“BEING cheated over food” muses Bee Wilson, “is one of the universal human experiences.” From chemist Friedrich Accum exposing lead-tainted candies in 1820s London to ersatz wartime foods like acorn “coffee”, Swindled dines with gusto upon centuries of poisonous penny-pinching, profitable mass production and open fakery. The greatest narrative relish is saved for the wildly felonious 19th century, but Wilson’s account of faked infant formula and adulterated lard haunting modern China’s rapid industrialisation shows our Accums will always be busy.
Swindled
Princeton University Press
