Category Archives: Food & Drink

1849: Frenchman corks own bottom to save on food

Writing in a colo-rectal guidebook in 1881, Dr William H. Van Buren described several instances of patients placing foreign objects into their own bowel or rectum. In most cases the patients claimed to be seeking relief from severe constipation. It goes without saying that while many objects entered readily, not all were so willing to depart.

In 1878, a 35-year-old valet:

“…inserted a glass bottle into his rectum with the object of stopping an urgent diarrhoea, and was brought to the hospital the next day with much pain of belly, vomiting and exhaustion.”

The bottle was eventually recovered – after a lengthy procedure involving scalpels, forceps and cat gut. Another case, cited by Van Buren from 1849, is notable for its motive rather than its method:

“A gardener, to economise in food, plugged his rectum with a piece of wood, which had carefully carved with barbs to prevent its slipping out. Nine days afterward he was brought to the hospital in great agony. The mass had mounted beyond the reach of the finger… in consequence of the barbs described by the patient, Dr Reali made no effort to extract it from below but proceeded at once to open the abdomen and thus safely delivered his patient, who made a good recovery.”

Source: William H. Van Buren, Lectures upon Diseases of the Rectum and Surgery of the Lower Bowel, 1881. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1842: American girls eat paper to get pale

James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855) was an English politician, social reformer and travel writer. Born in Cornwall, Buckingham joined the Royal Navy as a teenager and saw combat in the 1790s. In the 1820s he became a world traveler, spending years in the Middle East and North Africa before taking up residence in India.

After serving one term as Member of Parliament for Sheffield (1832-37) Buckingham resumed his travels, this time in North America. His observations of the United States were published in a three-volume set in 1842. In the third volume, Buckingham claimed that many American girls would eat paper to acquire pale skin:

“Young ladies at school, and sometimes with their parents, will resolve to become extremely pale, from a notion that it looks interesting. For this purpose, they will substitute for their natural food, pickles of all kinds, powdered chalk, vinegar, burnt coffee, pepper and other spices, especially cinnamon and cloves. Others will add to these paper, of which many sheets are sometimes eaten in a day… this is persisted in till the natural appetite for wholesome food is superseded by a depraved and morbid desire for everything but that which is nutritious… Such practices as these, added to the other causes… sufficiently account for the decayed and decaying state of health among the female population of the United States.”

Source: James S. Buckingham, America: The Eastern and Western States, vol.3, 1842. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1839: Lincolnshire tailor sells wife for “a tub of turnips”

An amusing though unsubstantiated story from rural Lincolnshire concerns a tailor from the village of Owston Ferry, north of Gainsborough. According to press reports from 1839 the tailor, Kellett, was in nearby Epworth on business when he went on a bender and:

“…sold his wife to a saddler of that place, for a tub (twelve pecks) of Swede turnips… One huge turnip was given as deposit to make good the bargain.”

The drunken tailor may have forgotten the arrangement or not taken it seriously. The Epworth saddler, however, had different ideas. He organised for the balance of the turnips to be delivered to Kellett’s home in Owston Ferry. But delivery of the turnips was taken by the tailor’s wife, who had not been informed of the deal and certainly did not approve:

“..Having heard of the whole transaction, and not liking to be disposed of in such a manner, [she] fell on the poor unfortunate tailor and did beat him about the head with the turnips, then turned him out of the house.”

Source: The Lincoln Gazette, February 21st 1839. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1922: Broadway pie pastry poisoner kills six

A nice slice of non-lethal huckleberry pie

On July 31st 1922, dozens of lunching New Yorkers crowded into the popular Shelburne Restaurant and Bakery at 1127 Broadway. For a few, it would be their last meal.

The Shelburne was famous for its peach and huckleberry pies but on this hot July day, the pies contained a deadly surprise: arsenic. As the afternoon unfolded, 60 of the Shelburne’s pie-eating patrons became seriously ill and required hospitalisation. Six of them did not survive. Four of the dead were young female office workers in their late teens or early 20s.

