🧪 Bad Science 1914

Test Pickles for Copper

A home assay for copper in your pickles, because greening them in a brass kettle was that common.

From: Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book
Published: 1914
Yikes Scale: Big yikes

Exactly as printed, 1914

Many people have a prejudice against deep green pickles found on the market, on account of the fear that poisonous substances may have been used in the manufacture. Hence homemade pickles of a good color and flavor usually find a ready and profitable local market.

To Test Pickles for Copper.-To find out if pickles are poisonous from having been cooked in brass or copper kettles, chop a sample of the pickle fine, place it in a glass bottle with a few drams of liquid ammonia diluted with about half as much water.

Shake thoroughly, and if there are any traces of copper in the pickles the contents will be of a deep blue color.

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

So what happens if I make it?

The test is real chemistry and it works: copper salts give a deep blue with ammonia. What is remarkable is that a household book needed to print it at all.

Greening pickles in copper was normal practice, done deliberately for colour, and the resulting verdigris is a copper salt that causes vomiting and abdominal pain. Households were testing their own food because the trade could not be trusted.

Notes from the 21st century

The green was the selling point. Deep green pickles looked fresh and commanded a price, which is exactly why the practice was so hard to stamp out.
The rest of the page is worse. It works throughout from vinegar of unstated strength, and includes a method for reviving vinegar that has gone weak.
Cold-poured, unprocessed jars. Pouring strong vinegar over vegetables “without scalding” gives an unpasteurised jar, and the page offers no storage instruction at all.

Also in this book

English Sparrows as Food — A pest-control chapter that pivots, mid-page, to fattening the survivors for the table.
Salt Test for Poisonous Mushrooms — Sprinkle salt on the gills. Yellow means poison, black means dinner. Printed as the best rule.
Stimulants for Opium Poisoning — Coffee, brandy and strychnine for a narcotic overdose, and keep the patient marching.

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