The Secret History of Food

by Matt Siegel

  23. in his 1820 book: Fredrick Accum, A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons (London: Mallett, 1820), 131–46.

  24. flavoring wine with oak sawdust: Ibid., 96.

  25. adding molten lead: Ibid., 110.

  26. boiling various types of leaves: Ibid., 240.

  27. recycling used tea leaves: Reay Tannahill, Food in History (New York: Stein and Day, 1973), 344.

  28. “sham-coffee”: Accum, A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons, 244.

  29. powdered oyster shells: Ibid., 204.

  30. fish skin or hartshorn shavings: Pamela Sambrook, Country House Brewing in England, 1500–1900 (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), 105.

  31. opium or nux vomica: Accum, A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons, 205.

  32. also known as poison nut: “Nux vomica,” Science Direct, www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/nux-vomica.

  33. “The Industrial Revolution”: Unabomber, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” Washington Post, September 22, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm.

  34. Graham believed that: Graham, Lectures on the Science of Human Life, 252–53.

  35. the evils of feather beds: Ibid., 626.

  36. the horrors of masturbation: Sylvester Graham, A Lecture to Young Men on Chastity, 4th ed. (Boston: Light, 1838), 78–79.

  37. Grahamites: Graham, Lectures on the Science of Human Life, 11.

  38. “Sometimes this general”: Graham, A Lecture to Young Men on Chastity, 120–21.

  39. “If he attempts”: Ibid., 122–23.

  40. Graham’s biggest impact: John F. Mariani, The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink (New York: Bloomsbury, 1983), 232.

  41. he believed white flour: Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas, eds., The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 2 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1489.

  42. the bran and germ contain: “Whole Grains,” The Nutrition Source, Harvard School of Public Health, www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/whole-grains/.

  43. Called granula: Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis, The Great American Cereal Book (New York: Abrams, 2012), 12–14.

  44. Born in 1852: Mariani, The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, 120.

  45. saw little need: Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017), Apple Books ed.

  46. spent most of his childhood: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, vol. 1, 496.

  47. “anything that was fun”: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  48. He was also plagued: Ibid.

  49. “cycle of bleeding”: Ibid.

  50. In 1876: Ibid.

  51. a humble two-story farmhouse: Ibid.

  52. the luxurious Battle Creek Sanitarium: Ibid.

  53. vibrotherapy: John Harvey Kellogg, The Battle Creek Sanitarium: History, Organization, Methods (Battle Creek, MI: Battle Creek Sanitarium, 1913).

  54. more than fifty types: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  55. at least one of which: Kellogg, The Battle Creek Sanitarium, 81.

  56. “walk and trot around”: Ibid., 99.

  57. chopping wood in a loincloth: Ibid., 23, 99, 103, 136.

  58. “to combine with”: Ibid., 5.

  59. Guests could have: Ibid., 44.

  60. take an aerobics class: Markel, The Kelloggs, 2017.

  61. receive Kellogg’s thoughts: Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young.

  62. he mansplains such topics: John Harvey Kellogg, Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease: Girlhood, Maidenhood, Wifehood, Motherhood (Battle Creek, MI: Modern Medicine Publishing Company, 1898), v–xviii.

  63. he was a strong advocate: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  64. a chemical used: “Material Safety Data Sheet, Klean-Strip Naked Gun Spray Gun Paint Remover,” Klean-Strip, April 17, 2014.

  65. “covering the organs”: Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young, 383–84.

  66. Jack the Ripper: “Who Was Jack the Ripper?,” National Geographic, October 29, 2008; Markel, The Kelloggs.

  67. “school-girls are”: Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young, 88–89.

  68. kept a separate bedroom: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  69. “it is difficult”: Ibid.

  70. Initially, the sanitarium’s offerings: Ibid.

  71. made, ideally: E. E. Kellogg, Science in the Kitchen (Battle Creek, MI: Health Publishing Company, 1892), 289.

  72. which he eventually renamed: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, 161.

  73. complaints of broken teeth: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  74. Among his lesser-known creations: Sanitas Nut Food Company, Sanitas Nut Preparations and Specialties.

  75. Nuttolene: Sanitas Nut Food Company, Sanitas Nut Preparations and Specialties.

  76. Granose: Gitlin and Ellis, The Great American Cereal Book, 14–18.

  77. Kellogg poured his first bowl: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  78. followed by dozens more: Gitlin and Ellis, The Great American Cereal Book.

  79. who allegedly stole: Jonathan Black, Making the American Body: The Remarkable Saga of the Men and Women Whose Feats, Feuds, and Passions Shaped Fitness History (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 8.

  80. “scientific health food”: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, vol. 1, 1351.

  81. Collier’s magazine: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, vol. 1, 1351–54.

  82. “It am suttenly wunnerful”: The Delineator: A Magazine for Woman 69, no. 1 (January 1907): 151.

