manufactured the cheese: he declared that he had bought the anotta of a
mercantile traveller, who had supplied him and his neighbours for years
with that commodity, without giving occasion to a single complaint. On
subsequent inquiries, through a circuitous channel, unnecessary to be
detailed here at length, on the part of the manufacturer of the cheese,
it was found, that as the supplies of anotta had been defective and of
inferior quality, recourse had been had to the expedient of colouring
the commodity with vermilion. Even this admixture could not be
considered deleterious. But on further application being made to the
druggist who sold the article, the answer was, that the vermilion had
been mixed with a portion of red lead; and the deception was held to be
perfectly innocent, as frequently practised on the supposition, that
the vermilion would be used only as a pigment for house-painting. Thus
the druggist sold his vermilion in the regular way of trade, adulterated
with red lead to increase his profit, without any suspicion of the use
to which it would be applied; and the purchaser who adulterated the
anotta, presuming that the vermilion was genuine, had no hesitation in
heightening the colour of his spurious anotta with so harmless an
adjunct. Thus, through the circuitous and diversified operations of
commerce, a portion of deadly poison may find admission into the
necessaries of life, in a way which can attach no criminality to the
parties through whose hands it has successively passed."
This dangerous sophistication may be detected by macerating a portion of
the suspected cheese in water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen,
acidulated with muriatic acid; which will instantly cause the cheese to
assume a brown or black colour, if the minutest portion of lead be
present.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] Repository of Arts, vol. viii. No. 47, p. 262.
_Counterfeit Pepper._
Black pepper is the fruit of a shrubby creeping plant, which grows wild
in the East Indies, and is cultivated, with much advantage, for the sake
of its berries, in Java and Malabar. The berries are gathered before
they are ripe, and are dried in the sun. They become black and
corrugated on the surface.
This factitious pepper-corns have of late been detected mixed with
genuine pepper, is a fact sufficiently known.[104] Such an adulteration
may prove, in many instances of household economy, exceedingly vexatious
and prejudicial to those who ignorantly make use of the spurious
article. I have examined large packages of both black and white pepper,
by order of the Excise, and have found them to contain about 16 per
cent. of this artificial compound. The spurious pepper is made up of
oil cakes (the residue of lintseed, from which the oil has been
pressed,) common clay, and a portion of Cayenne pepper, formed in a
mass, and granulated by being first pressed through a sieve, and then
rolled in a cask. The mode of detecting the fraud is easy. It is only
necessary to throw a sample of the suspected pepper into a bowl of
water; the artificial pepper-corns fall to powder, whilst the true
pepper remains whole.
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.
The adulteration of pepper, and the making and selling commodities in
imitation of pepper, are prohibited, under a severe penalty. The
following are the words of the Act:[105]
"And whereas commodities made in imitation of pepper have of late been
sold and found in the possession of various dealers in pepper, and other
persons in Great Britain; be it therefore enacted, that from and after
the said 5th day of July, 1819, if any commodity or substance shall be
prepared by any person in imitation of pepper, shall be mixed with
pepper, or sold or delivered as and for, or as a substitute for, pepper,
or if any such commodity or substance, alone or mixed, shall be kept for
sale, sold, or delivered, or shall be offered or exposed to sale, or
shall be in the custody or possession of any dealer or seller of pepper,
the same, together with all pepper with which the same shall be mixed,
shall be forfeited, with the packages containing the same, and shall and
may be seized by any officer of excise; and the person preparing,
manufacturing, mixing as aforesaid, selling, exposing to sale, or
delivering the same, or having the same in his, her, or their custody or
possession, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds."
WHITE PEPPER.
The common white pepper is factitious, being prepared from the black
pepper in the following manner:--The pepper is first steeped in sea
water and urine, and then exposed to the heat of the sun for several
days, till the rind or outer bark loosens; it is then taken out of the
steep, and, when dry, it is rubbed with the hand till the rind falls
off. The white fruit is then dried, and the remains of the rind blown
away like chaff. A great deal of the peculiar flavour and pungent hot
taste of the pepper is taken off by this process. White pepper is always
inferior in flavour and quality to the black pepper.
