☠️ Poison Pantry 1912

Russian Mode of Preserving Fruit

Fresh fruit packed in quicklime slaked with creosote water, in a wooden box.

From: Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery
Published: 1912
Yikes Scale: Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1912

A method of preserving fruit, in extensive use in Russia, consists in moistening quicklime with water containing a little creosote, so as to cause it to fall into powder. The fruit is packed in a wooden box, the bottom of which is filled in to the depth of an inch with the lime. The stratum is covered with a sheet of paper, and the fruit laid upon this, each piece by itself, so that no one touches another. A sheet of paper is placed on the top of this layer of fruit and then a second layer of lime is sifted in. In this way lime, paper, and fruit alternately are put in till the box is filled. The corners are then filled with finely-powdered charcoal. By covering the box with a tightly-fitting top, the fruit can, it is said, be kept fresh for at least a year.

Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, 1912. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Creosote is the disqualifying ingredient. In the nineteenth century the word covered the phenolic fraction of wood tar and, in commerce, coal-tar creosote. Both are volatile, both are toxic, and neither belongs near food.

The quicklime is calcium oxide. Slaking it throws off heat and a caustic dust that burns eyes and lungs, and even settled it stays strongly alkaline.

Notes from the 21st century

The paper does nothing useful. It separates lime from fruit physically, not chemically. Vapour passes through, moisture wicks, and split fruit is in direct contact.
The rest of the page is of a piece. The same entry endorses salicylic acid and the chemical preservation typical of the era before pure-food law.
The principle is sound; the materials are not. Drying the air around stored fruit does extend its life. That is what desiccants are for, and none of them are creosote.

Also in this book

Peacock — Kill it with a quill through the brain, roast it, sew it back into its feathers, and set its beak alight.
Porpoise — “This fish is often caught at sea by the crews of vessels, and its flesh makes a pleasant change.”
Syllabubs Under the Cow — A punch bowl of sherry, brandy and lemon, carried out to the dairymaid to be filled from the cow.

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Russian Mode of Preserving Fruit

Exactly as printed, 1912

So what happens if I make it?

Notes from the 21st century

Also in this book

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