The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, which we are running due to the continuing Covid crisis, will be given by Dr Carolyn Cobbold, University of Cambridge, on ‘A Rainbow Palate’. 

This will be live on Zoom on Tuesday 3 November beginning at 5pm GMT (6pm CET, 12 noon EST, 9am PST). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour. Anyone, member of SHAC or not, may register to attend the seminar by e-mailing meetings@ambix.org; a link to the seminar will be sent the day before. (If having registered you do not receive a link please check your junk folder). 

A Rainbow Palate – chemists, colour and consumption  

Carolyn Cobbold 

Drawing from research for her recently published book A Rainbow Palate – How Chemical Dyes Changed the West’s Relationship with Food, SHAC’s Carolyn Cobbold will discuss how dye and food producers sought public support and approbation from chemists for the widespread use of synthetic chemicals in food, despite concern among some chemists that their new chemical substances had not been created for use in food.     

You may be interested to know that recordings of the previous two seminars in this series are now available of the Society’s YouTube channel. You can watch them using the following URLs:

Alchemy Behind Bars: Practitioners, Patrons, and Prisons in Early Modern England https://youtu.be/j_GN9vnt81Q

Humphry Davy as revealed by his Correspondence https://youtu.be/WYAnjHeBYU0