WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: How Did a Parisian Lemonade Craze Fight the Plague?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb, and today we've got

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<v Speaker 1>another classic episode for you. This one is about how

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<v Speaker 1>a coincidental fad for lemonade may have once saved Paris

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<v Speaker 1>from an outbreak of the Black Plague. Hey there, brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren vogel Bomb. Here in the seventeenth century, a return

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<v Speaker 1>of plague, also known as the Black Death, killed about

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<v Speaker 1>one million people in France. Oddly enough, the residents of

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<v Speaker 1>Paris were largely unaffected, despite having the same rat problem

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<v Speaker 1>as any other large city. The rodents carried fleas that

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<v Speaker 1>bore the plague. After the plague killed the rats, the

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<v Speaker 1>fleas often hopped onto human hosts. In this way, the

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<v Speaker 1>plague spread like wildfire, snuffing out life after life. The

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<v Speaker 1>Parisian's miraculous avoidance of the plague could have remained one

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<v Speaker 1>of history's mysteries, but author Tom Neelin squeezed a potential

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<v Speaker 1>explanation out of seemingly desperated events. A purveyor of rares,

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<v Speaker 1>Neilon is not only a connoisseur of history, but of

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<v Speaker 1>the impact the condiments and food stuffs may have had

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<v Speaker 1>on antiquity. His new book of Food Fights and Culture

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<v Speaker 1>Wars follows these sometimes surprising influence food has had throughout history.

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<v Speaker 1>Neilan says health and food were intimately connected for the

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<v Speaker 1>longest time. Early collections of recipes frequently mixed medical and

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<v Speaker 1>cookery receipts, as recipes were called, so it's easy to

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<v Speaker 1>start to conflate them when you're studying the period and

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<v Speaker 1>old cookbooks even after they started to separate. The Renaissance

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<v Speaker 1>Book of Secrets kept elements of food and home remedies

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<v Speaker 1>together for centuries longer. In the case of Paris and

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<v Speaker 1>it's largely unscathed population in the sixteen hundreds, the timing

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<v Speaker 1>of a lemonade trend and the timing of a plague coincided,

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<v Speaker 1>and Neilan wondered whether it was more than a coincidence.

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<v Speaker 1>Up until the sixteen hundreds, lemons had been a rare

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<v Speaker 1>and expensive fruit. All the lemon trees had been cultivated

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<v Speaker 1>throughout Europe and Asia in the preceding decades, and a

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<v Speaker 1>few recipes using lemon as an ingredient had emerged. The

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<v Speaker 1>citrus fruit was a little used in England and France,

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<v Speaker 1>both because of cost and the notion that eating raw

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<v Speaker 1>lemons was harmful. Then an increase in trade and a

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<v Speaker 1>fascination with lemonade popularized the tart fruit, so that by

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<v Speaker 1>the mid sixteen hundreds it was widely available. Nielan explains,

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<v Speaker 1>during the Renaissance, lemons had been bread and domesticated enough,

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<v Speaker 1>and trade had become organized enough that lemons were sufficiently

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<v Speaker 1>inexpensive in the mid seventeenth century to import in bulk.

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<v Speaker 1>Lemonade was all the fashion in a number of cities

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<v Speaker 1>in Italy at the time, especially Rome, and the fad

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<v Speaker 1>spread from there. The cookbook liquis ineur Francois, published in

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<v Speaker 1>sixteen fifty one and written by chef Francois Pierre Lavarenne,

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<v Speaker 1>is considered one of the founding texts of modern French cuisine.

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<v Speaker 1>It included a recipe that combined lemon juice, water and sugar.

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<v Speaker 1>This recipe also contributed to the popularity of lemonade in France.

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<v Speaker 1>And with all this lemonade came lots and lots of

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<v Speaker 1>lemon peels. Lemon peels were everywhere, in the garbage, in

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<v Speaker 1>the gutter, in the river, anywhere that you could find rats.

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<v Speaker 1>It was this tuitous combination of rats and lemon peels

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<v Speaker 1>that may have stopped the spread of plague. Lemon peels

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<v Speaker 1>contain lemoning, a natural ingredient that kills flea larvae and

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<v Speaker 1>adult fleas. The more people that made lemonade and discarded

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<v Speaker 1>the lemon peels, the more the rats nibbled on the peels,

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<v Speaker 1>inadvertently ingesting lemoning and killing fleas and their eggs. Neil

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<v Speaker 1>And says the lemoning disrupted the spread of fleas from

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<v Speaker 1>the rats to people because the plague kills so quickly,

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<v Speaker 1>the fleas needed to move from rats to people back

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<v Speaker 1>to rats over and over again to keep it going

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<v Speaker 1>as their hosts expired. Lemoning, a flea killer that is

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<v Speaker 1>still broadly used in pet treatments, killed the fleas and

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<v Speaker 1>prevented the chain from getting going. At the time, and

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<v Speaker 1>four centuries after the plague subsided, the survival of Parisians

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<v Speaker 1>was attributed to an airing out of goods blankets, bedsheets,

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<v Speaker 1>clothes that had been quarantined. At the time. It was

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<v Speaker 1>mistakenly believed that the illness traveled by air, when it

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<v Speaker 1>was really the rats and fleas traveling with the quarantined

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<v Speaker 1>goods that were at the root of the plague. If

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<v Speaker 1>not for Parisians love of lemonade, many more may have

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<v Speaker 1>met a tragic end. Today's episode was written by Laurie L.

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<v Speaker 1>Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Clang. For

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<v Speaker 1>more on this and lots of other topics, visit how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of

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