On Food and Cooking

some form until the beginning of the 20th
century, though Sweden outlawed the use
of copper cooking pots in its armed
services in the 18th century due to the
toxicity of copper in large, cumulative
doses. And “Tabitha Tickletooth” wrote in
The Dinner Question (1860): “Never, under
any circumstances, unless you wish
entirely to destroy all flavor, and reduce
your peas to pulp, boil them with soda.
This favorite atrocity of the English
kitchen cannot be too strongly
condemned.”
Red-Purple Anthocyanins and Pale
Anthoxanthins The usually reddish
anthocyanins and their pale yellow cousins,
the anthoxanthins, are chlorophyll’s
opposites. They’re naturally water-soluble, so
they always bleed into the cooking water.
They too are sensitive to pH and to the
presence of metal ions, but acidity is good for
them, metals bad. And where chlorophyll just