Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire | 
pickAztecs! Pirates! Espionage! Science! (animal, vegetable or wormberry?) Colour from coal! Health scares! Global trade! I‘ve been reading a lot of fiction lately for my #ShadowGiller2022 project. I needed a change & it felt so good to sink into this well-researched microhistory of the red dye obtained from the cochineal insect. It‘s entirely fascinating.
For some years now, Peru has produced a whopping 80% or more of the world‘s cochineal. Recently annual exports reached nearly 2 million pounds, and the industry is still expanding. Earnings from the dyestuff are believed to support as many as 40,000 rural families, who collect the insects in the Peruvian mountains.
(Photo from Maiwa.com, my source for cochineal; they get it from Peru.)
In 1843 a London Ladies‘ Handbook warned that clouded & neutral tints were the only acceptable shades, even in hair & hat ribbons. Flaming & gaudy colors were to be especially avoided.
Gaudiness was in the eye of the beholder, or so Brontë‘s novel Villette would suggest. When Paul E reproves Lucy S for appearing in a scarlet gown, she indignantly corrects him. “It was not scarlet! It was pink & pale pink too & further subdued by black lace.”
A fascinating lens through which to view history. The book is more informative than well-written.
Absolutely engrossing nonfiction on cochineal dyestuff. For real, drama and intrigue and creepiness. No really!
Just. Can't. Do. It... 😕 I have been waiting for YEARS to read this book. I finally got my hands on it (& then it fell off the chair AND WAS CREASED 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭). I'm really enjoying it but...there's a festival starting tonight. There's drumming outside my window, a huge Ganesh just passed in convoy on a flatbed truck and I am just not feeling this spectacular book I have waited for for so long. 😭😭😭 Going to change genres. Not happy.
So... two points... English Yeomen wore cat fur?!?!? 😱😱😱😱😱 Florence had so many female slaves in the 15th Century that they legally regulated the colours they could wear. Given I didn't think Europe practiced slavery (as distinct from indenture or serfdom) at this point, or possibly at all, I think I may need to add more history to my TBR!
Apparently foreigners are scary, scary people who must be registered (India - foreigner paperwork today).... ahh, the life of an expat. On the bright side, I have this which I've waited to read for years because for reasons I've never quite figured out, it was banned in China while I lived there. The world is weird! #expat
