Explanation: The Romans used lead-lined cookware not in ignorance of its dangers, but wholly cognizant of them - the Romans recognized lead poisoning from various sources, and regarded lead as ‘unwholesome’ to human health.
They used lead widely in many applications that they could be forgiven for thinking were not dangerous - they understood how to prevent lead leaching in pipes, and used lead in writing tablets. Less forgivably, in cosmetics. But most dangerous of all was the use of lead pots in making ‘defrutum’ - sweet wine
jellysyrup, which wealthy Romans loved to put on everything. The thing is, the process uses lead specifically because other materials won’t do - copper and iron leave an aftertaste, while lead vessels actually make it sweeter, as leaditselfacetate is slightly sweet.What’s a little harmless poison in your condiments, after all?
The explanation is practically perfect, so focusing on two small tidbits:
Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
(It’s also easy to prepare at home. And as long as you do it in a normal cooking pot it’s completely safe. Great to use over vanilla ice cream.)
Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
I’ve seen it referred to by various terms and I’m not culinarily educated enough to tell the difference between any of the words. Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me! I’ll fix it in my explanation though!
It was available to a wide range of people, but it was a frequent visitor primarily to the tables of the wealthy.
Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
I’ll correct that too.
Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me!
The main difference is texture: a jelly is firm and lumpy enough that you can hold it with the side of a knife and spread over something else (like a toast), but you’d have a really hard time pouring jelly over something by tilting the container. In the meantime a syrup is a thick liquid, so it’s runny and you can pour it over.
Traditionally, the source of that difference in texture is a substance called pectin, found in plenty fruits. Grapes do have pectin, but once you squeezed them into juice most pectin went to waste with the pomace and skins, so even if you reduce the juice for defrutum it’ll be still a runny liquid.
Must is simply grape juice, ready to be fermented into wine, although in Latin the word mustum also sometimes pops up for young wines. Additionally, in the context of Catholic masses it’s grape juice suitable for communion.
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It was an interesting comment that added to the discussion, unlike yours , , ,
‘Defrutum’ is exactly what I would name an alcoholic fruit syrup if I was a drunk Roman.
I would have gone with “IV Loco”
We also put lead in gasoline knowing damn well it would come out the tail pipes and people on the streets would have to breathe it. Several decades of leaded gasoline passed until someone developed an alternative to fix engine knocks. If that had never been invented we would still be pumping lead into our streets today as a “cost of life” or more realistically, a cost of doing business.
Cars still offgas other heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel), and rhe wear from their tires also distributes heavy metals. Tractors do the same in our fields and have for decades. It’s not good. Instead of developing drones for the military, we should develop them for our food supply first.
The industrial revolution and it’s consequences
Thank you Clair Patterson!
Obligatory Veritasium link
You say this like we don’t still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they’re “safe for use” because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).
Would you be talking about plates, spoons and such, when saying, “kitchenware”?
Because I don’t see something like a wok having a heavy metal being sealed behind something else, since the surface needs to be some metal anyway and I don’t know of any transparent metals.On another note, I recently got gifted a melamine crockery set, by the company. And since this is a product that could easily be problematic if the manufacturing process were not perfect (and I don’t see the company not cheaping out), I only use the stuff for keeping peels and other waste, before throwing it out.
Wait you guys don’t cook with asbestos?
Well you know. One is WAY worse. Like we still have not found that much proof of plastic being very bad
Someone correct me if I’m remembering this incorrectly but I do remember seeing a article explaining how we have discovered that plastic has been making men infertile due to the male body collecting micro plastics in the balls to the point that if not stopped in time the plastic will start killing sperms and making the man sterile Edit I think I found the video that informed me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IoH41Qzv__0 Upon searching I’ve found a lot of the sources claiming that there is a correlation between plastic count and sperm count seems to be coming from India which is odd but yet again if you want to study people surrounded by garbage India is the place to get a large sample size but I’ve also found some sources saying that plastic is more specifically affecting hormone production https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXq1Sm95GlQ&pp=ygUYcGxhc3RpY3Mgc3RlcmlsaXppbmcgbWVu
Correlation is not causation. There is currently no definitive proof of anything. It sure as hell is not good for us. But I’ll take the plastic over the lead poisoning every day.
I’m just saying one is acutely more dangerous.
Edit: while I have not watched the entire video, she even says the studies are incredibly small. You can not say shit if you test less than 20 people. These small studies’ results may point to a larger study being interesting to do, but nothing else.
Lead is more dangerous to humans. Plastic is worse for the planet
That is indeed what I meant to say. Though if we want to talk about worse things we can just at both farming and climate change. THOSE are really really bad
micro-plastics in the brain
The article I read said Alzheimer patients had 10x the amount of plastics in the, compared to peoples ithput Alzheimers.
Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
In the study, researchers looked at 12 brain samples from people who had died with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. These brains contained up to 10 times more plastic by weight than healthy samples.
People downvoting this comment are just mad that you’re right.