However, there is a sort of native white pepper, produced on a species
of the pepper plant, which is much better than the factitious, and
indeed little inferior to the common black pepper.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] Thomson's Annals of Chemistry, 1816; also Repository of Arts, vol.
i. 1816, p. 11.
[105] George III. c. 53, § 21, 1819.
_Poisonous Cayenne Pepper._
Cayenne pepper is an indiscriminate mixture of the powder of the dried
pods of many species of capsicum, but especially of the capsicum
frutescens, or bird pepper, which is the hottest of all.
This annual plant, a native of South America, is cultivated in large
quantities in our West-India islands, and even frequently in our
gardens, for the beauty of its pods, which are long, pointed, and
pendulous, at first of a green colour, and, when ripe, of a bright
orange red. They are filled with a dry loose pulp, and contain many
small, flat, kidney-shaped seeds. The taste of capsicum is extremely
pungent and acrimonious, setting the mouth, as it were, on fire.
The principle on which its pungency depends, is soluble in water and in
alcohol.
It is sometimes adulterated with red lead, to prevent it becoming
bleached on exposure to light. This fraud may be readily detected by
shaking up part of it in a stopped vial containing water impregnated
with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, which will cause it speedily to assume a
dark muddy black colour. Or the vegetable matter of the pepper may be
destroyed, by throwing a mixture of one part of the suspected pepper and
three of nitrate of potash (or two of chlorate of potash) into a red-hot
crucible, in small quantities at a time. The mass left behind may then
be digested in weak nitric acid, and the solution assayed for lead by
water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen.
_Poisonous Pickles._
Vegetable substances, preserved in the state called pickles, by means of
the antiseptic power of vinegar, whose sale frequently depends greatly
upon a fine lively green colour; and the consumption of which, by
sea-faring people in particular, is prodigious, are sometimes
intentionally coloured by means of copper. Gerkins, French beans,
samphires, the green pods of capsicum, and many other pickled vegetable
substances, oftener than is perhaps expected, are met with impregnated
with this metal. Numerous fatal consequences are known to have ensued
from the use of these stimulants of the palate, to which the fresh and
pleasing hue has been imparted according to the deadly _formulæ_ laid
down in some modern cookery books, such as boiling the pickles with
half-pence, or suffering them to stand for a considerable period in
brazen vessels.
Dr. Percival[106] has given an account of "a young lady who amused
herself, while her hair was dressing, with eating samphire pickles
impregnated with copper. She soon complained of pain in the stomach;
and, in five days, vomiting commenced, which was incessant for two days.
After this, her stomach became prodigiously distended; and, in nine days
after eating the pickles, death relieved her from her suffering."
Among many recipes which modern authors of cookery books have given for
imparting a green colour to pickles, the following are particularly
deserving of censure; and it is to be hoped that they will be suppressed
in future editions of the works.
"_To Pickle Gerkins._[107]--"Boil the vinegar in a bell-metal or copper
pot; pour it boiling hot on your cucumbers."
"_To make greening._[108]--"Take a bit of verdigris, the bigness of a
hazel-nut, finely powdered; half-a-pint of distilled vinegar, and a bit
of alum powder, with a little bay salt. Put all in a bottle, shake it,
and let it stand till clear. Put a small tea-spoonful into codlings, or
whatever you wish to green."
Mrs. E. Raffald[109] directs, "to render pickles green, boil them with
halfpence, or allow them to stand for twenty-four hours in copper or
brass pans."
To detect the presence of copper, it is only necessary to mince the
pickles, and to pour liquid ammonia, diluted with an equal bulk of
water, over them in a stopped phial: if the pickles contain the minutest
quantity of copper, the ammonia assumes a blue colour.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] Medical Transactions, vol. iv. p. 80.
[107] The Ladies' Library, vol. ii. p. 203.
[108] Modern Cookery, or the English Housewife--2d edition, p. 94.
[109] The English Housekeeper, p. 352, 354.
