Pickled, Potted and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food
Preserving Changed the World
Review by Angela Heuzenroeder
Sue Shephard, Pickled, Potted and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food
Preserving Changed the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 367pp.
It is a simple fact of life that we can eat food fresh – freshly picked, freshly
slaughtered and cooked – within a time span that prevents its deterioration. Or
we can treat it in some way that prolongs the time between the gathering of
the food and its consumption, and in so doing almost inevitably change the nature
of the food in texture, flavour and appearance. To preserve food in a way that
makes it palatable is an art. Food preserving has implications for the safety
of the consumer that make it a science as well. The art and science of food
preserving provide a consuming preoccupation the world over. But it is when
food preserving is examined in its historical entirety that one begins to see
that it has had huge ramifications for human development. Sue Shephard is making
no exaggerated claim in the sub-title of her book Pickled, potted and canned
when she asserts that "the art and science of food preserving changed
the world".
As Shephard says in her introduction, social and cultural complexities of human
society were laid down when people began to preserve their food. Holding cultivated
and preserved food in one place over time encouraged nomads to settle; being
able to carry durable foods over stretches of land and water enabled travelers
to travel; reducing the perpetual need to gather gave people seasonal leisure;
while food preservation techniques reinforced social stratification and promoted
slavery and warfare.
Pickled, potted and canned gives a global history of all the major forms
of food preservation: drying, salting, pickling in vinegar, smoking, fermenting,
making products from milk, using sugar, making concentrates, canning, freezing
and dehydrating. Shephard looks at variations in techniques in different parts
of the world, relating them to their social context and to techniques in other
areas. She identifies where possible the moment when a certain technique appeared
and the person responsible for its introduction. She takes time to examine the
fortunes of Nicholas Appert, whose experiments with bottling fruit, vegetables
and meat came to public notice in 1810. It was a time when sugar embargoes steered
Europeans towards alternative forms of food preserving, and when armies and
navies on both sides in the Napoleonic wars required durable foodstuffs to mount
successful campaigns. Shephard reveals the intrigues between Appert and his
English counterpart, Peter Durand, who was experimenting with preserving food
in tin cans. She broadens the perspective of the narrative to show that these
techniques of food preserving boosted not only the energy of the war being waged,
but also the European exploration of countries on the other side of the globe.
Shephard's history draws attention to the place of foods in significant times
in history. It is revealing to read, for example, that Sir Francis Bacon, essayist,
philosopher, politician and scientist, died from a chill after experimenting
with stuffing a chicken carcass with snow to see if it would preserve the meat.
Astronauts would never have succeeding in living in space if scientists had
not developed thickened foods, similar to the very thick milk imbibed from their
mothers under water by baby whales.
Looking at techniques of food preserving across time gives Shephard's work
panoramic scope. One sees for example how influential the culinary tastes of
the Romans were, and how our own eating habits still reflect their love of sausages,
ices, cheeses, and other preserved foods. Shephard's observations cover every
continent. Australia earns a mention when she describes damper as one of the
world's types of flat-breads, cooked on the coals, and she describes in some
detail the attempts of entrepreneurs and food technologists to bring Australian
meats to northern-hemisphere market in a fresh and appetising state.
With her experience as a presenter on television, Sue Shephard tells many entertaining
stories connected with food preserving. Readers will dine out on her opening
story about the jar of honey found in the ancient Egyptian tomb, which the discoverers
found to be most enjoyable, and which they continued to eat until they discovered
that the honey in the jar was actually preserving the body of a small baby.
They will relish describing how soldiers of Attila the Hun salted their meat
by placing it under their saddles and letting it absorb the sweat of their galloping
horses; and how U.S. airmen in the Second World War made ice-cream by placing
the prepared mixture in cans anchored to the rear of their Flying Fortress bombers
on each sortie.
Where does she find such tidbits? Often she refers to her sources in the text
itself, and her bibliography is extensive. Here, however, is one frustration.
Because the book is intended to appeal to a broad readership, there are no footnotes
in the text and it is not always possible to identify the source by scanning
the bibliography. Publishers are often reluctant to include footnotes in books
of wide public interest. They seem to regard them as a discouragement to the
reader. It may well be that publishers are underestimating the requirements
of the reading public who these days expect even recipe books to have reasonable
bibliographies. I am sure that knowing the sources of Sue Shephard's intriguing
information would increase readers' enjoyment of a fascinating book.
The last chapter gives an account of the preserving methods used in England
during the two world wars (with many of her detailed observations taken from
reminiscences of people who participated) and ends with a rapid gallop through
the preserving processes used by mass producers bringing post-war food to the
supermarket shelves. Shephard regrets that food is available irrespective of
the season, and that consumers are ignorant about where it comes from. She
places in perspective Elizabeth David's plea for people to use fresh food in
season: millions of people in the world do not have access to the luxury of
fresh food. She points out that other people who can obtain fresh food have
continuing pleasure in using it to make their own preserves, enjoying its preserved
taste and texture for cultural as well as aesthetic reasons.
This last chapter encapsulates a serious failing of the book as a whole and
that is the way it deals with larger issues relating to the social impact of
food preserving techniques. These are sandwiched among the array of smaller
detail – the minutiae of the did-you-know-variety – and are given the same value.
Meaty issues are never fully matured. In this regard, the book's sub-title,
How the art and science of food preserving changed the world, does not
deliver as much as it promises. This book would have been an ideal opportunity
to single out and develop the grand themes mentioned in the introduction. How,
in fact has preserving food encouraged "social stratification, slavery
and endemic warfare"? Where is Shephard's treatment of each of these three
vast influences on the course of human history?
Let these objections not detract from a book that offers a broad array of delights
and understandings to an equally broad array of readers. It is good to read
and good to savour. It is a tasty white bread sandwich, filled with interesting
sorts of pickles, even if the slice of meat is a little thin.
Angela Heuzenroeder is the author of Barossa Food and a graduate
student in history at the University of Adelaide.
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