Mardler February 2019 JS

Local History
The list of poisonous additives makes your hair stand on end
(or fall out!). Strychnine, cocculus indicus (both are
hallucinogens) and copperas (green ferrous sulphate) were
added to rum and beer; sulphate of copper put in pickles,
bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard
and snuff; sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric
ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and turmeric in Chinese tea;
copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bisulphate of mercury, and
Venetian lead (white lead mixed with vinegar) in sugar
confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine and cider; all were
extensively used and were cumulative in effect, resulting, over
a long period, in chronic gastritis and sometimes in fatal food
poisoning. Red lead gave Gloucester cheese its 'healthy' red
hue, flour and arrowroot a rich thickness to cream, and tea
leaves stolen from the bins of the rich were 'dried, dyed, and
recycled again.' As late as 1877 the Local Government Board
found that approximately a quarter of the milk and ten per cent
of all the butter it examined contained excess water, or chalk,
over 8% of the bread had alum or chalk, and 50% of the gin
had copper in it to give it colour.
Meat had to look good and smell right, but it could easily be
contaminated by poor hygiene during butchery, if it were not
already diseased in life. In 1862 the government declared that
one-fifth of butcher's meat in England and Wales came from
animals that were 'considerably diseased' or had died of
pleuro-pneumonia, and other nasty diseases.
Victorians ate a lot of meat, and not one single part of the
animal was wasted, with the animal divided in terms of
cuts and their tenderness. The upper classes bought
large joints, the bigger the better, for their three meals
per day, each of which were based around meat. Bones
were bought to flavour soups, and less meaty and less
tender cuts were sold to the poor including salted fat for
23