The Secret History of Food

by Matt Siegel

  Others who’ve run similar tests have come to similar conclusions. In 2012, researchers who collected 142 fish samples from New York restaurants89 and grocery stores found that 94 percent of the tuna, 79 percent of the snapper, and 20 percent of the salmon they ordered turned out to be other fish. In fact, seventeen of the eighteen fish sold as white tuna turned out to be escolar, also known as oilfish or “ex-lax fish,”90 a species that’s banned in Japan and Italy (and that the FDA advises against importing) because it contains toxins and indigestible wax esters91 that can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, headache, and vomiting. Some fish sold as red snapper and halibut turned out to be tilefish, which is on the FDA’s do-not-eat list for “women who are or might become pregnant, nursing mothers and young children,”92 owing to its high mercury content.

  And this isn’t just limited to New York. In 2007, samples of fish labeled monkfish in Chicago93 turned out to be illegal and potentially deadly puffer fish, sending some customers to the hospital. And in 2016, an Inside Edition investigation of twenty-eight restaurants94 across the country found that 35 percent of sampled lobster dishes had substituted lobster with cheaper seafood. In the most egregious cases, one Florida restaurant’s lobster rolls were made from a frozen mixture of lobster, whiting, and pollock (the last two being common ingredients in frozen fish sticks), and one restaurant in New York’s Little Italy sold “lobster” ravioli that was filled only with cheese.

  Meanwhile, a lot of restaurants, including Red Lobster, have gotten into hot water for replacing lobster ($24 a pound) with langostino ($4 a pound),95 a closer relative to hermit crab that’s about two inches long and also known as pelagic crab or squat lobster.

  “As a seafood expert, Red Lobster understands96 that the seasonality and availability of lobster can fluctuate, so our Lobster Bisque can contain meat from Maine lobster, langostino lobster, or, in some cases, a combination of both,” explained a company spokesperson. “INSIDE EDITION’s test was a matter of what we call ‘the luck of the ladle’ and both types of lobster provide the bisque with a rich, sweet taste that our guests love.”

  So once again, not much has changed in the last thousand or so years. In 1499, Henry VII had to issue a statute banning the sale97 of painted fish because fishmongers were painting and varnishing the gills of spoiled fish or brushing them with blood to make them look fresh. Other tactics at the time included blowing air into fish or stuffing them with fresh fish guts “as to make skinny, flabby fish98 look pump and fat”; fattening limp and watery lobsters by stuffing fresh haddock and wooden skewers through cracks in their tails;99 or using skewers to join pieces of broken lobsters and plugging the holes with wood.100

  Before that, in 1272, Edward I banned fishmongers from watering the fish101 on their slab more than once, a practice that preserved their appearance while adding costly water weight and accelerating spoilage. Corrupt vendors who were caught watering their fish were either fined or, after having their fish smelled by a jury of peers, sometimes put into stocks with their unscrupulously treated fish burned beneath them.102

  Today, of course, it’s not just fish that are watered down to add weight and volume but meats, vegetables (both “fresh” and canned), honey, and fruit juice. In 2013, Consumer Reports found that, on average, nearly half of the advertised weight of the canned foods103 they examined came from the packing liquids (e.g., the tuna water, not the actual tuna). Meanwhile, consumer advocates in the United Kingdom have reported frozen chicken breasts containing as much as 40 percent added water.104

  Even the vitamins in our food aren’t to be trusted. In addition to the vitamins and dietary supplements sold in grocery stores (taken by more than half of American adults105 to make up for a lack of nutrients in their diet), a lot of the foods in grocery stores contain added vitamins. Tropicana, for example, makes orange juice with added calcium and vitamin D,106 healthy heart orange juice with omega-3107 (because what goes better with orange juice than tilapia, sardines, and anchovies?), vitamin C and zinc orange juice (“to help support a healthy immune system”),108 pineapple mango juice with probiotics,109 and apple cherry juice with fiber.110 Dannon makes probiotic yogurt111 and kids’ cotton candy–flavored smoothies with added vitamin D,112 and a lot of breakfast cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals.

