Section V Pickles, Vinegar, Oil, Mustard, Anchovies, Catsup, Isinglass, Soap, Candles, Blue or Indigo, Starch, Bees Wax, &c.
Pickles
Among the poisonous articles daily vended to the public, none are of more potent effect than the pickles sold by unprincipled oilmen. For the purpose of giving a fresh and lively green colour or hue to those stimulants of the palate, they are intentionally coloured by means of copper or verdigris, or at least placed for a considerable time in copper or brazen vessels for the purpose of allowing the articles to be impregnated by the joint action of the metal and the vinegar. The cookery books (save and except “The Cook’s Oracle”) in vogue also direct the “lovers of good cheer” to boil their pickles in bell metal or copper pots, or to boil halfpence or a bit of verdigris with them, in order to impart a green colour! Ought not the authors, whose gender seems “doubtful,” and Messieurs les Bibliopoles, of those pests, to be indited for a nuisance and malice prepense to the loving subjects of our late “good old king?”
The ready way to detect the presence of copper in these articles is to pour a little liquid ammonia, diluted with an equal quantity of water, over a small quantity of the suspected pickle reduced into small pieces, and placed in an enclosed phial or vessel; when, if the pickles contain the minutest quantity of copper, the ammonia will assume a blue colour.
Vinegar
Vinegar is adulterated with sulphuric acid, muriatic acid, nitric acid, oil of vitriol, a variety of acrid vegetable substances, and frequently contains metallic impregnations of lead, tin, pewter, iron, and copper, from the stills or vessels in which it is made. Its more harmless adulteration is a considerable dilution with water.
Vinegar is prepared from a variety of substances; but its common preparations are from wine, fruits, malt, sugar, and wood. The vinegar made from wood is the strongest, containing at least eight times the strength of the common preparations. It is perfectly colourless, and its taste is very pungent and grateful. But the vinegar generally prepared for sale in this country is made from malt; which to be good should be of a pale brown colour, perfectly transparent, of a pleasant and rather pungent acid taste, but without acrimony, and a fragrant grateful odour. These are the readiest and best tests of good vinegar. But as a false strength is frequently given to it by adding oil of vitriol, sulphuric acid, or the extract of some acrid vegetable, as pellitory of Spain, capsicum, &c. or metallic extracts, the tests for ascertaining these foreign substances are as follow: If it is suspected that vinegar is adulterated with oil of vitriol, put three or four drops of acetate of barytes into a glass of vinegar; filtrate the white precipitate thereby produced through paper, and heat the powder or residuum remaining in a tobacco-pipe until it is red hot. Then put it into spirit of salt or diluted aqua-fortis; if the precipitate dissolves, the vinegar is genuine; if not, it is adulterated. But if metallic adulteration is suspected, add liquid ammonia to the vinegar, until the odour of the ammonia predominates; if the mixture assumes a blackish tint, it is a sign that copper is present in the article. If the presence of lead be suspected, add water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen to the suspected vinegar; if the mixture becomes black or yields a black precipitate, your suspicion is well founded.
Olive, or Florence Oil
Olive oil is frequently adulterated by mixing with it the oil of poppy seeds or a decoction of cucumbers, which latter ingredients easily unite with the oleaginous substances. It is frequently impregnated with lead, from the circumstance of the fruit which yields the oil being compressed between leaden plates, and the oil being suffered to remain in pewter or leaden cisterns in order to become clear before it is offered for sale. This last injurious quality is communicated afresh to the commodity by the retail venders, who frequently keep a pewter vessel immersed in the oil, for the purpose, as they assert, of preserving the liquid from becoming rancid. It is however proper to state that the metallic contamination by the wholesale manufacturer chiefly belongs to the Spanish produce: the French and Italian manufacture is usually free from the impregnation.
The presence of lead or any metal deleterious to health is detected, by shaking in a stopped phial some of the suspected oil with a quantity of water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, in the proportion of one part of the former to two parts of the latter ingredient; when the oil, if adulterated, will become of a dark brown or black colour. When the oil of poppy seed, or the decoction of cucumber, is supposed to have been made use of in the adulteration, their presence may be ascertained by exposing the mixture to a freezing temperature, when the olive oil will become frozen, while the adulterating ingredient will remain fluid.
