Agricultural History Review, Volume 64 Part 2 (2016), p. 279

For those who have not encountered it already, the Edible series consists of small, pocket-sized hardbacks in ochre covers, which deal with ‘the rich history of cuisine’, not simply from a historical but from a cultural point of view. The idea is clever, the production standards high and the books may be recommended as a sort of amuse-bouche. (I imagine that a book on the amuse-bouche is forthcoming.) They make good Christmas presents and nicely fill the longueurs of Boxing Day morning (if the reader can stand the thought of food, that is).

The series has now reached some 56 volumes covering staples like the potato and rice, meats (beef, lamb, pork – and offal), cantering through styles of cooking (barbecue, hot dog, pizza), fruits (apple, lemon, orange) to drinks (beer, gin, whiskey [sic] and wine). Water sits a little uncomfortably in this company, as it is not, in the way that most of the subjects are, a foodstuff. Instead it is the most basic of staples. As the author says, ‘The history of drinking water is one of convincing the public why they should drink water and making it seem interesting’ (p. 114). Much of the book is concerned with the adulteration of water, as may be seen at the end when the author provides recipes for a range of flavoured waters. The book ends with an appendix of mineral waters, which, oddly for an academic based in Ireland, omits Ballygowan.

Miller starts by reflecting on the essential need of human society for water and the struggle to provide safe and potable water, but then discusses the reluctance of people to drink water without flavouring. This we might call the paradox of water: we go to a great deal of trouble to make it pure, then add impurities to it to make it interesting enough to drink. His fourth chapter discusses the preference for water with alcohol in it, which leads into a discussion of temperance and, of all things, the drinking fountain. Miller then turns to the strategies employed to market drinking water and has a chapter on ‘Making water interesting’ (whether by carbonation or adding ice). He draws to a close with a discussion of how safe water supplies have been made available in developed countries but how great a distance there remains to make them available throughout the world. The focus is on the Global North, but there are nods to the very different conditions of the Global South.

There is much here that is interesting, even amusing. I never knew that there was a Dr Schweppe who founded a mineral water company. Nor did I know the adage that ‘in wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria’, here attributed to David Auerbach: but I am glad that I do now. I can sign up to that. It had never occurred to me to spell Evian backwards (all on pp. 74–5). And that is characteristic of the book: a sharp eye for the telling anecdote. The selection is eclectic though. There is no consideration of water as the medium in which food is boiled, or water-based meals like soup. The potato would never have caught on if it could not be boiled. The politics of water are not really covered: the ‘theft’ of water by urban societies from rural ones, whether the diversion of water from northern to southern California, from the river Jordan to Israel and nearer home from Wales to Liverpool and Birmingham or, of course, Manchester’s dependence on the Lake District for its water. Some comments on the ownership of the water utilities would have been welcome. The infrastructure of water is passed over, but coming from a district where reservoirs were two-a-penny, I grew up well aware of the shaping of the landscape to supply the most essential of commodities. The history of the soda stream is covered in a couple of paragraphs, but there is much more to be said about ‘pop’ especially at a time when there is some public debate (and the promise of government action) about excessively sweetened drinks.

I do not blame Miller for the omissions, confronted as he doubtless was with a tight word length on a subject that perhaps does not quite fit in the series. A book twice the length would, I am sure, have been easier to write. What I do complain about though are the illustrations. The book is brightly and well illustrated, but the illustrations are never mentioned in the text, and, I would imagine, are the work of an uncredited picture editor tasked with finding illustrations to match a text already in the hand. On p. 65 is a nice picture of the Royal Crescent at Bath: I have no idea why. A discussion of the Goldfields Water Supply System in Australia has a full-page picture (on p. 110) of a pipeline stretching into the distance with the caption ‘Goldfields water supply pipeline, western Australia’: as nice a picture of a large-diameter pipe as you will ever find, but completely unrewarding for the reader. The pictures do not add to the text so much as have a life of their own.

This is in large measure an account of the valued-added ways in which water can be presented but which has less to say than it might about the bulk commodity that comes through our taps. There is a bibliography which might easily be twice the length, but, alas, no references, so the text has to be taken on trust.