Pickled, Potted, and Canned; How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the World

by Sue Shephard

• ISBN13: 9780743216333
• ISBN10: 0743216334
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-28
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

We may not give much thought to the boxes in our freezers or the cans on our shelves, but behind the story of food preservation is the history of civilization itself. The ability to preserve food was the key that liberated humans from the anxious life of the hunter-gatherer, forced to follow migrating herds or to forage for seasonal berries and leaves. The development of portable, preserved food enabled the great explorers to travel into the unknown and gradually map the planet, facilitated the conquest of new territories by great armies and navies, and created routes for the expansion of trade and the exchange of knowledge and culture that opened up our world. It allowed us to expand our daily menu from the limited repetitious range of our ancestors to the multicultural, international choices we enjoy today. In Pickled, Potted, and Canned, Sue Shephard weaves together the stories of the inventors and key developments of food preservation in a lively and richly detailed narrative that spans centuries and continents, a fascinating blend of social history, popular science, and man's ongoing curiosity and inventiveness. It is a tale filled with extraordinary characters, old legends, and new revelations. It describes how Attila the Hun and his men "gallop cured" their meat, how cooks became chemists and chemists became cooks, how men made or lost fortunes, and how some even lost their lives -- like seventeenth-century statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon, whose death was caused by an experiment with a frozen chicken, or the worker in an early canning factory, killed "most ridiculously and ignobly" by an exploding tin of turkey. From the primitive techniques of drying and salting to the latest methods that have allowed us to feed men in space, Picked, Potted, and Canned gives us insight into the histories, cultures, and ingenuity of people inventing new ways to "cheat the seasons."

Author Biography

Sue Shephard has spent most of her career working in television in England, where she was responsible for creating, among other programs, three series about food and culture with Dorinda Hafner, with whom she co-wrote United Tastes of America. Pickled, Potted, and Canned was nominated for the 2001 IACP Jane Grigson Award, which recognizes scholarship in food writing. Shephard lives in the southwest of England with her husband and two grown children.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface: The Longest Journey
Introduction: Shelf Life

1. Drying
2. Salting
3. Pickling in Vinegar
4. Smoking
5. Fermenting
6. Milk Products
7. Sugar
8. Concentrates
9. Pies, Pots, and Bottles
10. Navy Blues
11. From Cooks to Chemists
12. Canning
13. Great Journeys
14. Refrigeration and Freezing
15. Dehydration and Beyond
16. Feast or Famine

Select Bibliography
Index
Picture Credits