_Adulteration of Vinegar._
Vinegar, as prepared in this country, from malt, should be of a pale
brown colour, perfectly transparent, of a pleasant, somewhat pungent,
acid taste, and fragrant odour, but without any acrimony. From the
mucilaginous impurities which malt vinegar always contains, it is apt,
on exposure to air, to become turbid and ropy, and at last vapid. The
inconvenience is best obviated by keeping the vinegar in bottles
completely filled and well corked; and it is of advantage to boil it in
the bottles a few minutes before they are corked.
Vinegar is sometimes largely adulterated with sulphuric acid, to give it
more acidity. The presence of this acid is detected, if, on the addition
of a solution of acetate of barytes, a white precipitate is formed,
which is insoluble in nitric acid, after having been made red-hot in the
fire. (See p. 159.) With the same intention, of making the vinegar
appear stronger, different acrid vegetable substances are infused in it.
This fraud is difficult of detection; but when tasted with attention,
the pungency of such vinegar will be found to depend rather on acrimony
than acidity.
Distilled vinegar, which is employed for various purposes of domestic
economy, is frequently distilled, not in glass, as it ought to be, but
in common stills with a pewter pipe, whence it cannot fail to acquire a
metallic impregnation.
One ounce, by measure, should dissolve at least thirteen grains of white
marble.
It should not form a precipitate on the addition of a solution of
acetate of barytes, or of water saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen.
The former circumstance shews, that it is adulterated with sulphuric
acid; and the latter indicates a metal.
The metallic impregnation is best rendered obvious by sulphuretted
hydrogen, in the manner stated, page 69. The distilled vinegar of
commerce usually contains tin, and not lead, as has been asserted.
_Adulteration of Cream._
Cream is often adulterated with rice powder or arrow root. The former is
frequently employed for that purpose by pastry cooks, in fabricating
creams and custards, for tarts, and other kinds of pastry. The latter is
often used in the London dairies. Arrow-root is preferable to rice
powder; for, when converted with milk into a thick mucilage by a gentle
ebullition, it imparts to cream, previously diluted with milk, a
consistence and apparent richness, by no means unpalatable, without
materially impairing the taste of the cream.
The arrow-root powder is mixed up with a small quantity of cold skimmed
milk into a perfect, smooth, uniform mixture; more milk is then added,
and the whole boiled for a few minutes, to effect the solution of the
arrow-root: this compound, when perfectly cold, is mixed up with the
cream. From 220 to 260 grains, (or three large tea-spoonfuls) of
arrow root are added to one pint of milk; and one part of this solution
is mixed with three of cream. It is scarcely necessary to state that
this sophistication is innocuous.
The fraud may be detected by adding to a tea-spoonful of the
sophisticated cream a few drops of a solution of iodine in spirit of
wine, which instantly produces with it a dark blue colour. Genuine cream
acquires, by the addition of this test, a faint yellow tinge.
_Poisonous Confectionery._
In the preparation of sugar plums, comfits, and other kinds of
confectionery, especially those sweetmeats of inferior quality,
frequently exposed to sale in the open streets, for the allurement of
children, the grossest abuses are committed. The white comfits, called
sugar pease, are chiefly composed of a mixture of sugar, starch, and
Cornish clay (a species of very white pipe-clay;) and the red sugar
drops are usually coloured with the inferior kind of vermilion. The
pigment is generally adulterated with red lead. Other kinds of
sweetmeats are sometimes rendered poisonous by being coloured with
preparations of copper. The following account of Mr. Miles[110] may be
advanced in proof of this statement.
"Some time ago, while residing in the house of a confectioner, I
noticed the colouring of the green fancy sweetmeats being done by
dissolving sap-green in brandy. Now sap-green itself, as prepared from
the juice of the buckthorn berries, is no doubt a harmless substance;
but the manufacturers of this colour have for many years past produced
various tints, some extremely bright, which there can be no doubt are
effected by adding preparations of copper.
