Part 10

Proportion of Alcohol per Cent. by Measure.

Brandy, Cogniac, average proportion of 4 samples 52,75 Ditto, Bourdeaux, ditto ditto 54,50 Ditto, Cette 53,00 Ditto, Naples, average of 3 samples 53,25 Ditto, Spanish average of 6 samples 52,28 Rum 53,68 Ditto, Leeward, average of 9 samples 53,00 Scotch Whiskey, average of 6 samples 53,50 Irish Ditto, average of 4 samples 54,25 Arrack, Batavia 49,50 Dutch Geneva 52,25 Gin (Hodges's,[102]) 3 samples, procured from retail dealers 48,25 Ditto (Ditto,)[102] procured from the manufacturer 52,35

FOOTNOTES:

[88] George III. c. xxviii. May 1818--"An Act for establishing the use of Sikes's hydrometer in ascertaining the strength of spirit, instead of Clark's hydrometer."

[89] Sixteen and a half per cent. proof, according to Sikes's hydrometer.

[90] 30 Geo. III c. 37, § 31.

[91] According to Clarke's hydrometer.

[92] Observations on Malted and Unmalted Corn, connected with Brewing and Distilling, p. 167; and Shannon on Brewing and Distilling, p. 232, 233.

[93] Water.

[94] This operation forms part of the business of the so-called brewers' druggists. It forms the article in their Price Currents, called _Spirit Flavour_.

Wine lees are imported in this country for that purpose: they pay the same duty as foreign wines.

[95] Observations on Malted and Unmalted Corn, connected with Brewing and Distilling, p. 167.

[96] Apicius Redivivus, 2d edition, p. 480.

[97] Clark's hydrometer.

[98] 30 Geo. III. c. 37, § 6.

[99] Shannon on Brewing and Distilling, p. 198.

[100] Ibid. p. 199.

[101] Repository of Arts, p. 350, Dec. 1819.

[102] Own experiment.

_Poisonous Cheese._

Several instances have come under my notice in which Gloucester cheese has been contaminated with red lead, and has produced serious consequences on being taken into the stomach. In one poisonous sample which it fell to my lot to investigate, the evil had been caused by the sophistication of the anotta, employed for colouring cheese. This substance was found to contain a portion of red lead; a method of sophistication which has lately been confirmed by the following fact, communicated to the public by Mr. J. W. Wright, of Cambridge.[103]

"As a striking example of the extent to which adulterated articles of food may be unconsciously diffused, and of the consequent difficulty of detecting the real fabricators of them, it may not be uninteresting to relate to your readers, the various steps by which the fraud of a poisonous adulteration of cheese was traced to its source.

"Your readers ought here to be told, that several instances are on record, that Gloucester and other cheeses have been found contaminated with red lead, and that this contamination has produced serious consequences. In the instance now alluded to, and probably in all other cases, the deleterious mixture had been caused ignorantly, by the adulteration of the anotta employed for colouring the cheese. This substance, in the instance I shall relate, was found to contain a portion of red lead; a species of adulteration which subsequent experiments have shewn to be by no means uncommon. Before I proceed further to trace this fraud to its source, I shall briefly relate the circumstance which gave rise to its detection.

"A gentleman, who had occasion to reside for some time in a city in the West of England, was one night seized with a distressing but indescribable pain in the region of the abdomen and of the stomach, accompanied with a feeling of tension, which occasioned much restlessness, anxiety, and repugnance to food. He began to apprehend the access of an inflammatory disorder; but in twenty-four hours the symptoms entirely subsided. In four days afterwards he experienced an attack precisely similar; and he then recollected, that having, on both occasions, arrived from the country late in the evening, he had ordered a plate of toasted Gloucester cheese, of which he had partaken heartily; a dish which, when at home, regularly served him for supper. He attributed his illness to the cheese. The circumstance was mentioned to the mistress of the inn, who expressed great surprise, as the cheese in question was not purchased from a country dealer, but from a highly respectable shop in London. He, therefore, ascribed the before-mentioned effects to some peculiarity in his constitution. A few days afterwards he partook of the same cheese; and he had scarcely retired to rest, when a most violent cholic seized him, which lasted the whole night and part of the ensuing day. The cook was now directed henceforth not to serve up any toasted cheese, and he never again experienced these distressing symptoms. Whilst this matter was a subject of conversation in the house, a servant-maid mentioned that a kitten had been violently sick after having eaten the rind cut off from the cheese prepared for the gentleman's supper. The landlady, in consequence of this statement, ordered the cheese to be examined by a chemist in the vicinity, who returned for answer, that the cheese was contaminated with lead! So unexpected an answer arrested general attention, and more particularly as the suspected cheese had been served up for several other customers.

"Application was therefore made by the London dealer to the farmer who 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.