Upton
Sinclair, The Jungle [Excerpt]
.
. . And then there was 'potted game" and 'potted grouse,' "potted
ham," and "deviled ham"-- deviled, as the men called it. "Deviled"
ham was made out of the waste ends of smoked beef that were too small to be
sliced by the machines; and also tripe, dyed with chemicals so that it would
not show white, and trimmings of hams and corned beef, and potatoes, skins and
all, and finally the hard cartilaginous gullets of beef, after the tongues had
been cut out. All this ingenious mixture was ground up and flavored with spices
to make it taste like something. Anybody who could invent a new imitation had
been sure of a fortune from old Durham, said Jurgis's informant, but it was
hard to think of anything new in a place where so many sharp wits had been at
work for so long; where men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were
feeding, because it made them fatten more quickly; and where they bought up all
the old rancid butter left over in the grocery stores of a continent, and
"oxidized" it by a forced-air process, to take away the odor, re-churned
it with skim milk, and sold it in bricks in the cities! . . .