"The sweetmeats which accompany these lines you will find exhibit
vestiges of being contaminated with copper.--The practice of colouring
these articles of confectionery should, therefore, be banished: the
proprietors of which are not aware of the deleterious quality of the
substances employed by them."
The foreign conserves, such as small green limes, citrons, hop-tops,
plums, angelica roots, &c. imported into this country, and usually sold
in round chip boxes, are frequently impregnated with copper.
The adulteration of confitures by means of clay, may be detected by
simply dissolving the comfits in a large quantity of boiling water. The
clay, after suffering the mixture to stand undisturbed for a few days,
will fall to the bottom of the vessel; and on decanting the clear fluid,
and suffering the sediment to become dry gradually, it may be obtained
in a separate state. If the adulteration has been effected by means of
clay, the obtained precipitate, on exposure to a red heat in the bowl of
a common tobacco-pipe, acquires a brick hardness.
The presence of copper may be detected by pouring over the comfits
liquid ammonia, which speedily acquires a blue colour, if this metal be
present. The presence of lead is rendered obvious by water impregnated
with sulphuretted hydrogen, acidulated with muriatic acid (see p. 69,)
which assumes a dark brown or black colour, if lead be present.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] Philosoph. Mag. No. 258, vol. 54. 1819, p. 317.
_Poisonous Catsup._
This article is very often subjected to one of the most reprehensible
modes of adulteration ever devised. Quantities are daily to be met with,
which, on a chemical examination, are found to abound with copper.
Indeed, this condiment is often nothing else than the residue left
behind after the process employed for obtaining distilled vinegar,
subsequently diluted with a decoction of the outer green husk of the
walnut, and seasoned with all-spice, Cayenne pepper, pimento, onions,
and common salt.
The quantity of copper which we have, more than once, detected in this
sauce, used for seasoning, and which, on account of its cheapness, is
much resorted to by people in the lower walks of life, has exceeded the
proportion of lead to be met with in other articles employed in domestic
economy.
The following account of Mr. Lewis[111] on this subject, will be
sufficient to cause the public to be on their guard.
"Being in the habit of frequently purchasing large quantities of pickles
and other culinary sauces, for the use of my establishment, and also for
foreign trade, it fell lately to my lot to purchase from a manufacturer
of those commodities a quantity of walnut catsup, apparently of an
excellent quality; but, to my great surprise, I had reason to believe
that the article might be contaminated with some deleterious substance,
from circumstances which happened in my business as a tavern keeper, but
which are unnecessary to be detailed here; and it was this that induced
me to make inquiry concerning the compounding of the suspected articles.
"The catsup being prepared by boiling in a copper, as is usually
practised, the outer green shell of walnuts, after having been suffered
to turn black on exposure to air, in combination with common salt, with
a portion of pimento and pepper-dust, in common vinegar, strengthened
with some vinegar extract, left behind as residue in the still of
vinegar manufacturers; I therefore suspected that the catsup might be
impregnated with some copper. To convince myself of this opinion. I
boiled down to dryness a quart of it in a stone pipkin, which yielded
to me a dark brown mass. I put this mass into a crucible, and kept it in
a coal fire, red-hot, till it became reduced to a porous black charcoal;
on urging the heat with a pair of bellows, and stirring the mass in the
crucible with the stem of a tobacco-pipe, it became, after two hours'
exposure to an intense heat, converted into a greyish-white ash; but no
metal could be discriminated amongst it. I now poured upon it some aqua
fortis, which dissolved nearly the whole of it, with an effervescence;
and produced, after having been suffered to stand, to let the insoluble
portion subside, a bright grass-green solution, of a strong metallic
taste; after immersing into this solution the blade of a knife, it
became instantly covered with a bright coat of copper.
"The walnut catsup was therefore evidently strongly impregnated with
copper. On informing the manufacturer of this fact, he assured me that
the same method of preparing the liquor was generally pursued, and that
he had manufactured the article in a like manner for upwards of twenty
years.
"Such is the statement I wish to communicate; and if you will allow it a
place in your Literary Chronicle, it may perhaps tend to put the unwary
on their guard against the practice of preparing this sauce by boiling
it in a copper, which certainly may contaminate the liquor, and render
it poisonous."
