A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons

by Friedrich Christian Accum

This Treatise as its title expresses is intended to exhibit easy methods of detecting the fraudulent adulterations of food and of other articles classed either among the necessaries or luxuries of the table; and to put the unwary on their guard against the use of such commodities as are contaminated with substances deleterious to health.

Genres: History, Classics, Food

168 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1820

Reviews

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran across this book while pursuing the episodes on "Chemical Leavening" from "Jas. Townsend and Sons" YouTube channel, which is a series on 18th century Colonial cookery done by a professional historical re-enactor.* The book was a scandal at the time, documenting the adulteration of bread and various other foodstuffs (beer, etc), and also including practical chemical recipes on how to test them (Warning: Dangerous, etc).

It is a fascinating documentation of the politics and science of the time, the importance of bread, the practical chemical knowledge of educated citizens, and attitudes towards purity and diet. Far, far before Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle', Accum took it upon himself to document the potentially lethal consequences of dietary additives - and we're not talking just 'additives and preservatives' here, but substances like alum and chalk (calcium carbonate - still used in some bread actually).

The book was a raging scandal at the time, firing off a whole series of pamphlets and rejoinders, and it is well worth the time of anyone interested in food, popular history, or practical science to give it a read.

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* - Highly recommend the entire YouTube series; great practical recipes and cooking tips; of interest to history buffs, do-it-yourselfers and survivalists, as he goes into explicit detail on things like how to build a clay oven, preserve salt pork, etc.

[Heather dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting if you want to know the dangers of the past.

Also mentions how to do tests to see if water and food are contaminated with things like lead and copper using chemistry.

I would recommend reading up on the chemicals he says to use before using them. It's better to err on the side of caution.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🖍️ "THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT."

We tend to believe that in our current times, that these are the only years that manufacturers of food and growers of food alter our food supply by the time the items reach the shelves. In fact, altering foods is nothing new, as this book from 1820 shows. This book is different in that it talks about the ways food preparers and merchants altered food in the early nineteenth century in order to create phony or misleading food foods (like preparing faux champagne for consumption) —

Throughout this extensive book, examples show how breads, wines, beer, olive oil, et cetera are adulterated.

Finally, there is a section that speaks to the use of poisonous paints, that is, lead and copper added to children’s painted toys!

A list is provided with names of “Druggists and Grocers, prosecuted and convicted from 1812 to 1819, for supplying illegal Ingredients to Brewers for adulterating Beer.”

📙Published in 1820.

☞How I came across this book: The title was interesting.

જ⁀➴🟢The illustrated e-book version can be found at Project Gutenberg.
🟣 Kindle.
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✧⋆˚₊˚⋆✧ Excerpts of note:
Regarding wines:

🔹Alum is added to young and meagre red wines, for the purpose of brightening their colour; that Brazil wood, or the husks of elderberries and bilberries, are employed to impart a deep rich purple tint to red Port of a pale, faint colour; that gypsum is used to render cloudy white wines transparent; that an additional astringency is imparted to immature red wines by means of oak-wood sawdust, and the husks of filberts; and that a mixture of spoiled foreign and home-made wines is converted into the wretched compound frequently sold in this town by the name of genuine old Port.

Beer:

🔸Quassia, which gives to beer a bitter taste, is substituted for hops; but hops possesses a more agreeable aromatic flavour, and there is also reason to believe that they render beer less liable to spoil by keeping;

🔹To increase the intoxicating quality of beer, the deleterious vegetable substance, called cocculus indicus, and the extract of this poisonous berry, technically called black extract, or, by some, hard multum, are employed. Opium, tobacco, nux vomica, and extract of poppies, have also been used.

Pepper:

🔸Ground pepper is very often sophisticated by adding to a portion of genuine pepper, a quantity of pepper dust, or the sweepings from the pepper warehouses, mixed with a little Cayenne pepper. The sweepings are known, and purchased in the market, under the name of P. D. signifying pepper dust. An inferior sort of this vile refuse, or the sweepings of P. D. is distinguished among venders by the abbreviation of D. P. D. denoting, dust (dirt) of pepper dust.

Vinegar:

🔹Vinegar is sometimes largely adulterated with sulphuric acid, to give it more acidity.

Lead in paint:

🔸When we consider the various unsuspected means by which the poisons of lead and copper gain admittance into the human body, a very common but dangerous instance presents itself: namely, the practice of painting toys, made for the amusement of children, with poisonous substances, viz. red lead, verdigris, &c. Children are apt to put every thing, especially what gives them pleasure, into their mouths; the painting of toys with colouring substances that are poisonous, ought therefore to be abolished; a practice which lies the more open to censure, as it is of no real utility.

[Ruchika Pahwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

All health-conscious people must read this book. It's highly informative as far as the coverage of food adulteration goes. You can find a well-put-together version of foods that are commonly adulterated, the way they are adulterated, and the tests that are done to detect adulteration in them. Awareness is protection to some extent. Grab this precious knowledge!

[Nicole C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the title explains, this book regards adulterations of food in the late 19th century. I have to wonder who the audience for this book was, as the tests he encourages the readers to do upon the foods in question would require materials that were not in the average household in this time period (or really, any time period). At any rate, reading this book makes me wonder how people lived long enough to procreate, considering all the poisons they were ingesting on a daily basis.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised there wasn't more on olive oil.