Food Preservation Trivia

Long before refrigerators hummed in every kitchen, keeping food edible for more than a few days required real ingenuity. Salt, smoke, sugar, and sealed jars each solved the same basic problem in different ways: slow down or stop the microorganisms that cause spoilage.

A Prize-Winning Idea

One of the biggest breakthroughs came from Nicolas Appert, a French confectioner who spent years experimenting with sealing food in glass containers and heating them. His method won a prize offered by the French government, which badly wanted a way to keep armies fed on long campaigns. Appert's approach worked, though it would take Louis Pasteur's later research into microorganisms to explain why heat sealed inside a jar could keep food safe for so long.

Old Techniques That Still Work Today

Long before Appert's jars, people were already preserving food using methods that remain common in kitchens worldwide.

• Salting and curing meats and fish, a practice going back thousands of years, works by drawing out moisture that bacteria need to thrive.
• Fermentation transforms cabbage into sauerkraut or kimchi using the same bacterial activity that would spoil untreated vegetables.
• Root cellars use the earth's naturally cool, steady temperature to keep produce fresh for months.

By the 1920s, Clarence Birdseye's quick-freezing techniques added a modern option to the list, proving that sometimes the best way to preserve food is simply to freeze it fast enough that ice crystals stay small.