The Secret History of Food

by Matt Siegel

  64. tells the story: Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief.

  65. beehives were used: Jeffrey A. Lockwood, Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 10.

  66. Cavemen covered them: Ibid., 11.

  67. Roman armies loaded them: Ibid., 24.

  68. medieval Englishmen tossed them: Ibid., 22–23.

  69. Mayans lobbed bee grenades: Ibid., 17.

  70. ships’ crews waged war: Ibid., 24.

  71. from the Greek bombos: Ibid.

  72. Ancient Persians and Native Americans: Ibid., 36–37.

  73. “mad honeycomb”: Abdulkadir Gunduz, Suleyman Turedi, and Hikmet Oksuz, “The Honey, the Poison, the Weapon,” Wilderness and Environmental Medicine 22, no. 2 (2011): 182–84.

  74. rigging jungle beehives: Lockwood, Six-Legged Soldiers, 231.

  75. worth about $166 per pound: Vaughn Bryant, “Truth in Labeling: Testing Honey,” Bee Culture, August 2014, 29.

  76. prior to sacrifice: Long, Honey, 108; Raymond Constant Kerkhove, “Explaining Aztec Human Sacrifice” (master’s thesis, University of Queensland, 1994).

  77. “the land of milk and honey”: Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 4th ed. (New York: Norton, 1997), 168.

  78. the Buddha ate honeycomb: Long, Honey, 59.

  79. the Norse god Odin: Beck, Honey and Health, 218.

  80. “Wherever Christianity spread”: Wilson, The Hive.

  81. a churchly symbol: Ibid.

  82. held by a single queen: Ibid.

  83. “used by brothel-keepers”: Wilson, The Hive.

  84. both a lubricant: Jeremy MacClancy, Consuming Culture: Why You Eat What You Eat (New York: Holt, 1992), 80.

  85. “There would be”: Stephanie Strom, “A Bee Mogul Confronts the Crisis in His Field,” New York Times, February 16, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/a-bee-mogul-confronts-the-crisis-in-his-field.html.

  86. nearly three-quarters: Ibid.

  87. California almonds alone depend: “Fact Sheet: The Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations,” The White House, June 20, 2014.

  88. 1.26 million acres: “2020 California Almond Objective Measurement Report,” US Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, July 7, 2020.

  89. farmers rent commercial hives: Heather Smith, “Bee Not Afraid: The Disappearance of the Honeybees Isn’t the End of the World,” Slate, July 13, 2007, https://slate.com/technology/2007/07/why-the-disappearance-of-the-honeybees-isn-t-the-end-of-the-world.html.

  90. nearly eighteen hundred varieties: Frank C. Pellett, American Honey Plants (Hamilton, IL: American Bee Journal, 1920).

  91. they’re attracted to: Ibid.

  92. Bees living near tourist attractions: Elkort, The Secret Life of Food, 198.

  93. beekeepers in New York: Ian Frazier, “The Maraschino Mogul,” The New Yorker, April 16, 2018, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/the-maraschino-moguls-secret-life.

  94. In 1969, a graduate student: Meredith Elizabeth Hoag Lieux, “A Palynological Investigation of Louisiana Honeys” (PhD dissertation, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1969).

  95. nearly 80 percent contained: Ibid., 74.

  96. “seemed reluctant to admit”: Ibid.

  97. Some artisan beekeepers: Old Blue Raw Honey, www.oldbluenaturalresources.com.

  98. helped the CIA search: Molly Kulpa, “The Buzz on Pollen: A Q&A with Dr. Vaughn Bryant, One of the World’s Prominent Palynologists,” Spirit Magazine, Texas A&M Foundation, Fall 2017, www.txamfoundation.com/Fall-2017/Ask-Professor-X.aspx.

  99. spent more than forty years: Vaughn Bryant, “Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer Beward,” Bee Culture, April 24, 2017.

  100. “consumers rarely get”: Vaughn Bryant, “Truth in Labeling: Testing Honey,” Bee Culture, August 2014, 29–32.

  101. “Beekeepers and honey producers”: Ibid.

  102. “The federal laws”: Bryant, “Caveat Emptor.”

  103. the current methods: Bryant, “Truth in Labeling.”

  104. Ever since the United States: Ben Schott, “Honey Laundering,” New York Times, June 16, 2010, https://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/honey-laundering.

  105. loose federal regulations: Bryant, “Truth in Labeling.”

  106. remove unwanted materials: Bryant, “Caveat Emptor.”

  107. the United States gets: Personal interview with Jill Clark, October 11, 2019.

  108. almost 100 million pounds: Bryant, “Caveat Emptor.”

  109. heavy metals such as lead: Andrew Schneider, “Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves,” Food Safety News, August 15, 2011, www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering.

  110. potentially dangerous chemicals: Long, Honey, 135.

  111. often contains traces: Schneider, “Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves.”

  112. In 2011, inspectors found: Ibid.

  113. some manufacturers take forgery: Ibid.