  83. “So-Hi the Chinese Boy”: Gitlin and Ellis, The Great American Cereal Book, 163.

  84. he ate oysters: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  85. the chemical equivalent: John Harvey Kellogg, The Health Question Box: Or, a Thousand and One Health Questions Answered (Battle Creek, MI: Modern Medicine Publishing Company, 1920), 144.

  86. little pay, little vacation time: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  87. “as sweet as those”: George Howe Colt, Brothers: On His Brothers and Brothers in History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 162.

  88. to begin manufacturing: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  89. the industry’s first free prizes: Gitlin and Ellis, The Great American Cereal Book, 26.

  90. endowed in 1979: Amy Trang, “Giving Back,” Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, December 21, 2010, www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2010/giving-back.aspx.

  91. Will won the legal right: Markel, The Kelloggs.

  92. now known for such creations: “Our Brands,” Kellogg’s, www.kelloggs.com/en_US/ourfoods.html.

  93. nearly 90 percent: Marion Nestle, What to Eat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), Apple Books ed.

  94. General Mills, which started out: Andrew F. Smith, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 80.

  95. magically delicious cereals: “Cereal,” General Mills, www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/cereal.

  96. Quaker Oats, which began: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, vol. 1, 248.

  97. is now owned by PepsiCo: “About Quaker,” Quaker Oats Company, https://contact.pepsico.com/quaker/about-us.

  98. has gone on to make: “Products,” Quaker Oats Company, www.capncrunch.com.

  99. Post, founded in 1895: Smith, Food and Drink in American History, vol. 1, 162.

  100. now responsible: “Explore Our Cereals,” Post Consumer Brands, https://www.postconsumerbrands.com/explore-our-cereals/.

  101. “A short list of aphrodisiacs”: MacClancy, Consuming Culture: Why You Eat What You Eat, 77.

  102. olisbokollix: Peter James and Nick Thorpe, Ancient Inventions (New York: Ballantine, 1994), 183.

  103. baking loaves in the shape: MacClancy, Consuming Culture, 78–79.

  104. “Those, therefore, who”: Plato, The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee (New York:
Penguin Classics, 2003), 327.

  105. “an acceptance and appreciation”: Beth Kempton, Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life (New York: Harper Design, 2019), Kindle ed.

  106. “Men who stuff themselves”: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste; or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy, translated by M.F.K. Fisher (New York: Knopf, 2009), Apple Books ed.

  107. “To whom a little”: Quoted in William Wallace, Epicureanism (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1880), 48.

  108. “I am thrilled”: Quoted in Cyril Bailey, Epicurus: The Extant Remains (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), 131.

  109. “We ought to be”: Quoted in Wallace, Epicureanism, 48–49.

  Chapter 4: Children of the Corn

  1. “And thus it is”: Arthur C. Parker, “Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants,” New York State Museum Bulletin 144, no. 482 (1910): 15.

  2. up until roughly: Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas, eds., The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 100.

  3. and neither was farming: Martin Elkort, The Secret Life of Food: A Feast of Food and Drink History, Folklore, and Fact (Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1991), 11.

  4. foraging for things: Ken Albala, Food: A Cultural Culinary History, transcript book, The Great Courses, 2013, 20.

  5. breed animals in dark: “Animals Used for Food,” PETA, www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food.

  6. generally led to a decline: Albala, Food, 19.

  7. farming returned only about: Ibid., 20.

  8. Jack Rodney Harlan: Theodore Hymowitz, “Dedication: Jack R. Harlan Crop Evolutionist, Scholar,” in Plant Breeding Reviews, vol. 8, edited by Jules Janick (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 1990), 1–6.

  9. “the equivalent of more”: Ibid.

  10. “Instead of being”: Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Food: A History (New York: Macmillan, 2001), 93.

  11. the first instances of farming: Albala, Food, 33–34.

  12. “people were impelled”: B. W. Higman, How Food Made History (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 9.

  13. stockpiling them: Kristen J. Gremillion, Ancestral Appetites: Food in Prehistory (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 45.

  14. discovery of fermentation: Tom Standage, A History of the World in Six Glasses (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), 14–15.

  15. dug pits for food: Gremillion, Ancestral Appetites, 45.

  16. rice in Asia: Gregory McNamee, Movable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food (New York: Praeger, 2007), 66.

  17. teosinte bears almost no resemblance: Sherry A. Flint-Garcia, “Kernel Evolution: From Teosinte to Maize,” in Maize Kernel Development, edited by Brian A. Larkins (Oxfordshire, UK: CABI, 2017), 1–15.

  18. five to twelve hundred: Sergio O. Serna-Saldivar, ed., Corn: Chemistry and Technology, 3rd ed. (Duxford, UK: Elsevier, 2018), 150.