  Nestlé even has a helpful chart explaining how the vitamins113 in their cereals help release energy; contribute to healthy skin; help the nervous and immune systems work properly; reduce tiredness; and contribute to healthy blood, bones, and teeth—and in regard to Nesquik cereal, Nestlé writes, “We believe in kids’ creativity.114 That’s why NESQUIK Cereal helps nourish their mind with Vitamins B3, B5, B6 and Iron in those delicious chocolaty balls.”

  But some studies—conducted by people who do not sell vitamins or cereals for a living—suggest that the vitamins in those delicious chocolaty balls might actually be harmful.

  For example, one study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that men who supplemented their diet with high doses of vitamin B for ten years nearly doubled their risk of developing lung cancer.115 Another study found that women who supplemented their diet with vitamin B were 10 percent more likely to die during the study.116

  Other studies have found that large doses of vitamin B can cause nerve damage and liver disease117 and that too much calcium and vitamin D may increase the risk of heart disease.118

  Meanwhile, a 2014 analysis by the Environmental Working Group,119 “a non-profit, non-partisan organization120 dedicated to protecting human health and the environment,” warned that the percentages of fortified vitamins listed on boxes of children’s breakfast cereals were based on “woefully outdated”121 adult guidelines from 1968—and that a single serving of some cereals contained levels of vitamin A, zinc, or niacin that exceeded the tolerable upper intake levels for children set by the Institute of Medicine.

  As for some of the supplements sold in supermarkets, DNA testing has shown that many contain none of the ingredients they claim to. A 2015 investigation by the attorney general of the state of New York122 found that only 21 percent of the store-brand herbal supplements tested contained DNA from the plants listed on their labels, including just 4 percent of store-brand Walmart supplements. Meanwhile, 35 percent of the supplements tested contained fillers and unlisted contaminants not identified on their label, including things like rice, beans, pine, and powdered houseplants. Other studies have found lead and arsenic in prenatal vitamins.123

  So either vitamins are good for us or they kill us or they’re not even vitamins.

  And the same is true for foods like olive oil, red snapper, and monkfish. (Fortunately, we’re pretty certain they can’t give us syphilis or be used to summon werewolves, so it’s not as though we’ve learned nothing about food in the last few hundred years.)

  Now, all of this may seem incredibly depressing; surely, it’s not fun to realize that our favorite type of sushi might actually be oilfish and our gummy vitamins might eventually kill us. But if we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that this adversity is nothing new. Certainly, it’s tempting to picture our ancestors in perfect harmony with nature, but nature has always been trying to kill us—and every generation before us has faced culinary dangers of their own, whether from toxic roots, scarcity (e.g., crop failures, wartime supply issues), tainted meat and water, failed freezing experiments, or simply failing to pack proper fishing gear and having to resort to frying pans.

  And, ultimately, it’s these struggles that pushed them to adapt and persevere, thus paving the way for apple pie (and edible crust), vanilla ice cream and Rocky Road, and extra-chunky tomato sauce—not to mention smaller jaws, bigger brains, holiday traditions, and modern civilization. . . .

  Acknowledgments

  Much like corn would not exist without human intervention, this book would not exist without the intervention of my agent, Dan Conaway, and editors, Daniel Halpern and Gabriella Doob.

  Thank you also to Sean O’Don
nell for talking me through the specifics of fly olfactory mechanics and meal preferences; to Gary K. Beauchamp for sharing his insight on the mechanics of human taste and food selection; to Scott Kleinman and Craig Callender for their help deciphering the literature and language of medieval cooking; to the library staff and faculty of the University of Richmond, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress for their help accessing materials before and during a pandemic; and to the long list of people who offered their invaluable support as sounding boards, critics, censors, therapists, or voices of reason, including but not limited to Morgann “Breakfast” Taylor, Heather Weintraub, Rachel Weiskittle, Jason King, Scott Little, Michael Chappell, Margaret Murray, Allen Gee, Karl Alcan, Everett Alcan, Waffles Weasley (my dog), and everyone I’ve ever had lunch or coffee with—especially those who paid.

