that such game has, by order of the steward, been retained in storage until it has become in reality partially decomposed. Its odor, if smelt before cooking, would prevent many people from eating it. Others do not know that when they boast about the "fine lamb" they are getting, the butcher is serving them with kid meat instead. Our people hold in high favor certain products with particular names attached to them. For instance, the amount of "Canada" lamb sold here is enormous. This word has the same magic effect upon lamb prices that the word "Philadelphia" has upon spring poultry or that of "Long Island" upon fresh eggs. The housewife, too, in many parts of the country has a strong preference for yellow-skinned chickens under the assumption that fat lies beneath the skin, although as a matter of fact chickens store very little fat next to the skin and the color is inherent-not derived from the fat. On the contrary, in some European countries there is a preference for the darker-skinned chickens. A curios preference, entirely unassociated with tastes, is the color of eggs. While in Boston brown eggs sell for a cent or two per dozen more than white eggs, the contrary is true in New York, and if one or two dirty eggs are visible the price is still lower. It is said that Chicago is indiscriminating in regard to the color of eggs, but that San Francisco prefers white ones.

 Eggs Colored With Coffee

Victorians frequently added Borax to milk in small
doses in order to remove the sour taste. Borax
contained boracic acid which was thought to be
harmless in tiny doses, however, it is highly toxic
 when consumed. Both the English and Americans
passed milk laws to prevent companies,
 merchants and farmers from adding boracic
acid to milk.

      In England, where brown eggs are the favorite, dealers go so far as to color the shells of white eggs with either strong coffee or some dye stuff. New York likes a white butter but Chicago and Philadelphia a little darker, while Washington demands a deep yellow butter, and New Orleans wants a color still darker than Washington. How far this question of color goes may be taken from a little instance in which a car-load of butter intended for Washington was sent on to New York, and the butter originally consigned to New York was sent to Washington. The receivers in both places remonstrated strongly, the one claiming the butter to be too dark and the other too light, and that no customer could be found for either. The matter was adjusted only through the reshipment of the consignments to the proper places.
      Consumers, of course, are appealed to in the selection of some foods through the quality of advertising given to a particular product. Instances of this are found among the enormous sale of breakfast and health foods that are so widely advertised in newspapers and magazines. Years ago oat meal was sold only by druggists and kept by them merely for the sick; indeed there was long a prejudice in England against oatmeal as food for human beings, although in Scotland it was the staple food. Even in our bread the consumer usually insists upon the pure snow-white bread that is robbed of the most nutritious element constituting the wheat grain.

Bleached-Out Oysters

Platt's Chlorides, The Odorless Disinfectant.
Look at the method of dispensing the chloride
 into the air in the advertisement's
illustration. Chloride is a toxic gas.

      Your elders now are complaining that they cannot get oysters with the same flavor as they used to years ago. Instead they seem to get a white tasteless bivalve. It is only made palatable through a drenching with vinegar, horseradish or some other seasoning. The reason for this is that while the oyster of to-day is the same as that of years ago, the dealer, in order to meet the consumer's desire for a "pretty" oyster, has allowed the bivalve in shell to remain for about twenty-four hours in fresh water before opening it, thus causing the white appearance.

      And so the gratification of taste in these modern days is of minor consideration; the city-bred people want something that appeals to the eye, and the dealer appreciates that in order to catch the fancy of a customer it is more important to place a product in a showy and convenient package, than it is to furnish a wholesome or well-flavored food.

• "Hidden Killers" an excellent documentary for those of you researching dangerous products produced for consumers prior to government mandates and courtroom battles.

Instantaneous gas heaters for heating the bath water were very popular
 among wealthy Victorians; many people died from burns until these
 became equipped with thermostats.

A modern laundry mangle (wringer) attached to the side of the washer.
Older versions were larger and unattached during the
Victorian era. Gears were often exposed and young children
would get their fingers caught in between the rollers.

Early plastics like celluloid were highly flammable and could
 spontaneously ignite around gas, heat or even cigars.