Friday some
Apparently there's quite a bit about the Chevalier d'Eon in the British Library, not inappropriately, as they are buried just around the corner in Old St Pancras Churchyard, though presumably that final resting place was disturbed like most of the other graves when the railway line was pushed through.
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This addresses an issue that I am confronted with every time somebody says wouldn't it be cool to do a Madame C- C- related cookery book, or maybe blogpost?
Imperfect practice: a case for making early modern recipes badly: Some of the pitfalls I encountered when recreating early modern recipes in the 21st century were also present 250 or more years ago, but have become almost impossible to avoid as time stretches away from these moments. The most obvious differences observed were the working environment, cooking equipment and tools, and variations in the production, look, and taste of ingredients. However, the most striking is assumed knowledge: the things that the recipe author had deemed so elementary to everyday cookery that there was no point wasting ink on their description. When so much amazing work is being done on recreating early modern recipes, is there any purpose of trying it at home when those results are (mostly) unachievable?
Very interesting on the wider subject of cooking for people and the role of these recipe books.
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A deviation into sense by PSC (and 'schoolage children' covers quite an age-range - one wonders exactly how much actual childcare is involved in his stay-at-home husbanding...): Our sex life is vanilla. How can I encourage my wife to help us spice it up? Yes, we too think she would appreciate maybe a nice footrub or similar rather than finding the bedroom full up with the contents of the Ann Summers catalogue.
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I am not saying this is an intuitive segue from that, it just happened to be the next open tab: Serial Homicide before ‘Serial Killers’: British Poisoners, by that estimable historian of the subject, Cassie Watson.
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But this certainly seems resonant: Why the FDA Approved Ineffective Drugs for Low Sexual Desire in Women: Researchers demonstrate how the pharmaceutical industry co-opted feminist messages to push ineffective drugs for low sexual desire in women. Flibanserin was initially developed as an antidepressant but was ineffective. Industry attempted to get the drug approved for use in women with low sexual desire in 2010 and 2013, failing each time. With no new data, the FDA approved the drug to treat low sexual desire in women in 2015 despite the objections of FDA reviewers that the drug had nearly no treatment effect while presenting clinically significant risks. To get approval for flibanserin as a treatment for low sexual desire in women, Sprout, the manufacturer of the drug, relied on a change the FDA made to its outcome measures which allowed them to consider the medication effective if it increased a women’s desire, but not her enjoyment of sex. In addition to the reworked outcome measures, Sprout also created a campaign called “even the score,” in which they pointed to the approval of drugs like Viagra for sexual dysfunction in men and insisted that the only reason their ineffective drug was not approved as a treatment for low sexual desire in women was due to misogyny.
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