I
was reminded by a friend this weekend, that having begun my 77 Things in
October and having accomplished "about four of them," I had better
get cracking. Today, I cross another off my list and write a long-overdue
update... but first, a little history lesson.
According
to my research (in the culturally immortalized words of that 1990's fictional
bookworm Dorothy Ann,) anthropological evidence for an attempt at dental
hygiene can be found in many cultures as far back as Babylon. Everything from
frayed sticks to pig hair bristles to strapped-together feathers have been used
throughout the ages to scratch off that nasty plaque, assisted by a staggering
variety of pastes and powders including but not limited to: pumice stones, egg-and-sea-shells,
charcoal, chalk, salt and tree bark. Many of these pre-tubed options are less
than desirably described and would tempt the applicant of them to just deal
with the morning breath (ox hoof ash jumped out as one of these), but by the
time we flip the global calendar form 1899 to 1900, the standard practice for
pearling your whites was a healthy dose of baking soda - no oven required.
I
got the idea for this one after watching a BBC show called "1900
House," conveniently hosted on YouTube (the practice is mentioned in
"Part 06" and seen in "Part 08," for those of you Curious
Georges), and after having tried it... well, let's say that I'm very happy with
my 2012 Colgate and Scope! Baking Soda is a salty sort of bitter powder, for
those of you who don't do much from-raw cookery. It is not an independently
tasty ingredient. I spent a few sputtering minutes over the sink trying to
"clean" my mouth, and eventually gave in to the more formally
recognized mouthwash on my counter as a rinse of sorts. Even as I write I can
still taste the soda on my lips, but I'm sure the flavour will fade sooner than
the memory.
More
updates to come as I wade backwards through my list.
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