/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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I can still recall a public demonstration of the very first vending machine, at the Chicago World’s Fair. For the price of one penny (no Confederate coins accepted), the marvelous machine would auto-matically dispense a few ounces of Dr. Bramfield’s Invigorating Tonic, a patented suspension of Jamaican cane sugar, laudanum, and radium, in carbonic water. Amazingly, despite the summer heat, the liquid was cool on the tongue—thanks to the innovative addition of “Iced Cubes” harvested from from the Canadian icicle mines.

After reading the displayed instructional essay, I inserted my penny into the automaton’s designated receptacle--and several minutes later, the conveyor belt delivered a pewter cup of the tonic beverage, as promised. Then, something surprising and curious happened. A small door, like that of a cuckoo clock, opened on the machine’s facade--and there emerged a phonograph’s horn, which announced in a shrill voice loud enough for all the crowd to hear: “Dear Sir: The fates have selected you to receive a complimentary second portion of Dr. Bramfield’s famous cure. Please enjoy it in good health. Yours sincerely, the Proprietors.”

What good fortune! But just then, a terrible tumult arouse. You see, several onlookers had been prying into the machine’s orifices, attempting to ascertain how it could function without the sound and smoke of a steam engine. (Electricity was certainly not an option; the only such demonry at the Fair belonged to that conjurer N. Tesla.) The secret had been carefully concealed…