  114. About 30 percent: Personal interview with Clark, October 11, 2019.

  115. Some states: Bryant, “Caveat Emptor.”

  Chapter 6: The Vanilla of Society

  1. “I’ve spent my life”: “Howard Johnson, 75, Founder of the Restaurant Chain, Dead,” New York Times, June 21, 1972, www.nytimes.com/1972/06/21/archives/howard-johnson-75-founder-ot-the-restaurant-chain-dead-bought.html.

  2. who call their lovers: Michael Oates and Larbi Oukada, Entre Amis, 6th ed. (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2012), 283.

  3. in which case mon chou: Barbara Ensrud, The Pocket Guide to Wine and Cheese (Dorset, UK: New Orchard Editions, 1981), 90.

  4. etymology of mon chou: Oates and Oukada, Entre Amis, 238; Evelyne Bloch-Dano, Vegetables: A Biography, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 51.

  5. la femme fraise: Mary A. Knighton, “Down the Rabbit Hole: In Pursuit of Shōjo Alices, from Lewis Carroll to Kanai Mieko,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, no. 40 (2011): 49–89.

  6. c’est la saison: “Top Euphemisms for ‘Period’ by Language,” Clue, March 10, 2016, https://helloclue.com/articles/culture/top-euphemisms-for-period-by-language.

  7. taken as a compliment: “Vanille,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/221378.

  8. “Ah, you flavour”: Lady Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, vol. 1 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), 262.

  9. “I love you”: “Cap o’ Rushes,” Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  10. the stereotype of sailors: “Salty,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/170227.

  11. because LGBTQ populations: “Vanilla,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/221377.

  12. world’s most popular: Anne Cooper Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Cream (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1995), 59.

  13. second most expensive: Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (New York: Scribner, 2004), 430.

  14. a kilo of which: “Mystery Solved: Biologists Explain the Genetic Origins of the Saffron Crocus,” Science Daily, March 11, 2019.

  15. vanilla is the only: Patricia Rain, Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Most Popular Flavor and Fragrance (New York: Penguin, 2004), 5.

  16. more than 25,000 species: Ibid., 2.

  17. It can take years: Ibid., 10.

  18. which grow only: Ibid.

  19. bloom only for a few hours: Ibid., 6.

  20. their hermaphroditic sex parts: Ibid.

  21. only one or two species: Ibid.

  22. the melipona and euglossine bees: Ibid.

  23. a 1 percent chance: Daphna Havkin-Frenkel and Faith C. Belanger, eds., Hand
book of Vanilla Science and Technology, 2nd ed. (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2019), 15.

  24. Nahuatl ahuacatl: Anju Saxena, ed., Himalayan Languages Past and Present (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 364.

  25. a Spanish diminutive: Tim Ecott, Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 23.

  26. Greek órχis: Anju Saxena, ed., Himalayan Languages Past and Present.

  27. It wasn’t until 1841: Richard Bulliet et al., The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History, 6th ed., vol. 2 (Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2015), 680.

  28. a title now held: Javier De La Cruz Medina et al., “Vanilla: Post-harvest Operations,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, June 16, 2009, 3.

  29. Because its flowers: Rain, Vanilla, 7.

  30. another six to nine months: Ibid., 8.

  31. they need to be cured: Ibid., 9.

  32. six hundred dollars per kilo: Richard Gray, “Nine Surprising Things Worth More than This Shimmering Metal,” BBC, May 31, 2018, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180530-nine-surprising-things-worth-more-than-this-shimmering-metal.

  33. six hundred blossoms: Melody M. Bomgardner, “The Problem with Vanilla,” Scientific American, September 14, 2016, www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-vanilla.

  34. contain only about about 2 percent: Ibid.

  35. a few kilos of vanilla beans: Nancy Kacungira, “Fighting the Vanilla Thieves of Madagascar,” BBC, August 16, 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/madagascar_vanillla.

  36. Some farmers harvest: Lovasoa Rabary and Hereward Holland, “Madagascar Vanilla Crop Quality Suffers as Thieves Spark Violence,” Reuters, July 18, 2019.

  37. more prone to disease: De La Cruz Medina, et al., “Vanilla: Post-harvest Operations.”

  38. seek vigilante justice: Finbarr O’Reilly, “Precious as Silver, Vanilla Brings Cash and Crime to Madagascar,” New York Times, September 4, 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/world/africa/madagascar-vanilla.html.

  39. “tattoo” their beans: Ecott, Vanilla, 36.

  40. up to 99 percent: Bomgardner, “The Problem with Vanilla.”

  41. derived from things: Iain Fraser, “Choosy Consumers Drive a Near 1,000% Spike in Vanilla Prices,” The Conversation, February 27, 2017, https://theconversation.com/choosy-consumers-drive-a-near-1-000-spike-in-vanilla-prices-72780.

  42. chloroform: Simon Cotton, “Vanillin,” Royal Society of Chemistry, February 29, 2008.

  43. castoreum: C. Rose Kennedy, “The Flavor Rundown: Natural vs. Artificial Flavors,” Science in the News, Harvard University, September 21, 2015, http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/the-flavor-rundown-natural-vs-artificial-flavors.