Police and city officials launched an immediate investigation, ordering a forensic examination of the leftover pie, the restaurant’s bakery and its stores. They found nothing amiss with the bakery’s flour and other ingredients, suggesting that the pie pastry had been tampered with by a mystery poisoner:

“According to [Commissioner of Health] Dr Monaghan, the ingredients from which the pie crust was made had been analysed and found pure, so that the arsenic must have been put in while the dough for the crust was being made. Dr Monaghan [was] also informed that the proprietors of the restaurant did not keep rat poison or any other insect powder containing arsenic about the place. Accordingly, he said the chances that the poison might have been mixed into the dough accidentally appeared to be very slight.”

Police attention turned to the three people employed in the bakery: the manager, the baker and his assistant. All denied any involvement, however, the baker falsely believed he was about to be fired while his assistant reportedly disappeared without a trace.

With no evidence, the New York police were unable to lay any charges. Unsurprisingly, the Shelburne’s clientele evaporated overnight and it was forced to close down the following year. The deaths also caused a slump in pie sales across New York:

“In spite of the fact that the poisoning was shown to be due to… food prepared only at the one restaurant, patrons of restaurants were reported yesterday to be eating only a small fraction of the pie usually consumed in this city. The demand for huckleberry and blackberry pie has fallen almost to nothing.”

Source: New York Times, August 2nd 1922. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1351: A chicken pasty – an “abomination to all mankind”

In 1351, a London cook named Henry de Passelewe was called before the mayor and city aldermen, accused of selling another Londoner, Henry Pecche, a dodgy chicken pasty. Henry told the court that on January 13th:

“..he bought of the aforesaid Henry de Passelewe… two capons baked in a pasty; and that he and his companions, being hungry, did not perceive that one of the said two capons was putrid and stinking, until they had eaten almost the whole thereof, whereupon they opened the second capon, which he produced here in court.”

The court members examined the capon and:

“..found it to be foul and stinking and an abomination to all mankind; to the scandal, contempt and disgrace of all the city; and the manifest peril of the life of the same Henry and his companions…”

Henry de Passelewe was ordered to spend a day in the pillory, with the “putrid and stinking capon” held in front of him.

Source: Letterbook of Edward III, f.194, cited in Memorials of London and London Life in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, 1868. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1801: Welshman killed by a bread loaf to the private parts

Welsh coronial records from the spring of 1801 contain a brief but thought-provoking summary of the death of William Hopkin. According to an inquest held in Cardiff, Hopkin succumbed after being hit in the groin by a flying loaf of bread:

“At the Coroner’s inquest taken at Cardiff before the Bailiffs, William Prichard and Henry Hollier, on a view of the body of William Hopkin, found that he met his death through injuries received at the hands of Morgan Hopkin of Cardiff, labourer, who threw a twopenny wheaten loaf at the deceased and thereby inflicted a mortal blow upon his private parts, resulting in death a few days after such assault.”

Sadly, further research was not able to uncover the nature of William Hopkin’s injuries, why or how the loaf was thrown and whether the perpetrator was brought to justice. The fate of the deadly bread is also unknown.

Source: Glamorgan Calendar Rolls (Cardiff), Spring 1801. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1023: Two years’ penance for placenta fish

Burchard (c.960-1025) was the Bishop of Worms during the early 11th century. He was a ruthless political leader and administrator, as well as an influential theologian and prolific writer.

Burchard’s best known work was the Decretum, a 20-book treatise on canon law that took him a decade to complete. The 19th volume of the Decretum is a penitential, a fairly standard guide for churchgoers on what they should do to make peace with God if they have sinned. Three of the more bizarre penitentials listed by Burchard are for women who go to extreme lengths to win the love of their husbands:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They lie with their face to the floor, bare their buttocks and order that bread be kneaded on their buttocks. The baked bread they then give to their husbands; this they do so that they will burn the more with love of them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for two years on approved holy days.”

Burchard also warns against a more common form of love potion – the use of menstrual blood in food:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They take their menstrual blood and mix it with food or drink, and give this to their husbands to eat or drink, so that they might be more loving and attentive with them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for five years on approved holy days.”

