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Don't Cook That

Sulphuric-Acid Fumigation of Tainted Meat

Hang the spoiled meat over salt, drip in sulphuric acid, and let the fumes disinfect it.

From
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book
Published
1914
Yikes Scale
Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1914

Or place a quantity of pulverized charcoal in a cheese-cloth bag, and place these in the kettle. All odors will be absorbed by the charcoal and the meat will be sweet and clean.

Or hang the meat on a nail in a box, or suspended inside of an inverted barrel. Place beneath half a teacupful of table salt in an earthenware bowl and add by degrees 2 ounces of sulphuric acid at the rate of ounce each 15 or 20 minutes, until all has been added. The resulting fumes will disinfect anything with which they come in contact. But care must be taken not to breathe them. Afterwards rinse the meat well with a solution of 1 tablespoonful of baking soda or borax to a gallon of water, To Keep Frozen Meat. - In cold climates and in winter, meat may be preserved indefinitely by allowing it to freeze. But it must not be permitted to freeze and thaw frequently, and must not be thawed out too quickly when required for use. To preserve meat by freezing, first expose it to the weather until thoroughly frozen through and through. Wrap in waxed paper or cover with a cloth coated with shellac or other varnish and pack in an ordinary flour barrel between layers of hay, straw, or excelsior, pressing the whole as tightly and solidly as possible. Place the barrel in a bin or packing case, and surround it with a layer of 5 or 6 inches of dry sawdust.

To thaw frozen meat when required for use, place it in a moderately warm room at a distance from the fire, and allow it to thaw gradually.


Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book, 1914. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Acid on salt generates hydrogen chloride gas. It will indeed knock down the smell, and it will do nothing whatever about the bacteria or the toxins they have already produced in the meat.

The book's own aside is the tell. If the fumes are dangerous enough that you must not breathe them, they are not something to be building into your dinner.

Notes from the 21st century

  • Smell is not the hazard. Spoilage odour and foodborne illness are different processes. Removing the smell removes the warning, not the danger.
  • Some toxins survive anything. Staphylococcal enterotoxin, for one, is heat-stable and is not destroyed by cooking, let alone by fuming.
  • The rinse afterwards is borax water. Borax was a common period preservative and is not permitted in food today; it was banned as an additive in the US after the pure-food reforms.

Also in this book

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