The non-romantic history of Valentine’s Meat Juice

Nearly 2000 years after the Roman poet Virgil penned amor vincit omnia (‘love conquers all things’), Valentine’s Meat Juice was advertised to victual and invigorate any infirm patient. Meat juice does not sound remotely romantic, but the rumoured origin of Valentine’s Meat Juice has the elements of a gothic love story. Mann Valentine cooked up his beef product with the aim of providing a nutritional supplement for his extremely ill wife, who is said to have had stomach cancer. Valentine claimed his mission was a success, with his wife’s health supposedly improved.

Created in the early 1870s, Valentine’s Meat Juice was more patent medicine than medical aid. Patent medicines, those ‘proprietary concoctions with extreme promises and flamboyant showmanship’, were most popular during the 19th and early 20th century, and were often not worth the containers they were packaged in. Sometimes, they could be downright dangerous. That was the problem with Valentine’s Meat Juice – at least according to the journal Food and Sanitation. They named it a suspect in the death of James Maybrick. A unique claim for a journal to make – especially considering Florence Maybrick, James’ wife, was convicted of his murder.