Arguably the coup de grace was Burchard’s penitential for serving your husband a fish drowned in your own placenta:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They take a live fish and place it into their afterbirth, holding it there until it dies. Then, after boiling and roasting it, they give it to their husbands to eat, in the hope they will burn more with love for them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for two years on approved holy days.”

Source: Burchard of Worms, Decretum, Book XIX, c.1023. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1630: Nicholas Wood, the Great Eater of Kent

Nicholas Wood (c.1585-1630) was an early 17th century glutton, famous for eating vast amounts of food in one sitting. His favourite food was apparently cow’s liver, though from all accounts he would eat just about anything.

Wood was born in Hollingbourne, Kent, sometime in the 1580s before moving to nearby Harrietsham. Very little is known about Wood, except that he was a farmer who owned his own land, that he was strongly built and he was not afraid of hard work. Exactly when Wood started his career as a voracious trencherman is unknown, though there are references to him ‘performing’ in the 1610s. Wood eventually died in poverty in 1630, having sold his estate to fund his travel and excessive eating.

The best known source about his exploits was published in the year of his death and titled The Great Eater of Kent, or Part of the Admirable Teeth and Stomach Exploits of Nicholas Wood. According to extracts from this source, repeated in 1678, Wood:

“…did eat a whole sheep, of 16 shillings price, and raw at that, at one meal. Another time he eat 30 dozen of pigeons. At Sir William Sedley’s he eat as much as would have sufficed 30 men. At the Lord Wottons in Kent, he eat at one meal four-score and four [84] rabbits… He made an end of a whole hog at once and after it swallowed three pecks of damsons.”

Wood and his followers encouraged wagers about what he could or could not eat. By all accounts, Wood lost very few of these, though he was beaten once by a certain John Dale, who boasted that he could fill Wood’s stomach for two shillings. Wood took the wager and Dale purchased 12 loaves of bread which he “sopped in a mighty ale”. This meal sent Wood to sleep and won Dale the bet.

Source: Cited in Nathaniel Wanley, The Wonders of the Little World, or a General History of Man, London, 1674. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1910: Ohio teenagers like the taste of fried cat

According to a news report from 1910, teenagers in western Ohio have developed a taste for feline flesh:

“Suppers of fried cat are now the fad with high school boys of Allen and Auglaize counties at present. Those who have partaken of the delicacy pronounce it good. A plump young kitten is penned up, fed upon a milk diet for several weeks, then killed and prepared for the skillet. The meat is described as firm with a wild game taste, and is said to be equally palatable to squirrel or rabbit. Some who have eaten fried cat believed it to be rabbit.”

Source: Perrysburg Journal (Ohio), December 9th 1910. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1851: Today’s weather: mild and overcast with a chance of meat

In the summer of 1851, a military depot at Benicia, California reported being hit by a bizarre thunderstorm. According to eyewitnesses, pieces of raw meat rained from the sky for around three minutes. When the deluge subsided, five acres of the base had been carpeted with small chunks of flesh, origin unknown. According to one San Francisco press report:

“The pieces were from the size of a pigeon’s egg up to that of an orange, the heaviest weighing three ounces. No birds were visible in the air at the time. Specimens of the meat, which is apparently beef, were preserved by Major Allen and the Surgeon of the Post. A piece that was examined three hours after it fell showed a portion of a small blood vessel, some of the sheath of a muscle and muscle fibre.”

Any thoughts of hosting California’s largest barbecue were quickly dispelled when the meat turned out to be “slightly tainted”.

The ‘meat shower’ in Benicia wasn’t the only incident of its kind in 19th-century California. Small pieces of flesh reportedly fell in Sacramento (March 1863), Los Nietos (August 1869), Juapa (September 1870) and near Los Angeles (August 1871). These later showers also deposited blood, brains, other organs and bone fragments.

Experts could provide no adequate explanation for these incidents of gory precipitation. Two of the most popular theories were that a tornado had hit a slaughterhouse or offal pit and lifted its contents into the troposphere – or that these towns had been hit by passing flock of vomiting vultures.

Source: The San Francisco Daily Herald, July 24th 1851. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.