Food Smoking Through Ages

The practice of smoking food has endured since the early use of fire in culinary applications. Early humans adopted food smoking as a means to protect their provisions during challenging periods, such as droughts, epidemics, and cold weather seasons. This method facilitated the transportation of cooked meats for trade or sharing with others. Beyond its effectiveness with various meats, food smoking also yielded positive results with fish and aquatic creatures.

Food smoking, an ancient culinary technique, likely originated in the paleolithic era. It is believed that early humans unintentionally discovered the advantages of hanging meat to dry in smoky environments, noting a distinct flavor and enhanced preservation compared to simply air-drying meat.

In the last century, food smoking has undergone significant changes. Large smokehouses have been replaced by more compact personal food smokers or improvised backyard smokehouses.

The smoke generated during the cooking process alters the chemical composition of the meat, serving as a curing agent and extending its shelf life. Historically, the origins of modern smoked meat are believed to trace back to Turkey and were introduced to Romania by invading Turkish armies. Romanian Jewish butchers refined the curing process, resulting in an exceptionally tender delicacy.

During Medieval Europe, smoking meat was primarily employed for preservation purposes. Many homesteads featured dedicated smokehouses for the conservation and storage of meat. Those with limited resources would hang their meat near the hearth or fireplace, with ashes placed over embers to create an optimal smoky environment for preserving fish or game.

In the present day, food smoking continues to be a widely embraced cooking method, valued not only for its preservation capabilities but also for the distinctive smoky flavor it imparts to dishes.
Food Smoking Through Ages

Nicolas Appert: The inventor of airtight food preservation

The idea of using a sealed vessel as an integral part of a food preservation process rather than as a merely convenient storage receptacle was seize upon and developed by the Frenchman M. Nicolas Appert ((17 November 1749 – 1 June 1841). In the early 1800s Nicolas Appert established an operation in Massy, La Maison d‘Appert (House of Appert, devoted to food preservation.

By 1804 this operation was a functioning as a full scale canning plant, the first in the world. It included a farm so that food could be preserved as the same location in which it was grown.

In 1795, the French Directory which ruled France decided they need to find a better way to ensure adequate supplies of food for soldier. They offered a prize of 12000 francs to anyone who could come up with a new way of preserving food so it could be transported over long distance.

When Napoleon came to power in 1799, no one had solved the problem. Six years later Appert submitted his preserved food at an exhibition. He was given the 12000 francs four years later on the condition that he made his findings public.

In 1810, Appert did publish a book, The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetables Substances for Several Years, which was translated into English and published in New York two years later, Nicolas Appert:
The inventor of airtight food preservation

Thermal sterilization of food in history

Thermal sterilization has been used to achieve long-term shelf stability for canned foods and is now used for a broad range of products. The majority of shelf-stable foods are thermally processed after being placed in the final containers.

The beginnings of preservation and sterilization techniques go back to ancient years. Aristotle recommended to Alexander the Great , his troops should boil the water before they drank it.

It is known that Hippocrates attempted to send the plague away from Athens by lighting fires in the streets and burning aromatic woods to disappear the plague-spots.

The use of high temperature to produce safe food products dates to the 1790s in France. Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to scientist to develop preserved foods for the armies of France. A man named Nicholas Appert won the prize for successfully preserving, for the first time, a variety of perishable food products by heat-processing foods in glass jars and bottles.

The technology is receiving increasing attention from thermal processing specialists to improve both the economy and quality of some canned foods.
Thermal sterilization of food in history

Food irradiation process in history

Radioactivity was discovered in 1895 by Henry Becquerel. At the same year, there was a suggestion to use ionizing to destroy microorganisms in food was published in a German medical journal.

In 1905 a British patent was issued for use of ionizing radiation to kill bacteria in foods through food irradiation. B. Schwartz of the US department of Agriculture suggested the use of X-rays for inactivating trichinae in pork in 1921.

 In depth food radiation studies in the United States began in the early 1950s, when both radiation sources and processing requirement were developed to practical point.

Most of the studies have been government sponsored at least partly because the 1958 Food Additive Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act required advance proposal from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before any particular irradiated food could be publicly sold.

In the United Kingdom investigations on the effects of ionizing radiation on food began in 1950 at the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge an somewhat later at the Wantage Research Laboratories of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment.