The best olive oil is of a bright pale amber colour, somewhat inclining to a greenish cast; free from sediment, bland to the taste, and without smell.
Salt
Salt is frequently adulterated with sulphate of lime, for the purpose of making it weigh heavier, appear lighter, and less liable to become moist.
Mustard
“Genuine mustard,” says Mr. Accum, (Culinary Poisons, p. 330) “either in powder, or in a state of paste ready made, is perhaps rarely to be met with in the shops.” Whether “patent,” “best Durham,” or of any other pretty and imposing name, it generally consists of a composition of mustard flour and wheaten flour; only for the additional cost of the “patent mustard” of the respective manufacturers, the purchaser is treated with a little cayenne pepper, a large quantity of bay salt, and a quantum sufficit of “aqua pura.” Turmeric is the grand adulterant of the merchant for giving the yellow colour to factitious mustard. The flour of mustard of the shops generally consists of the produce of mustard seed, cayenne pepper, wheat flour, and turmeric; and the essence of mustard of the fashionable oilmen is composed of camphor and oil of rosemary, dissolved in oil of turpentine, with the addition of a little of the flour of mustard!
Anchovy Sauce
Anchovy sauce is frequently contaminated with the pigments denominated Venetian red or Armenian bole, which are rubbed into the mass, while the operator is triturating the anchovy in his mortar. The Venetian red, which is frequently adulterated with red lead, affords the deepest and finest colour, and is accordingly used by the fashionable oilman; the aid of the Armenian bole is invoked by his more conscientious and less aspiring brethren.
But the anchovy itself is not exempt from the sophisticating ingenuity of the trade; for sprats are frequently prepared and sold for anchovies. The best way of discovering the fraud is by the appearance of the back bone, which in the anchovy is triangular for some space from the head, while that of the sprat is flat.
The test for detecting the fraud practised in the manufacture of anchovy sauce is the same as that which will be presently stated for discovering the adulteration of mushroom catsup.
Mushroom Catsup
This common article of consumption is frequently contaminated by copper. This deleterious quality it obtains from the mode of its manufacture, as well as from the articles from which it is manufactured.
The usual way in which it is prepared is by boiling in a copper the residue left in the still of the vinegar manufacturer, with a decoction of the outer green shell of the walnut (previously prepared also by having been boiled in a copper, in combination with common salt;) together with a portion of allspice or pimento, pepper dust, (or cayenne pepper, should the manufacturer be a man of taste;) and garlic.
The method of detecting the fraud is detailed at page 294 of Mr. Accum’s book: it is too long for insertion here.
Isinglass
Isinglass, which is prepared from the air-bladders of the sturgeons, is the subject of sophistication. The dried bladders of horses, the skins of soles, and the intestinal membranes of calves and sheep are frequently sold for it. The fraud may be detected by boiling the shreds in water; when, if the article is adulterated, the spurious ingredients will obtain only an imperfect insolubility, whereas genuine isinglass is almost perfectly soluble in water.
Isinglass to be good, should be white, perfectly transparent, dry, fibrous, and of a faint odour and insipid taste. The best variety occurs in the form of a lyre or horse-shoe; the worst, flat, in the form of a pancake. The saltish taste of fictitious isinglass is also another of the criteria for judging of its goodness.
Blue or Indigo
This article is subject to great adulteration by the introduction of foreign ingredients into its manufacture. The easiest and speediest test of its genuineness is by dissolving or cutting it. By the first method, if good, it dissolves easily, while that of a coarse or an adulterated kind dissolves with difficulty, and settles at the bottom of the vessel. By the second method, (and which is the best criterion of its goodness,) when cut with a knife, it exhibits a red copper-like appearance. Where this shade is absent or only very slight, the indigo is of an inferior quality.—Other signs of its goodness are that it should be light, of a close texture, break easily, float on water, be free from white specks or sand, and from white adhesive mould externally, and when rubbed with the nail, it should have a shining copper-like hue.
