after oxygen, is the principal requirement of the human body; this consists mainly of water, and water has a function in all its tissues and all chemical actions within it. The amount of water required by an individual in a day depends on many variables (size, level of activity, ambient temperature), but is generally more than one would suppose.
Most people think of their water intake as coming in the form of water itself or other liquids which, just because they are liquids, are recognized as being mostly water. However, the amount of water which people obtain from the ‘solid foods’ which they eat is again much greater than they would suppose. A water melon is 93 per cent water, even bananas rate 76 per cent, potatoes 80 per cent, most other vegetables over 90 per cent, eggs 75 per cent, fresh meat/poultry/seafood 60–80 per cent, and bakery products 25–45 per cent.
Even in the very distant past people have valued purity in the water they drink or use for food preparation. There are many references in classical antiquity to particularly pure springs. However, it is clear that then, as now, not much can be done to control the purity of the water content of naturally occurring foodstuffs such as, say, a peach, a sardine, a potato, or a glass of cow's milk.
In many parts of the world water is still what people obtain from a well or spring, and here there may be an element of choice (if there is more than one well or spring within reach). In the much more extensive parts of the inhabited world where water comes out of a tap, there is less or no choice. Here, if people want a different water, they move.
Overlaid on this general picture is the pattern of special commercially available drinking water. This pattern is becoming global. The survey by Maureen and Timothy Green (1985) of the world's best bottled waters, although in the nature of things it could not be comprehensive, included waters in 25 countries and three continents. It gives clear explanations of what is meant by terms such as mineral water and spring water, and throws incidental light on many interesting subjects such as national attitudes to water, here exemplified by a passage about China:
The Chinese have a traditional respect for the virtues of good water. Indeed, in Cantonese slang the same character stands for both ‘money’ and ‘water’ (rather as ‘bread’ means money in American slang). Early Chinese writings abound with praise of water. The writer Wang Chia of the Chin dynasty noted that ‘The bubbling foundation of Pon Lai gives a thousand lives to those who drink it’, while Prime Minister Chang Kun, describing a new spring to the Emperor of the Tang dynasty, observed, ‘Chronic ailments of all kinds are cured in no time just by a draught of that water.’
Concern over the quality of bottled waters used to focus on their mineral content, and the consequent health-promoting or curative properties which particular waters, especially spa waters, were thought to have. Now, concern is rather for purity and flavour. And the signs are that, gradually, use of bottled waters will spread from direct consumption (where it is already used extensively in much of the world), to use in making tea and coffee etc. (a use already established to some extent), to use in the kitchen. (If this progression were to be carried to its logical extreme, one could envisage special water being supplied for all growing food crops and for domesticated animals used for food.)
The use of specially treated or selected water in the kitchen is foreshadowed by practices in the food-processing industry, where it can be important not only for water to be free of gross impurities but also to have either more or less alkalinity for various different purposes.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Franks, Flex (1984), Water (rev edn of 1983), London: The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Hartley, Dorothy (1964), Water in England, London: Macdonald.
