appertising

chained_bear commented on the word appertising

After reading the horrific stuff on adulteration, this is a nice bit.

"In response to such fraudulent and widespread practices, pre-packed and branded goods marketed with the promise of quality flourished, and in 1806 the details of a new method of preservation that -- unlike smoke, sugar, vinegar or salt -- did not change the taste of meat, fruit or vegetables were published by a Frenchman called Nicolas Appert. Appert bottled his materials, corked them carefully, boiled them in a water bath, sealed the bottles with pitch and stored them in a cool, dark place -- and it worked. New-laid eggs could now be boiled with bits of bread to stop them cracking. The technique worked for gravy, soups, fruits and reduced cream; even meat could be thus preserved, and new-gathered asparagus, beans and petits pois -- 'prepared with the utmost rapidity so that there should be as it were but one step from the garden-bed to the water bath' -- were declared delicious.

"Driven by the needs of soldiers fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, Appert could see the potential benefits of his discovery to the military and to hospitals, but with chemistry still in its infancy and bacteriology unknown, he had no notion of how important his discovery would prove to be.* By the time his work was translated into english in 1811, technology was speeding ahead and his method was already being adapted to tinned metal containers by British businessmen. Brian Donkin's first canning factory opened in 1812 -- the year in which Charles Dickens was born -- producing goods in heavy metal containers which had to be opened with hammer and chisel. Hitherto, cooks had had to cut off rusty or sour pieces from their home-cured bacon, or wipe the slightly off joint with vinegar before cooking it.... With Donkin's method, even meat could be preserved indefinitely.

*In America, the process of sterilisation that resulted from Pasteur's experiments was first known as 'appertising'."

--Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 269-271 and 270n.

January 18, 2017