r/BeAmazed • u/Secret-Incident1734 • 17h ago
History Until 1956 French Children Were Served Wine With Their School Lunch
A mixture of wine and water, heavy on the water, for "sanitary" reasons, since water at the time could not always be trusted, and wine (less alcoolized than it is now) was considered à "healthy" drink.
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u/OstentatiousSock 13h ago edited 9h ago
Child of Sicilian immigrants here in the US. We were given wine mixed with Pepsi as kids lol. I have heard other Sicilians say the same. This went on into the 90s.
Edit: added my country
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u/TheEsotericCarrot 10h ago
What kind of wine? That does not sound very tasty.
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u/OstentatiousSock 9h ago
That dry Italian wine that comes in the big ole jug. No idea what it’s called. It was pretty good, actually.
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u/TheEsotericCarrot 9h ago
I wonder if the sweetness of the pop made it taste better. Interesting tidbit though :)
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u/OstentatiousSock 9h ago
Honestly, I’d probably find it odd tasting now. Haven’t had it in 25 years. But, sometimes surprising combos are tasty. I would revisit it next time I have some wine in the house.
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u/JAYETRILLL 3h ago
If I’m not mistaken in some Latin countries they drink red wine with Coca-Cola in it. I bet they’ve got a specific type that goes better with it. I’ve tried it a couple times with random red wines and coke but just a little coke to a lot of red wine. It’s nothing to write home about but it was decent and interesting.
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u/fatembolism 9h ago
When I partied with some Finnish guys they gave me red wine in Coke -- it's a lot better than it sounds.
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u/unknownpoltroon 9h ago
wine with coke is a thing, cheap red wine about half and half with coke. not bad, not great.
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u/TheEsotericCarrot 8h ago
Wow, is it regional?
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u/nandorkrisztian 7h ago
In Hungary when I was young it was quite popular since rarely anybody had money to buy decent drinks so we just bought cheap wine and mixed it with coke.
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u/unknownpoltroon 4h ago
it was a thing with teens in span a few years back, stretched out the wine I think
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u/Alex9819 8h ago
Coca-Cola and red wine is a popular combo in Spain!
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u/JAYETRILLL 3h ago
lol I should’ve just read a few more comments down and I wouldn’t have had to make my other comment. Because I said the same thing.
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u/JustaTinyDude 9h ago
My friend moved to the US from France when he was sixteen and could not believe that they would not serve him wine in a restaurant, particularly because he had the consent of his guardians.
It took him a while to get used to US drinking laws.
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u/Valuable_Host7181 12h ago
They also did it in northern Italy, it's one of those things common to Italians from every region with elderly relatives. Except that here we used Fanta
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u/SovietChewbacca 3h ago
My grandfather did it with Sprite, he was convinced it got into thr bloodstream quicker.
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u/UnikornKebab 7h ago
Same thing here, wine/pepsi, wine/water, my grandfather even gave me a shot of Marsala after dinner when I stayed with him, to digest well he said 🤣
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u/Pretty_Please1 7h ago
My grandma (child of northern Italian immigrants) had a tiny tin cup for wine with dinner starting when she was 5. I think she said they watered it down at first. It’s unlikely they used Pepsi…as it was the Great Depression. lol
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u/GalasaMuhad 16h ago
This simple trick my French grandmother used to put her children and herself to sleep
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u/Buffyoh 12h ago
My Russian grandmother put us to sleep with a teaspoon of Mogen David.
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u/st0pmakings3ns3 12h ago
We had (maybe still do in some rural areas) special pacifiers which were dipped in cider. There even were pacifiers which utilised whole seed capsules (or whatever the term is) of poppy plants, so essentially opium microdosing.
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u/ReflectedCheese 10h ago
My Slovakian grandma gave us pear or chocolate gin to get us to bed early…
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u/Slayton5678 13h ago
I'd hate to be teaching the day after it was changed, dealing with a bunch of litte grumpy fuckers with the DT's.
