We'll Drink, A Drink, A Drink To...
It's strange where your mind takes you and how sometimes you end up investigating something that you have not given a second thought to for many years.
We have a television programme in the UK called QI broadcast and made for the BBC. It is a quiz(none too serious)and presented by the actor/writer/comedian Stephen Fry. There are 4 people who answer questions posed by Fry that are based on fact/trivia and whilst learning some facts, the contestants(who are all from the world of comedy)try to make amusing jokes about the topics.
A couple of weeks ago it came up in the programme that during Victorian times or some similar time frame Raspberry Jam was on sale...only it was not Raspberry Jam but an alternative food stuff(usually rhubarb)made to look and taste like the real stuff but the contents were fake, it was made to fool the public and if that was not bad enough, the pips that people believed to be seeds were actually made of wood and manufactured by factories employing people to do so. Click on the link above and move down the page and you'll find a reference to what I am talking about.
Heaven knows what effect this foodstuff was having on those eating it. So crooked practice has always gone on in the food industry.
So just as well we have some safeguards in place to try and stop such practices(even though sometimes stories of dangerous food getting into the food chains still happens today)
It also appears that Emmeline Pankhurst known for her work to obtain the right of Woman to be able to vote and a leader of the Woman's Suffragette movement actually started a factory making and selling genuine Jam. I don't think this is mentioned in the article I link to and I am unsure exactly why she started this venture...
Another person mentioned on the same programme was immortalised in a song sung in the 1960's by a pop trio called The Scaffold and it did well in the record charts and was very popular entitled Lilly The Pink and it is all about someone who makes a medicinal compound that cures all ills. Well, medical problems that Women suffer from. Looking over the lyrics of the song it would appear that they were adapted or based on a song that already existed.
It turns out that this person actually existed as did her compound(I thought it was a make believe story and a make believe character)but it would appear that there are still descendants of that family living today and that though the ingredients may've changed, the product is still on sale today. As far as I know only in the USA.
Also, it appears that she was actually called Lydia Pinkham not Lilly.
We have a television programme in the UK called QI broadcast and made for the BBC. It is a quiz(none too serious)and presented by the actor/writer/comedian Stephen Fry. There are 4 people who answer questions posed by Fry that are based on fact/trivia and whilst learning some facts, the contestants(who are all from the world of comedy)try to make amusing jokes about the topics.
A couple of weeks ago it came up in the programme that during Victorian times or some similar time frame Raspberry Jam was on sale...only it was not Raspberry Jam but an alternative food stuff(usually rhubarb)made to look and taste like the real stuff but the contents were fake, it was made to fool the public and if that was not bad enough, the pips that people believed to be seeds were actually made of wood and manufactured by factories employing people to do so. Click on the link above and move down the page and you'll find a reference to what I am talking about.
Heaven knows what effect this foodstuff was having on those eating it. So crooked practice has always gone on in the food industry.
So just as well we have some safeguards in place to try and stop such practices(even though sometimes stories of dangerous food getting into the food chains still happens today)
It also appears that Emmeline Pankhurst known for her work to obtain the right of Woman to be able to vote and a leader of the Woman's Suffragette movement actually started a factory making and selling genuine Jam. I don't think this is mentioned in the article I link to and I am unsure exactly why she started this venture...
Another person mentioned on the same programme was immortalised in a song sung in the 1960's by a pop trio called The Scaffold and it did well in the record charts and was very popular entitled Lilly The Pink and it is all about someone who makes a medicinal compound that cures all ills. Well, medical problems that Women suffer from. Looking over the lyrics of the song it would appear that they were adapted or based on a song that already existed.
It turns out that this person actually existed as did her compound(I thought it was a make believe story and a make believe character)but it would appear that there are still descendants of that family living today and that though the ingredients may've changed, the product is still on sale today. As far as I know only in the USA.
Also, it appears that she was actually called Lydia Pinkham not Lilly.
posted by The Great Gildersleeve | 2:25 pm
3 Comments:
...and what do you do young man?
I'm assistant fake, wooden raspberry pip maker.
(good fibre source!)
Emmeline Pankhurst...what she to to preserve womens' rights eh? ;-)
Span, I wondered whether I should link directly to Wikipedia but it seemed a reasonably good article on Pankhurst and is probably unlikely to be altered. If nothing else it's a starting point.
I wonder if only the poor were taken in?
I would assume so as the households that could afford their own staff(Butler, maids, servants, a cook etc...)would probably have jam and marmelade etc...made for them.
Paul,
I don't know where your comment has disappeared to but you mentioned that to make bread white, the Victorians added something suspect to the recipe...
I have yet to look it up yet but wasn't it chalk?
An article that I found suggests that alum was in much of the commercially produced bread but I also read some other items found in other items consumed by the population at large...
Strychnine and/or lead in various alcoholic drink.
Different types of copper, lead, mercury in sugar confectionery and chocolate. Also bottled fruit etc...mustard and snuff and iron in tea...in various combinations.
Heaven knows what that did to the health of the nation!
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