Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hot Drinks, and Mormons
Recently, while researching the customs of serving Victorian tea, I thought to refer to my 1873-74 copy of “The House-Keeper’s Manual,” written by Harriet Beecher-Stowe and her sister, Catherine E. Beecher. (Harriet is best known for authoring Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852.)
I was astounded to discover that Ms. Stowe believed hot drinks were to blame for rotten teeth! She advocated that tea and coffee should never be served hot, but rather should be allowed to cool before consuming. Of course, the sugar and milk were all together thought most “nourishing,” but the “hot” of the tea was, in her mind, a villain to good dental health. She even sites the people of
I found this all the more interesting in light of the 1833 revelation given to the Mormons in
Perhaps – and this is just speculative – the Mormons originally believed, as did Ms. Stowe, that it was the temperature, and not the caffeine, that was harmful.
As I pondered the time-period connection, I began to wonder if Ms. Stowe lived anywhere near the Mormons during those years. Low and behold it turns out that the
Who might have influenced who in this case, I cannot tell. But it would be fun to know the origins of the more-common-than-realized notion that hot drinks were detrimental to one’s health.