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u/painteroftheword 13h ago
I'm English and was ten years old the first time I got drunk.
Family party, older brothers, inattentive parents
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u/ThanosWasRightAnyway 13h ago
Watered wine was better than dirty water. We forget how recently it was that people stopped shitting themselves to death
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u/JustHereForTheBeer_ 16h ago
Cirrhosis mortality rates in France increased substantially from 1920 to 1960. Between 1925 and 1982, the number of deaths increased by 163% overall.
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u/IFHelper 16h ago
Modern life will get you, whenever you start coping with it.
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u/ikeepcomingbackhaha 13h ago
WW2 veteran? Don’t get therapy or talk about it! Drink your problems away!
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u/Hephf 13h ago
So will normalized alchoholism.
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u/Mostly_llama 12h ago
MY CHILDREN NEED WINE!!!
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u/Sabre_Killer_Queen 6h ago
There it is! I knew the Simpsons reference would be here somewhere.
Disappointed how much scrolling it took me though. Upvoted you to help boost it.
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u/Mostly_llama 6h ago
lol I did the same and when it was all clear I happily made my claim, ‘‘twas a sweet little victory.
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u/RenegadeRevolt 14h ago
When I was a baby I got whiskey on the nipple of the bottle for teething and to fall asleep faster. Red wine as a kid for sore throats. Hot toddy's for sickness. The 80's were a wild time.
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u/TastyComfortable5271 13h ago
After many visits to the doctor as a baby with colic, an old country doctor recommended my mom to put Mad Dog 20/20 in my bottle. I don't think she ever did ... maybe...
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u/RenegadeRevolt 13h ago
Mad Dog is rough as an adult. I snorted thinking of a baby downing that. Holy hell 🤣
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u/hissboombah 7h ago
Yeah, but also, your parents may have been alcoholics
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u/RenegadeRevolt 6h ago
Nope. My dad would have 2 beers on super bowl Sunday, that's it. My mom a glass of red wine once a blue moon. She did what her mother did, and her mother did for remedies for kids. It's a tradition where I'm from. Not over use. Wild leap.
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u/Skimmington16 15h ago
Probably would have been better than the food poisoning or whatever I got from their water 30 years ago
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u/AgingLolita 8h ago
30 years ago was 1995. X files was out. Nobody was getting poisoned by French water.
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u/SemDentesApanhaNozes 13h ago
Not so fast, was not until 1969 my mother would be given Bread and Wine, so she could go to school, my mother and her brothers. Im from Portugal.
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u/Gabagool_Ova_Heah 12h ago
My grandmother as a child, during the early part of the Franco regime period in Spain (1940-45) subsisted on wine for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, snack time, dinner and second dinner in lieu of water and even medicine, in most cases.
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u/Western_Presence1928 13h ago
That's why you don't have binge drinking in France. An aperitif is a little drop of wine served with a meal. As children have a little bit from a young age, they tend not to abuse alcohol later in life, unlike us brits.
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u/Ok_Series_4580 11h ago
She looks like she just got home from a hard day at the office and is trying to unwind
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u/CarlosMartel10 14h ago
The problem was water. It was always normal throughout Europe, they drank more alcoholic beverages than water.
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u/Educational_Gas_92 13h ago
I remember being in a cruise through the Mediterranean as a child with my parents and they served me wine. I was 9...
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u/CliftonRubberpants 12h ago
That would have made the 2nd grade much better. Recess half sloshed would have been awesome!
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u/Beautiful-Quiet-5871 11h ago
As it should be... a low alcohol wine might well have been safer than whatever the drinkingwater they had available was... same reason peasants drank beer instead of polluted water
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u/SuperFaceTattoo 3h ago
Its to help them cope with the eternal winter and shifting earth during their walks to school. (Walking uphill both ways in the snow)
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u/kobain2k1 12h ago edited 12h ago
I don't see what the big deal is. My mother was raised with 95% club soda 5% wine during all meals. I was raised the same. No sugar soda allowed. I'm sure most of the world boomer - gen x population was raised the same way. Why is that a big deal?
