By Carla Cevasco How to follow the Word of the Bible and still tuck into a nice blood pudding? This question inspired the Massachusetts Puritan minister Increase Mather to publish a brief pamphlet in 1697 entitled “A Case of Conscience Concerning Eating of Blood, Considered and Answered.” The conundrum, Mather wrote, lay in the injunction from … Continue reading Blood, Controversy, and Puddings in the Early English Atlantic
By Marieke Hendrikksen In my research on the use of metals in eighteenth-century medical chemistry, iron has a special place. Unlike other metals, which were increasingly regarded as dangerous, iron remained a safe bet in blood-related diseases. However, up until the early nineteenth century, this understanding was not so much based on a chemical understanding … Continue reading From bloodstone to fish soup: iron recipes
By Jennifer Sherman Roberts Close your eyes and imagine a chicken. Now a duck. Now a turkey. Now a pigeon. If this little experiment has worked the way I envisioned, when you thought of a pigeon you didn’t just think of a different bird but of a different environment. You likely pictured chickens and ducks … Continue reading Pigeon Blood Visine?: An Early Modern Eye Wash
By Katherine H. West When Zenú farmers in San Andrés de Sotavento, Colombia, have given colourful names to their maize varieties. These includsangre toro (bull’s blood), cucaracho (striped like a cockroach), huevito (little egg), piedrita (little stone), panó, tacaloa, berrendo. These names encode generations of knowledge: culinary properties, ecological adaptations, ceremonial significance, relationships between … Continue reading The Colours Capitalism Cannot See: Maize, Rights, and Colonial Logic in Colombia
