SECTION VII.
Confectionary, Pastry, and Perfumery.
The confectionary-artist is not behind his compeers in trade in the honourable vocation of sophistication. There are few articles which owe their paternity to his handy-work, that partake wholly of the ingredients to which they bear resemblance in name and appearance: all, almost all, here is the work of “the black art.”
But this is not the worst part of the business. Were any person to be admitted into the “elaboratorical pandemonium” of a pastry-cook or a confectioner—were he to see the disgusting appearance of the vessels in which they manufacture their articles—many of them containing the ingredients with perfect rims of cupreous matter surrounding them—were he to regale his eyes with the sight of the most rancid butter bleaching for the purpose of making pastry, as I have seen, I am sure that he would hold the productions of the confectioner and pastry-cook’s shop in abhorrence, and would not consider Dr. Paris’s denunciation of them, in his useful work on Diet, p. 247, as “an abomination.” A lady with whom I am acquainted, and who lodged at different times in the houses of confectioners and pastry-cooks, had so good an opportunity of witnessing the cleanliness and wholesomeness of their operations, that for many years she has not tasted any commodity that comes out of their manufactories; and I verily believe that she would die of hunger before she could induce herself to allow a scrap of their delicacies to enter her mouth.
But these “artists” not only endanger the health and lives of their customers by the carelessness and nastiness of their conduct in their compositions, but they employ preparations of copper, and also of red lead in colouring their fancy sweet-meats. In the preparations of sugar-plumbs, comfits, and other kinds of confectionary, especially those sweat-meats of inferior quality, frequently exposed to sale in the open-streets, for the allurement of children, Mr. Accum, p. 288, informs us, that the greatest abuses are committed by means of powerful poisons. The white comfits, called sugar-peas, are chiefly composed of a mixture of sugar, starch and Cornish clay (a species of very white pipe-clay); and the red sugar drops are usually coloured with the inferior kinds of vermillion or sap green, and often, instead of those pigments, with red lead and copper. As a yellow colour, cromate of lead is used, and prussiate of iron as a blue. The stuff called “hard rock,” “hard bake,” “white lollypop,” and other baby attracting names, is of an equally deleterious quality. Nor are the ginger-bread or sweet cakes of the ginger-baker less injurious to the health of children, especially the “gilt ginger-bread” as it is termed, which is covered with Dutch leaf,—a composition consisting of an alloy of copper and zinc, or brass and copper. Indeed, all parents should, as the author of “The Oracle of Health and Long Life” observes, anxiously instruct their children never to buy any thing offered for sale in the streets: among my acquaintance more instances than one have occurred in which lamentable results would have been the consequence had not timely aid been afforded the little sufferers. And for the same reason it seems necessary to caution parents never to give painted toys (which are always coloured with red lead, verdigris, and other potent poisons,) to children, who are apt to put every thing, especially if it gives them pleasure, into their mouths.
The mischievous consequences occasioned by the use of sugar confectionary, coloured with metallic and vegetable poisons, are provided against by the French Government, by being under the surveillance branch of the police, entitled the Council of Health, by whom an ordonnance is issued, that no confectionary shall be sold, unless wrapped up in paper, stamped with the name and address of the confectioner; and the ordonnance further provides that the vendors shall be held responsible for all accidents occasioned by confectionary sold in their shops. M. Chevallier has, in the Journal de Chimie Médicale for Jan. 1831, discussed this subject with considerable ability.
“The foreign conserves, such as small green limes, citron, hop-tops, plumbs, angelica roots, &c. imported into this country, and usually sold in round chip boxes, are frequently impregnated with copper.” Indeed, most of the delicacies and “good things” to be obtained in confectioner’s shops, are tinted with all the colours of the rainbow, by the agency of lead, copper, brass, arsenic, or some other poisonous metal.
The presence of lead and copper is readily detected by pouring liquid ammonia over the article suspected of being adulterated with the first mentioned metal, which will acquire a blue colour; and sulphuretted hydrogen, acidulated with muriatic acid, where the second article is suspected to have been made use of in the adulteration, when the article will assume a dark brown or black colour. The adulteration by means of clay may be ascertained by dissolving the suspected article in boiling water, when the sediment or precipitate at the bottom of the vessel ready discovers the fraud.
For the purpose of communicating an almond or a kernel flavour to custards, blanc-mange, and other productions of his art, and to render them grateful to the palates of his customers, the pastry-cook flavours them with the leaves of the poisonous plant, the cherry-laurel. And the basis of his favourite blanc-mange often consists of the shreds of the dried bladders of horses, the skins of soles, and other animal membranes, as cheap substitutes for isinglass. Among his less objectionable sophistications may be mentioned, his fabrication of creams, custards, tarts, and other kinds of pastry, from rice powder and skimmed milk.
The negus and lemonade made by pastry-cooks, and the punch of public and coffee-houses, are made of tartaric acid, as a cheap substitute for citric or lemon acid.