laundry starch

I heard that people with a condition called “pica” eat things such as laundry starch because of a vitamin deficiency.

He was a traveling salesman, peddling laundry starch from a company car to the South, she his companion, pretty, lively and good with numbers.

Of his father, out on the road selling laundry starch, a job that kept him away from home each week Monday morning through Friday evening, Ford writes:

His father was a traveling salesman who sold laundry starch throughout seven states.

Pagophagia is one of many types of pica, a disorder that encompasses daily craving and eating of unusual nonfoods such as clay, chalk, paste, cigarette butts or laundry starch.