Why did Alice Thornton's uncle die suddenly in autumn 1647? According to Thornton, it was because he gorged on melons grown at his South Yorkshire estates. Jo Edge examines why melons were considered so desirable - and yet so dangerous - in the early modern period. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/food/forbidden-fruit/
@CordeliaBeattie@histodons@histodon@litodons I wonder if little economic prognostications like “in the end, the only thing that works in cutting down consumption of things considered ‘bad’ is making things too expensive either for the consumer or the producer” will be looked at much like how we look at archaic medical/agricultural evaluations of melons.
