Fascinating essay, Elli! Your paragraph about Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York struck a chord with me. Here in Michigan, after the Flint water crisis in 2014, many people still feel uneasy about tap water. It’s fascinating—and sobering—how something as ordinary as drinking water can carry so much history, memory, and distrust across time.
Susie! so good to hear from you. And thank you - essay is circling around without naming directly: the point at which tap water becomes untrustworthy and people reach for whatever alternative they can find. For the Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side in the 1880s, that alternative was seltzer. Cheap, artificially carbonated, delivered to your door. An ad hoc water infrastructure for people the municipal system had failed.
The parallel is uncomfortable and exact. The distrust you're describing in Michigan isn't nostalgia or neurosis - it's a rational response to a system that failed visibly and publicly. The seltzer bottle was always partly a vote of no confidence in what came out of the tap.
Thank you for reading, and for making that connection. It's the kind of thing that makes writing this worthwhile. Stay tuned for part 2.
Growing up in India, I cherish the memories of getting a fresh lime soda from street vendors who would make it with soda glass bottles with the glass marble inside. That mechanism caused much admiration in most of us kids back then.
The Indian lime soda deserves its own essay - especially the marble-stoppered Codd bottles, Irani cafés, and the whole masala soda culture that grew around them. The sound of the marble releasing the pressure is one of those tiny pieces of industrial theatre that stays with people for life.
My parents used to have one of those at home seltzer makers when I was a child. Like the one in your pictures. They would put in what they called a "bomb" to make the seltzer. Meanwhile, we had a Soda Stream for years for the same reason.
Just an FYI though, if you have reflux, carbonated drinks are something you need to avoid. Believe me I learned that the hard way.
We called them 🎈… regular water tastes so flat to me, I will brave reflux any day. Anyway, here in Switzerland/Germany they grade effervescence, so you can choose your poison, so to speak.
really? grading effervescence? That sounds really cool. I bet if they had a mild carbonation it would not be so bad with reflux. But if I drink seltzer here in the US, 2 am I am up with terrible pain. Honestly, it really isnt worth it.
Thanks for sharing this fascinating history! Joseph Priestley was quite the chemist and theologian. He helped promote Unitarianism and was influential in propagating Unitarian beliefs in the early years of the United States.
Fascinating essay, Elli! Your paragraph about Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York struck a chord with me. Here in Michigan, after the Flint water crisis in 2014, many people still feel uneasy about tap water. It’s fascinating—and sobering—how something as ordinary as drinking water can carry so much history, memory, and distrust across time.
Susie! so good to hear from you. And thank you - essay is circling around without naming directly: the point at which tap water becomes untrustworthy and people reach for whatever alternative they can find. For the Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side in the 1880s, that alternative was seltzer. Cheap, artificially carbonated, delivered to your door. An ad hoc water infrastructure for people the municipal system had failed.
The parallel is uncomfortable and exact. The distrust you're describing in Michigan isn't nostalgia or neurosis - it's a rational response to a system that failed visibly and publicly. The seltzer bottle was always partly a vote of no confidence in what came out of the tap.
Thank you for reading, and for making that connection. It's the kind of thing that makes writing this worthwhile. Stay tuned for part 2.
Oh, I will, don't you worry! I really enjoy reading your essays! Have a lovely rest of your Sunday, Elli! :)
Fabulous documentation
Growing up in India, I cherish the memories of getting a fresh lime soda from street vendors who would make it with soda glass bottles with the glass marble inside. That mechanism caused much admiration in most of us kids back then.
This is wonderful.
The Indian lime soda deserves its own essay - especially the marble-stoppered Codd bottles, Irani cafés, and the whole masala soda culture that grew around them. The sound of the marble releasing the pressure is one of those tiny pieces of industrial theatre that stays with people for life.
I may call on you yet for Part 2? 😄
My parents used to have one of those at home seltzer makers when I was a child. Like the one in your pictures. They would put in what they called a "bomb" to make the seltzer. Meanwhile, we had a Soda Stream for years for the same reason.
Just an FYI though, if you have reflux, carbonated drinks are something you need to avoid. Believe me I learned that the hard way.
We called them 🎈… regular water tastes so flat to me, I will brave reflux any day. Anyway, here in Switzerland/Germany they grade effervescence, so you can choose your poison, so to speak.
really? grading effervescence? That sounds really cool. I bet if they had a mild carbonation it would not be so bad with reflux. But if I drink seltzer here in the US, 2 am I am up with terrible pain. Honestly, it really isnt worth it.
Yup. Grading effervescence. Classic is medium.
Thanks for sharing this fascinating history! Joseph Priestley was quite the chemist and theologian. He helped promote Unitarianism and was influential in propagating Unitarian beliefs in the early years of the United States.
And this was precisely the reason why Cook didn’t want him on the journey…