  44. In 2006, a Japanese scientist: Cotton, “Vanillin.”

  45. the FDA’s definition: Kennedy, “The Flavor Rundown: Natural vs. Artificial Flavors.”

  46. applies only to visible contamination: Kimberly Kindy, “Consumers Are Buying Contaminated Meat, Doctors’ Group Says in Lawsuit,” Washington Post, April 17, 2019.

  47. a 2015 study: Andrea Rock, “How Safe Is Your Ground Beef?,” Consumer Reports, December 21, 2015, www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/how-safe-is-your-ground-beef.htm.

  48. acceptable limits: “Food Defect Levels Handbook,” US Food and Drug Administration, September 7, 2018.

  49. odds are: “CFR—Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21,” US Food and Drug Administration, April 1, 2019.

  50. mix with wine or honey: Martin Elkort, The Secret Life of Food: A Feast of Food and Drink History, Folklore, and Fact (Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1991), 101–02; Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food, translated by Anthea Bell (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992), 749.

  51. comes from the Arabic sharba: “Sherbet,” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/177992.

  52. sharbat, a drink made: “Hot Enough for You? Cool Off with a Brief History of Frozen Treats,” National Public Radio, August 17, 2016, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/17/490386948/hot-enough-for-you-cool-off-with-a-brief-history-of-frozen-treats.

  53. The Chinese made sherbet: Mary Ellen Snodgrass, World Food: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Social Influence from Hunter Gatherers to the Age of Globalization (Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 2013).

  54. the Mongols made ice cream: Ibid.

  55. underground pits insulated: 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), 289.

  56. “the Viennese are afraid”: Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven’s Letters: A Critical Edition with Explanatory Notes by Dr. A. C. Kalischer, translated with preface by J. S. Shedlock, vol. 1 (London: Dent, 1909), 10.

  57. “P.S. The house I filled”: George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, edited by W. W. Abbot, vol. 1, 1784 – July 1784, University Press of Virginia, 1992, 420–21.

  58. “there was not”: George Washington, The Diaries of George Washington, edited by Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, vol. 4, 1784–June 1786, University Press of Virginia, 1978, 148–49.

  59. later spending: John F. Mariani, The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 264.

  60. Francis Bacon: Visser, Much Depends on Dinner, 293–94.

  61. “stale and rancid”: Edgar Stanton Maclay, “The Social Side of Washington’s Administration,” Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine 52, no. 1 (1918): 209.

  62. “Refined sugar was sold”: Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla, 4.

  63. Thomas Jefferson’s recipe: “Ice Cream,” Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/ice-cream.

  64. “the average family”: Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla, 4.

  65. many early American breweries: Ibid., 111. See also “Milk Products,” The Western Brewer and Journal of the Barley, Malt and Hop Trades 54, no. 4 (1920): 127.

  66. Pabst Blue Ribbon: Kat Eschner, “How Some Breweries Survived Prohibition,” Smithsonian, April 7, 2017.

  67. “The prohibition”: “Ice-Cream Instead of Beer,” The National Advocate 54, no. 12 (1919): 2.

  68. ice cream consumption had grown: William H. Young and Nancy K. Young, The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 253.

  69. mock apple pies: Julia C. Andrews, Breakfast, Dinner, and Tea: Viewed Classically, Poetically, and Practically (New York: Appleton, 1860), 174; Lisa Abraham, “Recipe: Ritz Mock Apple Pie—an Old Time Favorite,” Seattle Times, June 23, 2009.

  70. popularized by William Dreyer: “Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream,” Oral History Center, Bancroft Library, University of California, www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/oral-history-center/projects/dreyers.

  71. owned by Unilever: Nathalie Jordi, “Don’t Use the P Word: A Popsicle Showdown,” The Atlantic, July 9, 2010, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/07/dont-use-the-p-word-a-popsicle-showdown/59412.

  72. “the sick fucking Romans”: John O’Bryan, A History of Weapons: Crossbows, Caltrops, Catapults & Lots of Other Things That Can Seriously Mess You Up (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2013), 73.

  73. called meurtrières: Lise Hull, Understanding the Castle Ruins of England and Wales: How to Interpret the History and Meaning of Masonry and Earthworks (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 52.

  74. the Japanese were throwing: Heather Arndt Anderson, Chillies: A Global History (London: Reaktion, 2016), Apple Books ed.

  75. converted fruit pits: Albert N. Merritt, War Time Control of Distribution of Foods (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 149.

  76. Fat Salvage Committee: Adee Braun, “Turning Bacon into Bombs: The American Fat Salvage Committee,” The Atlantic, April 18, 2014, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/reluctantly-turning-bacon-into-bombs-during-world-war-ii/360298.

  77. “Don’t throw away”: “Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line,” W
alt Disney, 1942.

  78. “For armies are”: N. P. Milner, Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2001), 67.

  79. “fights from within”: Ibid., 84.

  80. all he needed: Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), Apple Books ed.