FOOTNOTES:
[111] Literary Chronicle, No. 24, p. 379.
_Poisonous Custard._
The leaves of the cherry laurel, _prunus lauro-cerasus_, a poisonous
plant, have a nutty flavour, resembling that of the kernels of
peach-stones, or of bitter almonds, which to most palates is grateful.
These leaves have for many years been in use among cooks, to communicate
an almond or kernel-like flavour to custards, puddings, creams,
_blanc-mange_, and other delicacies of the table.
It has been asserted, that the laurel poison in custards and other
articles of cookery is, on account of its being used in very small
quantities, quite harmless. To refute this assertion, numerous instances
might be cited; and, among them, a recent one, in which four children
suffered most severely from partaking of custard flavoured with the
leaves of this poisonous plant.
"Several children at a boarding-school, in the vicinity of Richmond,
having partaken of some custard flavoured with the leaves of the cherry
laurel, as is frequently practised by cooks, four of the poor innocents
were taken severely ill in consequence. Two of them, a girl six years of
age, and a boy of five years old, fell into a profound sleep, out of
which they could not be roused.
"Notwithstanding the various medical exertions used, the boy remained in
a stupor ten hours; and the girl nine hours; the other two, one of which
was six years old, a girl, and a girl of seven years, complained of
severe pains in the epigastric region. They all recovered, after three
days' illness. I am anxious to communicate to you this fact, being
convinced that your publication is read at all the scholastic
establishments in this part of the country. I hope you will allow these
lines a corner in your Literary Chronicle, where they may contribute to
put the unwary on their guard, against the deleterious effects of
flavouring culinary dishes with that baneful herb, the Cherry Laurel.
"I am, with respect, your's, Sir,
"THOMAS LIDIARD."[112]
What person of sense or prudence, then, would trust to the discretion of
an ignorant cook, in mixing so dangerous an ingredient in his puddings
and creams? Who but a maniac would choose to season his victuals with
poison?
The water distilled from cherry laurel leaves is frequently mixed with
brandy and other spiritous liquors, to impart to them the flavour of the
cordial called _noyeau_, (see also page 195.)
This fluid, though long in frequent use as a flavouring substance, was
not known to be poisonous until the year 1728; when the sudden death of
two women, in Dublin, after drinking some of the common distilled cherry
laurel water, demonstrated its deleterious nature.
FOOTNOTES:
[112] Literary Chronicle, No. 22, p. 348.--1819.
_Poisonous Anchovy Sauce._
Several samples which we have examined of this fish sauce have been
found contaminated with lead.
The mode of preparation of this fish sauce, consists in rubbing down the
broken anchovy in a mortar: and this triturated mass, being of a dark
brown colour, receives, without much risk of detection, a certain
quantity of Venetian red, added for the purpose of colouring it, which,
if genuine, is an innocent colouring substance; but instances have
occurred of this pigment having been adulterated with orange lead, which
is nothing else than a better kind of minium, or red oxide of lead. The
fraud may be detected, as stated p. 229.
The conscientious oilmen, less anxious with respect to colour,
substitute for this poison the more harmless pigment, called Armenian
bole.
The following recipe for making this fish sauce is copied from Gray's
Supplement to the Pharmacopoeias, p. 241.
"Anchovies, 2 lbs. to 4 lbs. and a half; pulp through a fine hair sieve;
boil the bones with common salt, 7 oz. in water 6 lbs.; strain; add
flour 7 oz. and the pulp of the fish; boil; pass the whole through the
sieve; colour with Venetian red to your fancy. It should produce one
gallon."
_Adulteration of Lozenges._
Lozenges, particularly those into the composition of which substances
enter that are not soluble in water, as ginger, cremor tartar, magnesia,
&c., are often sophisticated. The adulterating ingredient is usually
pipe-clay, of which a liberal portion is substituted for sugar. The
following detection of this fraud was lately made by Dr. T. Lloyd.[113]