Cheese
In the Victorian Age cheeses of all kinds were popular. Cheese was a means of preserving milk from cows and goats in the days where refrigeration was not readily available. Cheesemakers developed new and different flavors to appeal to the palate of consumers. One popular cheese in England and Scotland, and later the United States, was Gloucester and its more pungent relative, Double Gloucester.
Both varieties were and are made with cow’s milk and are aged to a semi-hardness. It was judged then in part by its aroma and in part by its distinct reddish hue, with more redness believed to indicate more flavor. During the Victorian Age and even before, some manufacturers began enhancing the redness of the cheese through the use of red lead in the manufacturing process.
The dangers of ingesting lead – at least the short term dangers – were known to medical professionals of the day. They included violent indigestion with severe pain, nervous tension and anxiety, aversion to food, and others.
Red lead (and white lead) were both in common use during the Victorian Age, one application was in the manufacture of paint, which lead made both more durable and capable of crisper colors. In the coloration of Gloucester cheese a product called annatto was used, ground from the seeds of the achiote tree. Red lead was readily available and considerably cheaper, inducing some less scrupulous purveyors of annatto to substitute lead for seeds as a cost saver.
The discovery of adulterated cheese was one of the earliest examples of food offered to consumers containing unsuspected contaminants which were potentially lethal at worst, and harmful to the health at best. In the absence of any inspecting authority in most nations all a consumer could do to protect himself or herself was to obtain the services of a trusted purveyor and trust to luck.