This story is about the legendary and everybody's favorite beverage, which now exists in many variations. It has sour historical roots. We are talking about lemonade, which in the times of bubonic plague not only quenched thirst but also saved the whole city from attack. And lemonade also helped the medicine of that time unheard of!
In 1668, after a decade of absence, the bubonic plague returned to France and the inhabitants of Paris were threatened. It was already known about the plague in Normandy and Picardia: it was in Sasson, Amiens. And then she went down the river Seine to Rouen. Everyone knew what that meant. A few years earlier, in 1665-16666, the plague had claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Londoners, almost a quarter of the population. Many remembered the year 1630, when 140,000 Venetians, a third of the city's population and almost half of Milan's population died of the plague - 130,000 people. Panicked Parisians have imposed quarantines and embargoes, hoping to reduce the scale of the inevitable catastrophe. But it never came. The plague hit Paris at a time when the European epidemic of the 17th century was exactly halfway across the globe, with Vienna (80,000 people in 1679), Prague (80,000 in 1681) and Malta (11,000 in 1675) in the lead. The number of deaths in Amiens reached 30,000, and the epidemic affected almost all French cities, but not Paris, which magically remained almost unharmed.
You probably already imagined a Plague doctor in a terrible suit with a long "beak", which heroically enters the homes of patients. Or get ready to read a story about some smart Parisian who saved everyone. People like to consider themselves the main heroes and creators of history. But the true perpetrators of the events often remain in the shadows.
Hunger and taste - these are the secret engines of civilization, according to the historian and antiquarian Tom Nilon. He spent many years studying ancient books and found that it was often because of food that empires were created and collapsed, new continents were opened, scientific breakthroughs were made and brilliant works of art were born. He collected the most interesting examples from the past in his book "Battles for food and wars of cultures", generously providing his story with illustrations from the collection of the British Library. The result was a book that combined an ironic detective, a historical monograph and an art album. How did brown sauce influence Byron's poetry? Could the cultivation of carps save mankind from crusades? How many wars happened because of cocoa? Was Dickens a cannibal? Tom Nilon answers many non-standard questions.
But let's return to Paris in the XVII century. How was it possible that the capital of France, the most popular city in Europe, almost did not suffer from the plague that devastated much of the continent? Here is an excerpt from the second chapter, which will clarify everything.
At the beginning of the 21st century, it became fashionable to drink hot water with the addition of lemon slices to improve digestion, "detoxify" and maintain the acid-alkaline balance of the body, but I am convinced that the benefits that the lemon brought for several months in 1668, was much more significant. That summer, lemonade prevented tens of thousands of Parisians from replenishing the number of victims of the last great European plague in London, Vienna, and Milan.
Already in the late 1650s, Italians and their guests were offered a wide range of drinks - refreshments, spirits, and cocktails - that could be bought in establishments and from street vendors. Among these drinks were Eaux de vie - a variety of infusions - cinnamon, anise, diaghilevaya, raspberry, amber, musk, apricot and blackcurrant, as well as spicy wines, including hypoxrus - Louis XIV's favorite drink, Soft drinks such as almond milk and rose water orchards, followed, of course, by lemonade and its thicker relative aigre de cedre, a mixture of lemon juice, pulp, zest, sugar and water.
The price and geographical limitations of the land on which lemons could grow hampered their popularity, but as a result of the development of more resistant and juicy varieties and trade, the cost of lemons decreased and their popularity became overwhelming. It was a delicious, refreshing and simple drink, and soon no Roman could do without lemonade on a sultry summer day, and the city was flooded by merchants with large vessels. Visiting Rome, Parisians (in particular Cardinal Mazarini (1602-1661), who defeated the devilish Cardinal Richelieu and became the first minister of the French king) wondered why the traders did not carry refreshing lemonade in their beautiful hometown. Shortly before his death, Cardinal Mazarini, who loved taxable innovations most of all, brought the lemonade merchants to Paris. But even Mazarini, with his planetary delusions of grandeur, would not have been able to imagine that in a few years lemonade would save a huge number of lives.
to be continued in the next part