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Preser-va′tion of food.

Various methods may be employed for preventing the fermentation and putrefaction of animal and vegetable substances and maintaining their usefulness as foods.

Cold. Putrefaction is entirely prevented or arrested at temperatures below the freezing-point, and animal substances may be thus preserved for indefinite periods without change. The mammoths found in masses of ice in Siberia were unchanged after the lapse of untold ages.

This method is largely employed during winter in cold climates and on a smaller scale in the keeping or transportation of flesh, game, etc., during the warm season.

Desiccation. This method is applied to both animal and vegetable substances. It is effected by exposing them, after having been sliced or cut into small pieces, to the sun in warm dry weather or to a current of warm dry air at a temperature not exceeding 140° Fah. If this be exceeded, flesh becomes hard and insipid. Vegetables prepared in this way are afterward compressed into a small bulk.

Buccaning consists in drying and smoking meat cut into thin slices. From this practice the West India Buccaneers of the seventeenth century are said to have derived their name.

Jerked beef is prepared by dipping thinly sliced meat into water and afterward drying it in the sun. This is sometimes pounded into a mass and packed in jars.

Pemmican is prepared from buffalo meat, sliced and dried in the sun or before the fire, pounded and mixed with melted fat, to which flavoring herbs or berries are sometimes added.

Flesh not for food may also be preserved by immersion in antiseptic liquids, as alcohol, to which camphor, sal ammoniac, or common salt may be added. A weak solution of creosote, sulphurous acid, or of alum, with or without the addition of corrosive sublimate or arsenious acid, may also be employed to prevent putrefaction.

Pickling in vinegar containing 1/400 of creosote will preserve meat unchanged for a considerable time even during warm weather. The most efficacious mode of applying antiseptics is to inject them into the blood-vessels of an animal when recently killed. Such is Gannal's process, in which a solution of sulphate of alumina or preferably chloride of aluminium is injected into the carotid artery of a slaughtered animal as soon as the flow of blood has ceased, the extremities of the jugular veins having been previously tied. If the meat is to be kept for more than a few weeks, it should be washed with a mixed solution of chloride of aluminium and common salt and packed in air-tight barrels, or it may be kept in ordinary barrels simply packed with dry salt.

Robin employed some of the volatile hydrocarbons, as ether, in a capsule or sponge placed within a case containing the substance to be treated, the vapor preventing corruption. Fish may be preserved for some time in sugar, either alone or with saltpeter or common salt; treated in this way, they retain their natural flavor to a greater degree than in the ordinary salting process; if afterward dried, they may be kept for an indefinite period.

Smoking. This is usually employed in conjunction with salt. The meat, having been previously immersed in or thoroughly rubbed with salt, to which a proportion of sugar and saltpeter is usually added, is suspended over a smoldering wood-fire which burns slowly but emits a large quantity of smoke. Green hickory is preferable for smoking, wood of the pine family imparting a disagreeable flavor to the meat. In some cases the twigs or branches of aromatic plants are added to the fuel; juniper is used for smoking the celebrated Westphalia hams. Corn-cobs are frequently used.

Exclusion of air. In 1808, M. Appert invented a process for preserving provisions by parboiling, and inclosing them in earthenware-vessels from which the air was excluded. This as subsequently improved by Doukin and Gamble forms the basis upon which the more recent processes of preserving foods by canning are founded.

In that patented by Doukin the meat is first parboiled or somewhat more, freed from the bones, and then placed, either alone or with vegetables, in tin canisters which are filled with prepared gravy or juices: a tin cover with a small aperture is soldered over the open end of the can, which is then placed in boiling water or in a salt solution heated slightly above the boiling-point of water, thus expelling the air from the interior. When this is effected the aperture is closed with solder while the contents are yet hot. On cooling, the ends of the can assume an inwardly concave form, on account of the contraction of the contents. The success of the process is tested by exposing the cans for some time to a heat above 100° Fah., when, if incipient putrefaction had set in previous to the commencement of the process or it has been improperly conducted, the generated gases will cause the ends of the can to bulge outwardly.

Bevan's process, patented 1842, consists in exhausting the air from the cans previous to heating them, and in providing a supply of gelatine which is caused to flow in and fill the vacuum as the air is withdrawn, thus enabling the food to be cooked in a vacuum at a much lower temperature.

Potting. By this method air is excluded from animal substances previously cooked, by placing them in jars and covering them with a layer of lard, butter, or oil.

Pickling. This term is applied indifferently to the preservation of meats or vegetables in brine or vinegar. Brine is generally used for keeping meat, and vinegar for vegetables. This process forms an important part of household economy, and on a large scale constitutes a prominent source of national wealth.

Cabbage, sliced and packed in salt, undergoes a slight fermentation forming sauerkraut, an article of diet largely used in Northern Europe. Potatoes, turnips, and other roots, as well as apples and cabbages, are prevented from decaying by storage in moderately cool, dry situations.

Fruits are preserved by desiccation or by being treated with sugar, and either dried or retained in the sirup. The former are known as dry and the latter as liquid confections; they are usually boiled in the sirup.

Marmalades, jams, and pastes are prepared by beating up the pulp of fruits with liquefied sugar or honey. Conserves are beaten up with dry sugar.

Some fruits, as grapes, may be kept a long time by merely being loosely packed in sawdust; others are treated with alcoholic spirits and sugar.

Milk may be preserved by reducing it by boiling to half its natural bulk, and beating it up with the yolk of eggs in the proportion of 8 1/2 to 10 1/2 quarts of milk; the whole is then heated for half an hour and frequently skimmed, strained, and again heated for two hours in a water-bath, See milk, condensed, page 1438.

A preferable method, generally pursued in the preparation of condensed milk, is to evaporate it at a gentle heat and add sugar. Milk thus prepared contains about 25 per cent of water, 29 per cent of cane, and 16 per cent of milk-sugar. Evaporation may be continued until the milk is entirely solidified.

Cream may be preserved by boiling down five measures to four, cooling and skimming, and then placing in closely stopped bottles, which are kept in a water-bath at a boiling heat for half an hour.

1877.

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