  Notes

  Epigraph

  1. “History celebrates the battlefields”: Jeffrey M. Pilcher, The Oxford Handbook of Food History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 209.

  2. “Of the many choices”: B. W. Higman, How Food Made History (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 1.

  Chapter 1: A History of Swallowing

  1. “The pursuit of more”: Reay Tannahill, Food in History (New York: Stein and Day, 1973), 7.

  2. “Tell me what”: 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.

  3. “luxurious mouthfeel”: Catherine Donnelly, ed., The Oxford Companion to Cheese (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 88.

  4. its 1825 debut: Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste; or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy.

  5. “For proof one can cite”: Ibid.

  6. “Suggest to a charming”: Ibid.

  7. “I can remember”: Ibid.

  8. “although I carry”: Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste; or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy.

  9. “A dinner which ends”: Ibid.

  10. “to forbid coffee”: Ibid.

  11. preferences for salt: Micah Leshem, “Salt Preference in Adolescence Is Predicted by Common Prenatal and Infantile Mineralofluid Loss,” Physiology and Behavior 63, no. 4 (1998): 699–704.

  12. exposure to flavors: L. Cooke and A. Fildes, “The Impact of Flavour Exposure in Utero and During Milk Feeding on Food Acceptance at Weaning and Beyond,” Appetite 57 (2011): 808–11.

  13. between 500 milliliters: Jack A. Pritchard, “Fetal Swallowing and Amniotic Fluid Volume,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 28, no. 5 (1966): 606–10.

  14. a full liter: Cooke and Fildes, “The Impact of Flavour Exposure in Utero and During Milk Feeding on Food Acceptance at Weaning and Beyond.”

  15. Researchers have detected: Jennifer S. Savage, Jennifer Orlet Fisher, and Leann L. Birch, “Parental Influence on Eating Behavior: Conception to Adolescence,” The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 35, no. 1 (2007): 22–34.

  16. meanwhile, breast milk: Cooke and Fildes, “The Impact of Flavour Exposure in Utero and During Milk Feeding on Food Acceptance at Weaning and Beyond.”

  17. In one study: Julie A. Mennella, Coren P. Jagnow, and Gary K. Beauchamp, “Prenatal and Postnatal Flavor Learning by Human Infants,” Pediatrics 107, no. 6 (2001): e88.

  18. in another: Peter G. Hepper et al., “Long-Term Flavor Recognition in Humans with Prenatal Garlic Experience,” Developmental Psychobiology 55, no. 5 (2013): 568–74.

  19. adults who’d been fed: R. Haller et al., “The Influence of Early Experience with Vanillin on Food Preference Later in Life,” Chemical Senses 24, no. 4 (1999): 465–67.

  20. Children who were breastfed: Cooke and Fildes, “The Impact of Flavour Exposure in Utero and During Milk Feeding on Food Acceptance at Weaning and Beyond.”

  21. it was considered: Mennella et al., “Prenatal and Postnatal Flavor Learning by Human Infants.”

  22. An ancient Sanskrit text: An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, vol. 2, translated by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (Calcutta, 1911).

  23. a wet nurse: Ibid., 225–26.

  24. “extremely pendulous”: An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, 225–26.

  25. “ye must be well”: Rick Bowers, Thomas Phaer and the Boke of Chyldren (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999), 33.

  26. Meanwhile, it was thought: Kelley L. Baumgartel, Larissa Sneeringer, and Susan M. Cohen, “From Royal Wet Nurses to Facebook: The Evolution of Breastmilk Sharing,” Breastfeeding Review 24, no. 3 (2016): 25–32.

  27. epigenetic inheritance: Mary Carolan-Olah, Maria Duarte-Gardea, and Julia Lechuga, “A Critical Review: Early Life Nutrition and Prenatal Programming for Adult Disease,” Journal of Clinical Nursing 24, no. 23–24 (2015): 3716–29.

  28. For example, fruit flies: Anita Öst et al., “Paternal Diet Defines Offspring Chromatin State and Intergenerational Obesity,” Cell 159, no. 6 (2014): 1352–64.

