Since time immemorial, human beings have tried to make food last longer. Methods like fermentation, pickling and salting foods and drying meats and vegetables for consuming later have always been around. But preserving food in a nearly-fresh state for many months was a problem faced by a lot of countries during war. Soldiers fighting battles in remote, far-flung regions needed a continuous supply of nutritious food and no one had any clue what to do about it. So in a desperate attempt to solve this problem, in 1795, the French Directory (that’s what the French government was called at that time) decided that something needed to be done about the military’s food supply. The Directory’s leaders offered a 12,000-franc prize for anyone able to get a breakthrough in the preservation of food.
This problem was finally solved 14 years later, when Napoleon was the emperor and his military was powerful but hungrier than ever. At this time, Nicolas Appert, a young chef from the region of Champagne, finally won the sought-after prize. Appert, who had worked as a chef for the French nobility, came up with a brilliant solution. His innovation was simple but effective – champagne bottles, sealed with an oddly effective mixture of cheese and lime. Appert’s invention was built on earlier imperfect techniques, which either removed air or preserved food by heat but hadn’t managed to do both.
Running a bustling lab and factory, Appert soon progressed from champagne bottles to wide-necked glass containers. In 1803 his preserved foods (which came to include vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy and fish) were sent out for sea trials with the French navy. By 1804, his factory had begun to experiment with meat packed in tin cans, which he soldered shut and then observed for months for signs of swelling. Those that didn’t swell were deemed safe for sale and long-term storage. This soon became the method in which food was packed for armies all over Europe. So exceptional was this invention; that in 1809 Appert was awarded the Directory’s prize, with the condition that he pay to publish his method. That’s how in 1810 his invention was published as “The Art of Preserving, for Several Years, all Animal and Vegetable Substances.”
Appert’s food preserving process was all the more amazing because it was invented way before Louis Pasteur’s discoveries of germ growth and sterilization by more than 50 years. Canned food also predated, by around 30 years, the can opener itself. The metal cans used by Appert were made of tin-plated steel or even cast iron, with heavy lids that had to be chiseled open or stabbed through with soldiers’ bayonets!!
After winning the prize, Appert spent many more years working to improve his method. His factories remained innovative but unprofitable, and he died a poor man in 1841. But by then variants of his process were used to can foods ranging from New York oysters and Nantes sardines to Italian fruit and Pennsylvania tomatoes.
The availability of canned food played a crucial role in 19th century, feeding the enormous armies of the Crimean War, the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and offering explorers and colonialists a taste of home in unfamiliar lands. Following the global depression of 1873, U.S. exports of canned foods boomed, led by the Campbell, Heinz and Borden companies. In 1904, the Max Ams Machine Company of New York patented the double-seam process used in most modern food cans. Today a double-seam machine can safely seal more than 2,000 cans a minute - a long way indeed from Appert’s champagne bottles!!
*Image Credit: buzzpo.com
