Food Safety, Victorian-Style

In Part Four of The Supersizers Go Victorian, it is mentioned that half of all the period's street was contaminated.

Certainly, careful food storage was more challenging in the Victorian era than it is today. Perhaps, Melissa's aversion to many of the foodstuffs she encountered in 1890s Bryony kept her safe, a moot point when one is cavorting with vampires.

According to the 1850 version of Miss Beecher's domestic receiptbook: designed as a supplment to her Treatise on domestic economy, the following recommendations are given:

* After smoked beef or ham is cut, hang it in a coarse linen bag in the cellar and tie up to keep out flies.

* To restore rancid butter: Put fifteen drops of chloride of lime to a pint of water and and work the butter in it until every particle has come in contact with the water.

* Flour stored in barrels needs no other care other than putting it in a cool, dry place, where it is well-protected from rats and cockroaches.

* All salted provision must be watched and kept under the brine. When the brine looks bloody or smells badly, it must be scalded, and more salt put to it, and poured over the meat.

* Codfish is improved by changing it, once in awhile, back and forth from garret to cellar. Some dislike to have it in the house anywhere. Salt fish barrels must not be kept by other food, as they impart a fishy smell and taste to it.

* Cabbages and turnips in the cellar often impart a bad smell to the house. All decayed vegetable matter should be kept out of the cellar, as it creates a miasma, that sometimes causes the most fatal diseases.

Excuse me while I check the thermostat on my refrigerator.