Putting food in
jars is a technique that has been around for more than 200 years!
Every
culture, nearly every moment in time, involves a food preserving method of one
type or more. To survive, humans
had to store food. From harvest stage,
food begins to spoil and food preserving methods ensured
cultures had access to local food sources all year round, reducing the
requirement for people to move around and they could settle into one area
instead. Preserving was once essential to survival. Now it is a skill many
choose to do, storing home-grown and locally sourced fresh produce.
1795:
Napoleon launched the French Preservation Prize (12,000 francs), looking
for a solution to preserve food for the army to improve food nutrition (armies
were subsisting on salted pork and minimal, if any at all, vegetables).
1809: Nicolas
Francois Appert, a French chef/confectioner/scientist comes up with food
canning process where food is packed into glass jars with cork lids, sealed
with wax and processed with boiling water. Appert publishes his book, L’Art de conserver, pendant plusieurs
années, toutes les substances animales et végétales (The Art of
Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years). Appert’s
method meant jars were preserved however they were bulky in size to transport
and could explode.
1810: Peter Durand (an English merchant), on
behalf of French national Philippe de Girard (the original creator of this
method), receives the first patent for preserving food in tin cans on August
25, 1810 by King George III. This patent specifies animal food, vegetable food
(or other perishable items) is placed into glass, pottery or tin vessels, partially
capped then heated via an oven, stove top (boiling water) or steam bath over a
long period before fully sealing with cork, a screw on lid/rubber seal or
cement.
1812: Peter Durand sells his patent to John Hall
and Bryan Donkin for £1,000. Bryan Donkin (a civil engineer), John Hall (millwright,
mechanical engineer) and John Gamble set up a canning factory in Blue Anchor
Lane (Bermondsey, London). This is the first cannery to use tinned iron
containers in Britain.
1813: Donkin and Hall serve
canned beef (from a tin) to King George III and Queen Charlotte. They
mass produce tinned food, including compiling large orders for British Army
rations. Sometime after 1819, their canning company merged with Crosse & Blackwell (a modern British food brand which
was acquired by Swisse Nestle in 1960).
1818: Peter Durand re-patents his British patent
in the US, introducing tinned cans of food into the United States.
1820: canned food is marketed in Britain to the
public.
1822: canned food begins to be marketed in the United
States.
1846: first commercial cannery in Australia (unsuccessful
until the 1860s)
1856: Gail Bordon invents tinned condensed
milk. This is an important note - milk
was hard to keep fresh and was expensive to source in urban areas like New
York.
1858: John Landis Mason invents the
the metal screw-top mason jar on November 30 in the United States.
1860: Ezra J. Warner invents first can opener in
the United States. Prior to this, a knife or a hammer/chisel had to be used to
open tin cans.
1861-65: American Civil War led to more demand for
canned food (including canned milk).
1863: Louis Pasteur discovers pasteurization
process that explained why bacteria caused spoilage.
1871: Granite Ware, a company that
creates lightweight water bath canners, is founded in Indiana, USA.
1884: Ball Corporation begins to manufacture glass jars for home
canning.
1895: Samuel Cate Prescott and William Lyman
Underwood, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found
that bacteria (that caused cans to swell) was killed by applying pressurised
steam at 120°C for 10 minutes. The commercial canning industry changes as a
result: pressure was added to the commercial canning process.
1900: Weck jars are invented/patented in
Germany.
1909: United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA) makes first reference to “canning vegetables in the
home”; then
1910: USDA makes first
reference to “canning peaches on the farm” – both references used a multiple
day method, where jars are boiled for 3 x one-hour periods (one hour per day,
for 3 days in total).
1914-1918: World War I leads to increases in commercial tin can food production
(and in home canning too). With help from the Ball Brothers Company, communal
canning centres were established. Stove top pressure canners also became
available during this time period.
1915:
Alexander H. Kerr develops the two-part canning lid (this is the most common lid
style still being used to this day).
1915:
Joseph Fowler, an English migrant, in Hawthorn, Victoria (Australia) founds Fowlers
Vacola preserving company and began selling stove top units (they required
temperature monitoring over the hour of processing). FYI, this same company is
still producing products to this day in Australia, including electric water bath units.1920s:
atmospheric
steam canner initially developed as an alternative to the water bath canner
(not recommended for home preserving until recently, after much research).
1939-1945: World War II. In the US, food rations for households and the front
line are cut short. Canning reaches its peak in this time period, because
households that canned also received extra pounds of sugar in return. As food
rations lifted, incentives decreased, and home canning also decreased.
In Australia, Fowlers Vacola manufactured canned items
for the Australian military.
2015:
Jarden Home Brands launch electric water bath canner + multi-cooker, a countertop
plug-in water bath canner - that could also be used as a multi-cooker for
making soups, stews, etc.
CANNING
NOW: Food
is still being preserved in jars (and tins) today. With different lifestyles,
family commitments, financial and land requirements, having a home garden and
thus a harvest glut is not as common, but there are still many people canning
worldwide in various countries and cultures. With the advancement in food
technology, the food we can in jars can be lower in sugar, lower in salt,
incorporating other spices/seasonings and safely preserved for our families to
enjoy all year long (and to create resilience in our households too).
Author: Megan Radaich
Image Credit: Megan Radaich
Publication: www.foodpreserving.org