Soap
Soap is subject to great adulteration, as every person is aware who has had an opportunity of witnessing the specimens made twenty years ago, before “Messieurs les Artistes” had made their prodigious advances, as our “Yankee” brethren across the Atlantic phrase it, “in the progressing knowledge of the age.”
Good mottled soap is hard, but not brittle, well mottled, and without any rancid, tallowy, or unpleasant acrid smell. If any of this smell should be present, there has been an undue portion of soda or potash used in the manufacture. A quantity of fuller’s earth is often used to conceal the imperfections and add to the weight of the article, by enabling it to imbibe a large quantity of water. Rancid tallow also is often used in soap and candle-making, which has had a portion of its substance quite destroyed by putrefaction. Of course the articles from which it is made are of a very inferior quality. Those specimens which have a disagreeable odour are made of horns of animals, woollen rags, &c. instead of oil, clay often supplies the place of tallow.
There are several methods for proving the quality of soap. The author of “The Maidservant’s Companion and Directory” informs us that there are “some people who can ascertain it by the taste.” But as the same gentleman observes, as it is not likely that many persons will feel a pleasure in making the experiment, a more pleasant method is to slice an ounce or two of the soap very thin into a basin, and having poured boiling water upon the slices, to stir them well till they are quite dissolved; then place the basin and contents before the fire for the space of about twelve hours. When the mixture is quite cold, turn it out of the basin; if no sediment appears at the bottom, it is a sign of the goodness of the soap. Or the adulteration of the soap may be detected, by pouring upon a little of the suspected article, thinly sliced into a bottle, rectified spirit of wine, in the proportion of one part of soap to six parts of spirit: then, when the bottle, being slightly stopped, has remained a short time in a warm place, the adulterated parts of the soap will appear unacted upon by the agent; but if the soap be genuine, it will have become wholly dissolved.
To those who are desirous of economizing the consumption of soap, many useful hints may be found in “The Maidservant’s Companion and Directory;” a work which every sensible master and mistress should cause to be carefully and attentively perused by their domestics.
Candles
Nor are candles exempt from the sophisticator’s art. Tallow candles, to be good, should be made of equal parts of bullock’s and sheep’s fat; which is discoverable by their being of a firm texture, a good white colour, and not an obnoxious smell. When made of hog’s fat, they gutter, emit an ill smell, and a thick black smoke. If alum or pulverized marble has been mingled with the tallow, for the purpose of giving a white appearance and a hard consistence, the wicks burn with a dead light, and the alum spits or emits slight explosions from the wick as it burns.
Some useful directions respecting the management and the economizing of the consumption of candles, whether wax, mould, or dips, are to be found in “Domestic Comforts and Economy.”
Starch
This commodity is subject to much adulteration by the manufacturer. When good, it is dry, easily reducible to powder, tasteless, and without odour. In its use in the laundry, there is no good housewife but can distinguish, by its effects on her “lavatory occupations,” the difference between good and bad starch: it is therefore unnecessary to detail tests.
Bees’ Wax
Bees’ wax is frequently adulterated with rosin, tallow, pease-meal, potatoe-starch, and a mixture of oil and litharge. The introduction of rosin into it may be discovered by its hardness, brittleness, and want of tenacity. When adulterated with tallow, the fraud may be detected by scratching the finger over the surface; when its clamminess and adhesiveness to the fingers will indicate the presence of that ingredient. In the purchase of cakes of bees’ wax the cake should be broke, in order to ascertain whether the impurities called foot, are not ingeniously encased in a shell of pure wax. White wax is adulterated with carbonate of lead and white tallow, to increase its weight.
Bees’ wax, when good, is of a compact substance, somewhat unctuous to the touch, but not adhering to the fingers or to the teeth when it is kneaded or chewed: and when scratched by the finger-nail, no obstruction is met with, and but little indentation or fissure made; it also has an agreeable smell partaking of a slight odour of honey, and a clear fresh yellow colour. Its texture is also granular.