Unexpected Consequences
The battle began on Independence Day, 8 0 , with heat so stifling,
it was said, that only flies and insects were out in force, taking advan-
tage of the capital’s primitive water and sewage infrastructure. Taylor’s
packed schedule began with a Sunday school recital. At the future site
of the Washington Monument, he spent much of the afternoon under
the hot sun while speechifying politicians rambled on to commemorate
the occasion.
Upon returning to the White House, he purportedly ate cherries in
iced milk. A few hours later, he fell ill with nausea and cramps. Believing
he could tough it out, Taylor initially refused the medicine offered by
his physician. Five days later, Old Rough and Ready was dead. The
cause of death was listed as cholera morbus, which we know today as viral
gastroenteritis or stomach flu—the result of ingesting unsafe food or
liquid.
Another half century would go by before public consciousness that
microscopic organisms might be lurking about in food would catalyze
action. Behaviors did not change overnight. Old beliefs that disease
could emanate spontaneously (arise from anything, even out of thin
air) persisted. Understanding of disease transmission in food lagged.
And the risk of illness (and possibly death) needed to outweigh pur-
ported claims that food would become unaffordable. Until then, people
accepted his death as a tragic event, then carried on preparing food
following familial, religious, and cultural traditions practiced over hun-
dreds of generations.
My mother inherited some of those traditions from her mother. My
mother’s command of the kitchen had no equal. She seldom looked at a
recipe or opened a cookbook. Multiple measuring spoons and cups got
in her way. She knew the ingredient proportions and when to add them.
Dialing up the correct temperature on the oven or stovetop was second
nature, as was her keen sense of when bread, a casserole, or a pot roast
was ready. Her ease in preparing food allowed our family to take her
skills for granted. Later in her life, I tried to coax out details on how to
prepare some of my favorite dishes. My questions flummoxed her—why
couldn’t I see what to her was so obvious?
Yet when canning season began toward the end of summer, she
pulled out a well-worn set of index cards with specific directions. For
the next several weeks, she filled a pantry about half the size of the