So That is how it got started

[Jo McDonald]

 
Ok, I don't know if any of this is really true or not, but
found it quite entertaining.


They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so
families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it
was taken & sold to the tannery.......if you had to do
this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who
couldn't even afford to buy a pot...........they "didn't
have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low

The next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you like it,
think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about
the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by
June... However, since they were starting to smell . .. ..
brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The
man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water,
then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally
the children. Last of all the
babies. By then the water was so dirty you could
actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw
the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with
no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs)
lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip an d fall off the roof.
Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the
house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed.
Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top
afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into
existence.

The floor was dirt.. Only the wealthy had something
other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy
had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when
wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep
their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh
until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping
outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a
big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they
lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly
vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the
stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew
had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence
the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas
porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel
quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up
their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man
could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little
to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the
fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with
high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the
food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often
with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes
were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the
burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and
guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The
combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a
couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take
them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid
out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family
would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if
they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started
running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up
coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse
the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins
were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they
realized they had been burying people alive. So they would
tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night
(the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,someone
could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead
ringer...

Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! ! 

[Anmar]

Interesting stuff, thanks

[W. Gray]

Same here.

[srkruzich]

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with
high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the
food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often
with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes
were considered poisonous.

The tomato was considered poison because it is a nightshade plant and teas made from the leaves and some of the green fruits and stems are poisonous.  The plant contains Solanine which is toxic to both plants and animals.

Also to note, The tomato originated in central and south america.  When Cortez captured Aztec city of Tenochtítlan, or known as Mexico City today in 1521, tomatos were grown in the aztec's gardens and used in cooking and it was believed by the aztecs to have some mystical power in ingesting the seeds

However some folks think Christopher columbus carried the plant back in 1493.  Either way, the first discussion in european literature was in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician and botanist, who named it pomo d'oro, golden apple. 

while pewter plates indeed did contain 30% lead content, the leaching of the lead into the food was not a instantaneous death. It was a long drawn out slow accumalation of toxins so it would not have been associated with any foods.

There was indeed a belief that the plant was poisonous, due in part to its resemblance to belladonna and deadly nightshade. As a member of the nightshade family, the tomato plant's roots and leaves contain the neurotoxin solanine, and thus are indeed poisonous.