Sugars are organic compounds. But there are some inorganic compounds that are sweet, including beryllium chloride and lead acetate. The latter may have contributed to lead poisoning among the ancient Roman aristocracy: the Roman delicacy defrutun was prepared by boiling soured wine (containing acetic acid) in lead pots.
Neither bronze nor copper kettles were used to make defrutum because the hot liquid reacted with the metals, giving the finished product an unpleasant metallic taste. The preferred vessels for boiling and storing defrutumwere made of (or lined with) lead, which leached lead acetate crystals into the mush when it was boiled. The more lead acetate the sweeter the product.
For a 2009 History Channel documentary, a batch of historically-accurate defrutum iwas made in lead-lined vessels. The liquid was tested for lead concentration. The current US drinking water standards for leas is 10 ppb (parts per billion). The tested defrutum had a lead level of 29,000 ppb, which is 290,000% higher than accepted as safe today.
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