Earlier work (1947-1952) was carried out by at least three private companies in the United States. In 1953 President D, Eisenhower made his landmark ‘Atoms for Peace’ address at the United Nations General Assembly. Many nations joined the research on peaceful uses of atomic energy including applications in food preservation.

A similar circumstance prevailed in other countries, resulting, worldwide, in predominantly government sponsored food irradiation research programs.

Because of the lack of research facilities in many third world countries, specialized agencies of the United States also became actively involved in international food irradiation research programs.

In 1976 The Joint FAO/IAEA/WHO Expert Committee on the Wholesomeness of Irradiated Food gave a clean bill of health to several irradiated foods and recommended that food irradiated to be classified as a physical process.
Food irradiation process in history

History of quick freezing

The first patent (British) related to food freezing was for rapid freezing of a product by immersion on cold medium and was granted to H. Benjamin in 1842.

An innovative freezing system for fish was patented by William Davis in 1868; the fish were placed in metal containers and sealed before immersions in an ice/salt mixture.

American inventor Clarence Birdseye developed the quick-freezing process of food preservation in the 20th century. During his stay on the arctic, Birdseye observed that the combination of ice, wind and low temperature almost froze just-caught fish.

Most importantly, he also found that when such quick-frozen fish were cooked and eaten, they were scarcely different in taste and texture from how they would have been if fresh. Birdseye labored for seven years at a New Jersey icehouse to develop a method for packaging foods and rapidly reducing the temperature to freezing.

After years of work, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under pressure. Birdseye patented the food freezing process in 1926. Fortune declared that freezing was one of the most exciting and revolutionary ideas in the history of food’.

Commercially packed fish products appeared in 1929, under the Birds Eye label, and the first retail styles frozen food packs were launched in 1939.

With the passage of the Rural Electrification Act in 1933, many rural households became members of a local rural electric cooperative and by the end of World War II; most rural homes could operate not only a refrigerator but also a home freezer.
History of quick freezing

Development of Food Preservation

During the 20th century the continued application of scientific research to food production has significantly changed the way the world eats.

Food preservation is as old as human civilization. Preservation of foods inhibits spoilage cause by bacterial growth, oxidation, insects or desiccation.

The Chinese reportedly preserved vegetables by fermentation in prehistoric times and Plinius preserved white cabbage in earthenware pots in Italy in the first century AD.

The earliest recorded instances of food preservation date back to ancient Egypt and the drying of grains and subsequent storage in seal silos.

Fermentation, oil packing, pickling, salting, and smoking are all ancient preservation technologies.

Refrigeration in caves or under cool water were also well known ancient techniques of food preservation.

But the potential of this particular food preservation technique was not fully realized until the 1900’s when Clarence Birdseye introduced frozen foods to the American public.

People in many parts of the world developed techniques for drying and smoking foods as far as 6000 BC. Microorganism need water to carry out their metabolic processes.

Ancient Mesoamericans used salt as a preservative for trade in fish and other food stuff over long distances, as well as for storing food for long periods of time.

Since Phoenician times (from around 1250 BC) the standard practice for preserving fish was to gut it, dry it and pack it in layers with salt.

The first dehydrator for drying fruits and vegetables was introduced in France in 1795.

In 1803, a French chef named Nicholas Appert invented a new technique for preserving food.

He prepared and preserved soup, beef with gravy, beans and pea. The French navy store it for three months, Then they tried it. The food was delicious and safe to eat.

When Appert published this method in 1810 he had no knowledge of bacteria. It took another 50 years and Louis Pasteur to elucidate the relationship between microorganism and the spoilage of food.

In 1854 Louis Pasteur began his investigation in wine. And pasteurization process of milk was begun in Germany and United States in 1880 and 1890 respectively.

Freezing did not fully develop until the 1950s. Freezing keeps food safe by slowing the movement of molecules, causing microbes to enter a dormant stage.

It extended periods of time because it prevents the growth of microorganisms that cause both food spoilage and foodborne illness; so frozen food is theoretically safe forever.

The term of irradiation appeared only around 1950s, but the technology can be traced back to the late 19th century.

Although food preservation has now reached a high standard at least in the developed countries, the quantities of food still spoiled are astonishing.

According to estimates, no less than 20% of foods produced never reached the consumer’s table because of attack beforehand by rodents, insects or microorganisms.
Development of Food Preservation