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Secrets of Meat Curing and Sausage Making (1926)


For my friends who like history and cooking, I have a neat little book with some Chicago history. This small volume was published by B. Heller & Co., which was founded in the late 1880s as a wholesale manufacturer of ingredients used in meat preparation. The University of Chicago acquired a substantial collection of B. Heller company records and promotional materials, which you can read about by clicking here.

The copy I have is a Seventh Edition, going back to its first publication in 1908. It first appears that the book was published to promote Heller products, but the overall tone of the book is much more educational. This was the era of the Pure Food and Drug Act, when the government cracked down on dangerous and dirty food manufacturing practices. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair came out in 1906, and the uproar caused by that book led to the safer and hygienic food that you eat today. Heller's Preface, taken in context of what had happened nationally in the two years before its original publication, is a fascinating look at one manufacturer attempting to do a little PR and set a higher tone in the face of a skeptical public.







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