  19. one-tenth the weight: Flint-Garcia, “Kernel Evolution.”

  20. there wasn’t a central cob: Ibid.

  21. Baby corn: “The Selective Science of Baby Corn,” All Things Considered, NPR, April 8, 2006, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5332519.

  22. the first farmers popped: Flint-Garcia, “Kernel Evolution.”

  23. choosing only the seeds: Kiple and Ornelas, The Cambridge World History of Food, 101.

  24. The French bulldog: Kat Eschner, “The Evolution of Petface,” Smithsonian, January 31, 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/evolution-petface-180967987.

  25. upward of 80 percent: Katy M. Evans and Vicki J. Adams, “Proportion of Litters of Purebred Dogs Born by Caesarean Section,” Journal of Small Animal Practice 51, no. 2 (2010): 113–18.

  26. interference with natural selection: William Feeney, “Natural Selection in Black and White: How Industrial Pollution Changed Moths,” The Conversation, July 15, 2015; Helen Thompson, “Ten Species That Are Evolving Due to the Changing Climate,” Smithsonian, October 24, 2014; Beth Marie Mole, “Swallows May be Evolving to Dodge Traffic,” Nature, March 18, 2013; Cornelia Dean, “Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution,” New York Times, January 12, 2009; John W. Doudna and Brent J. Danielson, “Rapid Morphological Change in the Masticatory Structures of an Important Ecosystem Service Provider,” PLOS ONE, June 10, 2015.

  27. the lack of a central cob: Flint-Garcia, “Kernel Evolution.”

  28. would naturally separate and fall: Andrew F. Smith, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 341–44.

  29. The Iroquois planted corn: Marcia Eames-Sheavly, The Three Sisters: Exploring an Iroquois Garden (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 3.

  30. that would convert: Robert Flynn and John Idowu, “Nitrogen Fixation by Legumes,” Guide A-129, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, New Mexico State University, https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A129.

  31. the squash would provide: Bill Price, Fifty Foods That Changed the Course of History (New York: Firefly, 2014), 51.

  32. eating their own dogs: James Trager, The Food Chronology: A Food Lover’s Compendium of Events and Anecdotes, from Prehistory to the Present (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), 113.

  33. 350,000-square-mile belt: Smith, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 341–44.

  34. we now have to inject: Margaret Visser, Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal (New York: Grove Press, 1986), 28.

  35. “chemicals of interest”: “Appendix A: Chemicals of Interest (COI) List,” The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) Chemicals of Interest List, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 2019.

  36. a key ingredient: “Anhydrous Ammonia Thefts and Releases Associated with Illicit Methamphetamine Production—16 States, January 2000–June 2004,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 54, no. 14 (2005), 359–61.

  37. spreading lab-created STDs: Katie Pratt, “UK Researchers One Step Closer to Corn Earworm Control,” University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, March 26, 2016, https://news.ca.uky.edu/article/uk-researchers-one-step-closer-corn-earworm-control.

  38. seeding croplands: Serna-Saldivar, Corn, 12.

  39. 93 million acres of cropland: Brooke Barton and Sarah Elizabeth Clark, “Water & Climate Risks Facing U.S. Corn Production: How Companies & Investors Can Cultivate Sustainability,” Ceres, 2014, 15.

  40. spread across states: Ibid., 8.

  41. consuming more fertilizer: Ibid., 45.

  42. about 19 billion pounds: Ibid., 9.

  43. roughly 400,000 gallons of water: Ibid., 34.

  44. 140 gallons of fuel: “Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning’ in Analysis by Cornell Scientist,” Cornell Chronicle, August 6, 2001, https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2001/08/ethanol-corn-faulted-energy-waster-scientist-says.

  45. pollute the groundwater: Barton and Clark, “Water & Climate Risks Facing U.S. Corn Production,” 44.

  46. primary source of calories: Serna-Saldivar, Corn, 436.

  47. more than a third: Ibid., 19.

  48. 49.1 pounds per person: “Corn Sweeteners: Per Capita Availability Adjusted for Loss.” “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability: Sugar and Sweeteners (Added),” US Department of Agriculture, January 5, 2021, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-availability-per-capita-data-system.

  49. cornstarch and corn flour: “A Tale of Two Corns,” National Corn Growers Association, January 2018.

  50. which rely on corn: Serna-Saldivar, Corn, 447.

  51. a lot of beers: Ibid., 461.

  52. nonfermented soy sauce: “Commercial Item Description, Soy Sauce,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 28, 2006.

  53. anything that contains: “Corn Allergy,” American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, March 8, 2019.

  54. pot
ential food allergens: Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, Pub. L. 108–282, Title II, 20 August 20, 2004, US Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov/food/food-allergens-and-gluten-free-guidance-documents-and-regulatory-information/food-allergen-labeling-and-consumer-protection-act-2004-falcpa.