Pictured above is a TV dinner — a meal you make by opening a field of already-cooked meals and microwaving it for a couple of minutes. You’ll find them within the freezer part of most grocery shops in America and past. And if you happen to go in search of them, there’s an excellent probability you’ll see a Salisbury steak choice just like the one above. Not solely does Stouffer’s, as seen above, make one, however so do Marie Callender’s, Hungry-Man, Banquet, and On-Cor.
And it’s all as a result of, 160 years in the past, a physician named James Salisbury tried to save lots of lives — and acquired the whole lot completely backward.
In the event you’re unfamiliar with Salisbury steak, it’s merely floor meat (and typically different components like floor greens and seasonings) reformed within the form of steak-like patties smothered in gravy. That makes it an ideal alternative for TV dinners — producers can standardize the portion dimension and keep consistency all through the produce line, and in consequence, be sure that clients can’t actually mess it up in the event that they comply with the microwaving (or you probably have the time, oven baking) directions on the field. Because it’s precooked, all the patron has to do is reheat and eat.
The comfort of such a meal wasn’t the unique intention, although (though it in all probability helped). When James Salisbury created his namesake meal within the early 1860s, he was serving as a doctor within the American Civil Conflict, and he was in search of a solution to save troopers’ lives. And he thought he had an answer. The muskets and bayonets of opposing troopers weren’t the main reason for dying through the Conflict — not even shut. As PBS explains, “Of the 620,000 recorded navy deaths within the Civil Conflict about two-thirds died from illness.” Topping the listing of deadly illnesses have been diarrhea and dysentery (which have been handled as one and the identical). Per NPR affiliate WVTF, “Among the many 2,000,000 males who served within the Union armies, there have been 1,900,000 reported circumstances of diarrhea and dysentery. What number of tens of 1000’s of others suffered in silence can by no means be recognized.”
The rampant diarrhea through the Civil Conflict had many causes and wasn’t properly understood on the time. However docs of the period took the only path towards an answer, one which was directionally right: troopers had very poor diets, and medical professionals may assist alleviate intestinal discomfort by altering by means of remedy in addition to by altering what troopers have been consuming and ingesting. Within the former case, the answer typically made the issue worse; as WVTF reported, “favourite ‘medicines’ have been whiskey in addition to such purgatives as turpentine and castor oil, which, in fact, additional infected the intestinal tract.” Salisbury, although, targeted on the latter, questioning if we may stave off diarrhea however adjusting the diets of these in uniform.
His idea was easy, as described by the Bratenhal (Ohio) Historic Society: “He believed that greens produced toxic toxins within the digestive system have been liable for coronary heart illness, tumors, psychological sickness, and tuberculosis. He believed that people have been meant to eat meat and sought to restrict greens, fruit, starches, and fats to the food regimen.” So he got here up with a heat-and-eat resolution: broiled muffins of floor lean beef, delivered to the troopers as rations.
Salisbury’s steaks proved in style sufficient among the many troops that it caught as part of American delicacies. It didn’t, nonetheless, assist handle the diarrhea downside — as we all know at the moment, a food regimen of floor beef and gravy — and no greens — is a foul, unhealthy solution to higher well being.
Bonus reality: Not solely did Salisbury’s resolution not work, it seemingly made the diarrhea downside worse. One of many essential drivers of intestinal discomfort amongst Civil Conflict troopers was scurvy, a situation attributable to a scarcity of vitamin C. Troopers weren’t getting sufficient vitamin C as a result of they weren’t consuming sufficient greens: Because the Nationwide Museum of Civil Conflict Medication clarifys, getting recent greens to the boys within the area was nearly unattainable, so (for the Union, however an identical story is true for the Confederacy), “Congress handed a regulation offering for the creation of canned, compressed, and blended greens referred to as desiccated greens. The rations of desiccated greens supposedly contained string beans, turnips, carrots, beets, and onions which had been compressed into one-inch by one-foot rectangular bricks.” The desiccation course of in all probability made the greens ineffective towards scurvy, because it the vitamin density of the greens plummeted because the greens have been cooked and processed. And it in all probability didn’t matter anyway, per the Museum, “Troopers would typically refuse to eat the desiccated greens as a result of they tasted so dreadful.”
From the Archives: The Final Civil Conflict Checks: As in, funds to troopers.