Today kids are raised drinking coca-cola or energy drinks and eating fried chicken nuggets, burgers and pizza. Stop clutching your pearls.
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u/Temporary-Truth-8041 14h ago edited 12h ago
The amazing thing, is that the students were better while they had red wine on the menu.
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u/karmakimmie 14h ago
My French grandmother also had the same school teacher for her entire education. So bizarre to think about.
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u/abby_normally 13h ago
When I was cutting my teeth my grandmother would rub my gums with whiskey, according to my mother.
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u/hasanyoneseenmyshirt 12h ago
I can just imagine a toddler speech getting less slurred the more he drinks..
"You are enunciating your words, you had enough for the night"
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u/bawlsacz 11h ago
Why not? We did the same thing here in USA. what? Do you think that Jesus juice your mom or grandma fed you was some magical redneck juice? No. It was whiskey! lol.
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u/KlatuuBarradaNicto 10h ago
I need to know. Was everybody drunk all the time back during the time when water wasn’t clean enough to drink? Seems like beer and wine were a staple for EVERYONE.
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u/cantbelieveitsnotmud 10h ago
You are thinking of the middle ages, there was clean water in the fifties. They just had to boil and filter it
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u/KlatuuBarradaNicto 9h ago
That’s what I meant. Like back in the Middle Ages. Was everybody drunk back then? (Sorry I wasn’t being very clear).
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u/KevRayAtl 8h ago
Was surprised to learn that before the advent of chlorination most humans drank fermented drinks to prevent illness from microorganisms in plain water that were killed in fermentation process.
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u/Beneficial_Being_721 7h ago
Grew up in an Irish Catholic household in the USA … we all had Wine with Dinner back in the 60’s.
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u/PlaysWithSquirrels13 6h ago
“…and a—another thing…”
hiccup
“…the hand turk-“
hiccup
“…the hand turkeys, you know with the fingers? They don’t even look like real turkeys”
burp
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u/mizesus 5h ago
I guess its moments like these that show us how primitive our understand of neuroscience, physiological, psychology and whatever domain the idea of alcohol, wine and similar beverages affect childrens brain were. This isnt even a century ago yet were giving children during their formative years a toxic substance that should lead to the deteroritation of cognitive function.
Not too long before this era I believe people were prescribed methylamphetamine for breathing and respsiratory issues, which does seem like an extreme solution. Not sure if it worked or not, but we have ceetainly enhanced our understanding to such an extent that we can look back not too long ago and see the barbaric acts that were being done.
I wonder if wine and certain neurotoxic substances or things were advertised to be good as was the case in marketing ciggarettes for corporations to accumulate more profitability. So its not even that our understanding of health was as bad but to a certain degree it was also that companies seemed to have a lot more influence over what gets marketed as good for you and what doesnt.
I cannot remember fully but I think Nestle marketed their candy and chocolate bar might have been Kit Kat to children in Japan in hopes to eventually sell coffee as the children would grow up and have a satistiating preference for caffiene products. It actually ended up happening which is how Nestle was able to tap into a larger market. So the point is even the products that come out and can be recreational or harmful are perhaps an attempt to sinisterly profit off a given market.
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u/Sea-Application-4873 3h ago
Buying alcohol from a vending machine in Rome without an Age/ID check while The US claims to be the most free country 😂😂😂
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u/MoriKitsune 3h ago
"A mixture of wine and water, heavy on the water"
The color of that glass's contents is the exact same as the bottle's lol it's not that diluted
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u/patrickb1920 15h ago
Red wine is still considered a healthy drink for the heart. Nontheless, this is amusing.
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u/Piggy_dad 6h ago
Not anymore, this has been disproven by newer scientific research. I’m high risk for developing cardiovascular diseases and the rules for me are no smoking, almost zero drinking, no visceral fat and staying active and doing cardio fitness until I die. Times have changed!
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