Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick, salty meat extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston and sold in a distinctive, bulbous jar. It is made in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, and distributed by Unilever UK. Bovril can be made into a drink by diluting with hot water, or (less commonly) milk. It can also be used as a flavouring for soups, stews or porridge, or spread on bread, especially toast, rather like Marmite. The first part of the product's name comes from Latin bos (genitive bovis) meaning "ox" or "cow". Johnston took the -vril suffix from Bulwer-Lytton's then-popular 1870 "lost race" novel The Coming Race, whose plot revolves around a powerful energy fluid named "Vril". In 1870, in the war against the Prussians, Napoleon III found that his armies could not 'march on empty stomachs'. He therefore ordered one million cans of beef to feed his starving troops. The task of providing all this beef went to a Scotsman named John Lawson Johnston. Unfortunately, Britain did not have a large enough quantity of beef to meet the French people's and Napoleon III's demand, so Johnston created a product known as 'Johnston's Fluid Beef', later called Bovril. By 1888 over 3,000 British public houses, grocers and chemists were beginning to sell Bovril. In 1889 the Bovril Company was formed. During the Siege of Ladysmith in the Second Boer War a Bovril-like paste was produced from horse meat. Named Chevril by replacing the Bov (ox) with Chev (horse) in the Bovril name, it was produced by boiling down the horse meat to a jelly paste and serving it like beef tea. Bovril continued to function as a "war food" in World War I, and was frequently mentioned in the 1930 account Not So Quiet... Stepdaughters of War by Helen Zenna Smith (Evadne Price). As a drink mixing the beef flavouring with hot water, it helped sustain ambulance drivers. A thermos of beef tea was the favoured way to fend off the chill of winter matches for generations of Scottish and English football enthusiasts; to this day Bovril dissolved in hot water is sold in stadiums all over the United Kingdom. Bovril beef tea was the only warm drink that Ernest Shackleton's team had to drink when they were marooned on Elephant Island during the Endurance Expedition. When John Lawson Johnston died, George Lawson Johnston inherited the Bovril business. In 1929, George Lawson Johnston was recognised by the British Government and monarchy and was ennobled as Lord Luke of Pavenham in the county of Bedford. This hereditary title passed to Ian St John Lawson Johnston in 1943 and to Arthur Charles St John Lawson Johnston in 1996. The current Lord Luke is one of the 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom after its 1999 reform. Bovri's instant beef stock was launched in 1966 and its "King of Beef" range of instant flavours for stews, casseroles and gravy in 1971. In 1971 Cavenham Foods acquired the Bovril Company but then sold most of its dairies and South American operations to finance further take-overs. The brand is now owned by Unilever. Bovril holds the unusual position of having been advertised with a Pope. An advertising campaign of the early 20th century in Britain depicted the Pope seated on his throne, bearing a mug of Bovril. The campaign slogan read: The Two Infallible Powers - The Pope & Bovril.

Here's how it goes: *Get out tea gear (see photo) *Put the kettle on. * Fill tea basket tea. *Pour hot water over tea basket into white teapot *Fill thermoses with hot water while tea steeps in pot *Move basket from white tea pot to the first thermos *Put lid on teapot *Put lids on thermoses (noting which has tea, and which has hot water) *Take teapot and thermoses into the office, where my mug is waiting *Drink all the tea from the teapot *Open the thermoses, switch basket to hot-water thermos *Drink tea from thermos 1 *Drink tea from thermos 2 Here's how this came about: My sister, who's already had a bebe, gifted me the jar you see, full of pregnancy tea. (The tea is equal parts red raspberry leaf, nettle, and oat straw. I think she added red clover just for kicks, and I've recently added alfalfa.) This was the jar of tea she had when she was pregnant, and I love that I get to use the same one. My sister said that she began to crave the tea, and never got tired of the taste. She also attributed the tea to the fact that her umbilical cord was incredibly strong. "They had trouble cutting it.", she said, gleefully. I'm finding that by having tea every day, I manage to stay well hydrated. I've been drinking it since Thanksgiving, and I haven't gotten tired of it (which is kind of amazing). Oh, apparently teas that are normally otherwise fine to drink can sometimes have adverse affects during pregnancy. I liked having a huge supply of tea that I knew I could drink a lot of, without worrying about the effects on le fetus. There are some commercial brands of mother-to-be teas, which have very similar ingredients, but this was MUCH cheaper, especially considering how much of it I'm drinking. I was able to find all the herbs at my local health food store. I think the grand total was $15 to fill up the jar (and that's at a fancy store in Cambridge where John Malkovich shops).