Preston's+Thoughts+and+Responses

7/11

So I've been reading __At Home__ by Bill Bryson. I like it because you can pick it up and put it down, and if you don't remember exactly what was happening the last time, it doesn't matter and you're not confused.

Anyway, this morning I was reading about the history of the kitchen. A big section of it was about food storage. I learned that in the early 1800's, it was really hard to be sure your food hadn't gone bad and wasn't crawling with maggots by the time it was served. As you can imagine, that was pretty gross. They didn't have refrigeration for a long time after that, but one American man got very rich by bringing huge blocks of ice across the Atlantic Ocean to sell in a shop in London. The king and queen insisted that only Wenham ice was served in the palace for many years. It was called Wenham ice because it came from a lake near Boston called Lake Wenham. I was surprised that you could keep ice frozen during a trip across the ocean, and then could have it sitting in a shop for a while. It turns out, the blocks were HUGE (like 130 tons of ice).

Another thing that was new at the time was the practice of canning foods (like the cans you have in your cupboard). Apparently people began using canned foods around 1800, but the cans were so thick that getting them open was very difficult. In fact, soldiers usually had to spear them with their bayonnets or shoot them to get to the food inside. It made me wonder how they would eat the food from a can that has been mutilated that badly. Would they pour it into something else? Or did they just "drink" the contents? What I found very funny was that though people used cans all through the 1800's, the basic can opener like we use today wasn't invented until 1925! It makes me think about how I would get into a can without it. I'm thankful somebody came up with the idea!

I also read about the types of foods used, with particular interest in the potato crops grown throughout Europe. You see, I knew that Ireland had had a huge potato famine, because of a bacteria that spread through the entire crop, and that it killed a lot of people. Potatoes were the main source of food for the country, because they could be grown in rocky soil. I also remembered that a lot of Ireland blamed the British for not sending any help, but I didn't know much else about it. What I learned today was that 1.5 million people died in 1845 and 1846. I looked that number up, because I didn't know really how big it is, and I found out that it would be like all the people in Idaho (which is ironic, since Idaho is known for its potatoes).

A very interesting book, but I'm glad I'm journaling about it. I don't always remember what I've read in nonfiction, so I want to be sure to take some time to make it meaningful to me.