  29. mice that were fed: Peter Huypens et al., “Epigenetic Germline Inheritance of Diet-Induced Obesity and Insulin Resistance,” Nature Genetics 48, no. 5 (2016): 497–99.

  30. fetal exposure to poor nutrition: Carolan-Olah et al., “A Critical Review: Early Life Nutrition and Prenatal Programming for Adult Disease.”

  31. another study found: Yuriy Slyvka, Yizhu Zhang, and Felicia V. Nowak, “Epigenetic Effects of Paternal Diet on Offspring: Emphasis on Obesity,” Endocrine 48, no. 1 (2015): 36–46.

  32. roughly half of the population: Charles J. Wysocki and Gary K. Beauchamp, “Ability to Smell Androstenone Is Genetically Determined,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 81, no. 15 (1984): 4899–902.

  33. a smaller portion: Ibid.

  34. People with a gene: Nicholas Eriksson et al., “A Genetic Variant Near Olfactory Receptor Genes Influences Cilantro Preference,” Flavour 1 (2012): article 22.

  35. also known as coriander: Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 221.

  36. “bug-infested bedclothes”: Ibid.

  37. the name coriander: Ibid.

  38. aldehydes similar or identical: Harold McGee, “Cilantro Haters, It’s Not Your Fault,” New York Times, April 13, 2010.

  39. including those of bedbugs: Dong-Hwan Choe et al., “Chemically Mediated Arrestment of the Bed Bug, Cimex lectularius, by Volatiles Associated with Exuviae of Conspecifics,” PLOS ONE, July 19, 2016.

  40. our sensitivity to bitter foods: Diane Catanzaro, Emily C. Chesbro, and Andrew J. Velkey, “Relationship Between Food Preferences and PROP Taster Status of College Students,” Appetite 68 (2013): 124–31.

  41. paper test strips: Ibid.

  42. About half the population: Ibid.

  43. Supertasters also tend: Ibid.

  44. supertasters tend to be: Ibid.

  45. it’s no coincidence: Danielle Renee Reed and Antti Knaapila, “Genetics of Taste and Smell: Poisons and Pleasures,” Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science 94 (2010): 213–40.

  46. Meanwhile, a lot of plants: Jonathan Silvertown, Dinner with Darwin: Food, Drink, and Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 61, 107.

  47. The wild ancestors of pumpkins: Logan Kistler et al., “Gourds and Squashes (Cucurbita spp.) Adapted to Megafaunal Extinction and Ecological Anachronism Through Domestication,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112, no. 49 (2015): 15107–12.

  48. and almonds: Susie Neilson, “How Almonds Went from Deadly to Delicious,” National Public Radio, June 13, 2019, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/06/13/732160949/how-almonds-went-from-deadly-to-delicious.

  49. breastfeeding can make it harder: Lee Goldman, Too Much of a Good Thing: How Four Key Survival Traits Are Now Killing Us (New York: Little, Brown, 2015), 26–27.

  50. people would naturally stop: Brian Handwerk, “
How Cheese, Wheat and Alcohol Shaped Human Evolution,” Smithsonian, March 13, 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-cheese-wheat-and-alcohol-shaped-human-evolution-180968455.

  51. our bodies developed: Stephen Le, 100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today (New York: Picador, 2016), 108.

  52. The discovery of yogurt: Nissim Silanikove, “The Interrelationships Between Lactose Intolerance and the Modern Dairy Industry: Global Perspectives in Evolutional and Historical Backgrounds,” Nutrients 7, no. 9 (2015): 7312–31.

  53. roughly two-thirds: Handwerk, “How Cheese, Wheat and Alcohol Shaped Human Evolution.”

  54. Our genetic tolerance: Gary Paul Nabhan, Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity (Washington, DC: Shearwater Books, 2004), 28–29.

  55. our ancestors’ consumption: W.P.T. James et al., “Nutrition and Its Role in Human Evolution,” Journal of Internal Medicine 285, no. 5 (2019): 543, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joim.12878.