Some travelers claim that one does not visit England for the food-unless one craves porridge, baked beans on toast, or mystery sausage. On our recent London excursion, we were surprised to discover a television series called "Britain's Best Dish." In our excitement, we immediately switched off Coronation Street for what could become a replacement for Masterpiece Theatre. We were delighted, if not shocked, to see just folk competing to produce attractive, innovative and edible starters, main dishes and puddings. ( For non-anglophiles, puddings are desserts-not sure why they are not called "finishers" to balance with starters.)
But, television can be a many splendored thing. After "Best Dish", we watched a new series called "Filthy Cities". Appropriately, the first program was about London.
The focus was on London in medieval times-somewhat disappointing for our current visit and our appetite for a "best dish." Medieval times in in London, of course, were not romantic, as some novels may portray. They were times of polluted drinking water, no safe wastewater disposal and disease. Indeed, the plague killed about one half of London's population. Garbage, human and animal waste layered the streets with a muck that required boots to navigate or were tossed into the Thames, which also served as a source of drinking water. The images of filth in a filthy medieval city were horrific. No wonder the average life expectancy was about 35 years.
We may feel that some of our cities still are "dirty." However, we are fortunate today to live in a culture that both values and enables safe drinking water and safe wastewater disposal-made possible by innovative engineering advancements created from the necessity to extricate society from its filth. Also bear in mind that safe drinking water and safe wastewater disposal are removed from medieval times by only the last 100 years or so.