Category: food & drink
Whisky and water on tap (or not)
Whisky and water link three otherwise random news stories, two from 1895 and one from 1833. The first is a cautionary tale about drink (but not as you might expect). The second shows an interesting at... Read More
Frozen fish, a Cumbrian discovery
Frozen fish, a staple of any domestic freezer, was a 20th century discovery by Clarence Birdseye. Or was it? Well, no. But this isn’t a blog about native Canadians, or how the Romans invented underf... Read More
Food safety – sawdust sandwich, anyone?
Food safety isn’t something we can ever take for granted. With unscrupulous traders along the chain, our ancestors literally could not be sure what they were eating. Do a search for ‘trading s... Read More
Drunkenness – the Georgian view
In a previous post, I looked at the 18th century craze for gin. And how a Cumbrian Character – George Smith, of Kendal – published a ‘how to’ guide for setting up a small commercial still. Sm... Read More
Cumbrian gin – invented in Kendal
‘Cumbrian gin’ as a search term pulls up some tempting modern offerings. But did you know a Kendal distiller wrote a best-selling book about it in 1725? Gin is in. According to a feature i... Read More