Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-01-10
ADJJLTERATED FOOD.
DEcEPTIoNs ASSORTED TO BY THE
 GREEDY AND UNSCRUPULoUS.

Information Which Will Enable the House.
 wife to Tell the Genuine From the Doc. torod Article-A Little Joke at the
 Butchers Expenss-Bogus Spices.
 The adulteration of articles of food is by no means an invention of modern times, but was practiced by our classic al ancestors. During the middle ages the cunning baker mixed his flour with lime, sand and gypsum, and on discovery was thrown into prison cell and con- pelled to eat the product of his entire bakery, which cured him of the fraudu- lent habit.
 The most important article of food in every household is the meat. The meat which comes from healthy animals is distinguished by pleasant odor and fresh color, from a delicate pink to a deep carmine, according to the animal from which it comes. It must be elas- tic to the touch. The dent which is caused by pressing a finger on it must disappear when tho pressure is removed.
 
 good indicator of it's quality. In healthy animals the fat is yellow and elastic and has pleasant odor. The fat in the meat from sick animals is pale, gray and smeary and has an unpleasant odor.
 Sausage offers q wide field~for adul- teration of the most dangerous kind, and in the pamphlets which vegeta- rians send broadcast over the land from time to time they give prominence to an anecdote which is as terse as it is il- illustrative of the esteem i'll which they hold the sausage. "A man saved the life of butcher by endangering his own. The poor butcher, overcome with gratitude, cried out in a moment of self forgetfulness, Never in yosr life again, my friend, eat sausage.
 The adulterations in this line are manifold. To produce the fresh red color, so alluring in sausage, fuchsine is mixed with the ingredients instead of blood. It is very common practice to put flour in sausage, and while lit tie of it is harmless, it nevertheless leads to carly fermentation of the ar ticle in question. The buyer, however, is very much imposed upon when flour is added in large quantities, for it en- ables tho sausage makers to add from 60 to 70 per cent of water, which is paid for at the rate of meat. France has lately put stop to this fraud by limiting the addition of flour to 3 per cent.
 Fish are adulterated in the same way by rubbing their gills with aniline, which gives them the appearance of freshness. The aniline is easily washed off and the fraud detected. In fresh fish the eyes are full and protruding, while in old fish they are opaque, dull and sunken. The best way to recog- nize an old fish is to watch the gills, which emit an odor of decay if the fish is too old for use.
 Crawfish or crabs should always be bought alive. Crabs that are sold ai- ready cooked have usually been boiled after they were dead, and soon decay, generating a very dangerous poison. A crawfish that has been boiled alive will show a curled and twisted tail, while, on the other hand, one that was cooked after death has the tail perfectly straight.
 The best way to tell butter from ole omargarlne is to put a piece of it on hot potato which has been boiled in the jacket and freshly peeled. The taste of butter is more pronounced when eaten in this way than any other, and the fraud is detected. It is also the safest way to discover the age of dairy or creamery butter.
 Lard is frequently adulterated with water to increase it's weight, and mixed with cornstarch, salt, chalk, etc., to bind the water to the fat. This may be discovered by carefully melting the lard and setting it aside in a lukewarm place. Tho fat not only separates from the water, but collects at the bottom of the dish with all the other foreign ingredients.
 To tell good eggs from bad ones 1t is only necessary to put them i'll dish filled with water containing from 5 to 10 per cent of salt. Fresh eggs drop to the bottom, old ones swim on the sur face, and those of medium quality sink half way down.
 All spices suffer more or less adulter- alton, but most of all those which are sold in pulverized state. Ground pep per is mixed with paprica, millet, bread, powdered olives, almond meal, dust. sand, gypsum, sawdust, spar, and almost the same ingredients are used for the adulteration of cinnamon. Pull vcrizcd ginger fares no better and is mixed with potato flour, wheat and cayenne pepper. whilo the sweet scent ed anise seed comes in for share of earth, sand and little brown and black stones. Housekeepers will always be more or less cheated in buying powder ed spices, which should be bought in their natural state and ground at home. The vanilla bean before the invention of the artificial vanilline was deprived of its natural aroma and pasted with balm of Peru.
 Coffee is adulterated in all forms and in every possible way. Machines have been invented and large factories erect ed, where artificial coffee beans are made from acorn flour and gum arabic, and these are mixed with the real coffee, and ever the real beans are cov- cred with poisonous chemicals if they udF0 DeeH uaIudSeu Dy bea "dteT III or the influence of the sun or time. Ground or roasted coffee offers the best opportunities, however, for fraud.
 But all these perpetrators of fraud and deception cannot hold a candle to the Chinese, who are masters in the art of the adulteration of tea, which they dye, mix and prepare from leaves that have but bare resemblance to the real tea plar t.--St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
 Fashionable Overcoat. Tailor-How broad do you want the l collar of the overcoat to be? MT. Fewscads--Make it so broad that l f you were coming do-yn the street to | collect the bill for it could turn it up | n I cnnlHn'f Saa vO11 xxhof, vo,, ,ooSa1 |