Product Description

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 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, and created routes for the expansion of trade and the exchange of knowledge and culture that opened up our world. In Pickled, Potted, and Canned, author Sue Shephard weaves together the stories of the inventors -- and inventions -- in a lively and richly detailed narrative that spans centuries and continents. It is a tale filled with extraordinary characters, old legends, and new revelations: how Attila the Hun and his men "gallop cured" their meat; how cooks became chemists and chemists became cooks 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.

From the primitive techniques of drying and salting to the latest methods that have allowed us to feed men in space, Pickled, Potted, and Canned gives us fascinating insights into the histories, cultures, and ingenuity of people inventing new ways to "cheat the seasons."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372721 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .93" h x 5.68" w x 9.34" l, .87 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 366 pages

From Amazon.com
We're apt to ignore the importance of food preservation, but its significance can't be overestimated. In Pickled, Potted, and Canned, Sue Shephard tells the fascinating and unexpectedly stirring story of the development of preserved, portable food--a history full of human ingenuity and mastery that limns our evolution from hunter-gathers, dependent upon food availability for sustenance, to "season cheaters" able to take nourishment when and where we wanted to and thus discover the world. Food preservation's history is the story of civilization itself, and in lively prose readers discover the way the world was shaped by such common yet extraordinary techniques as drying, salting, smoking, and, most recently, canning and freezing.

In 1800, Shepard writes, archaeologists working in Egypt discovered the body of a baby perfectly preserved in millennia-old honey, a practice stretching back in time and employed by the embalmers of Alexander the Great, also buried in honey. Sugar preservation, we are reminded, is one of the major techniques of food keeping--mixed with fruit, sugar produces jams, preserves, candied fruit, and other time-defying food--and Shepard traces its history from ancient Greece to the present. Similarly, she explores other techniques including salting, responsible for keeping meat and fish like cod palatable and at the ready; fermenting, to which we owe soy sauce and other mainstays; and drying, which gave us pasta and "ever-fresh" breads such as hardtack and matzo. From ancient but ever-evolving preservation methods like these to modern dehydration, which helps produce food that sustains astronauts, the book details simultaneously world-changing skills and culture in the making. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
Before the advent of chemically preserved foods, people relied on ingenious natural preserving methods to survive winters. Shephard (coauthor, United Tastes of America), the creator of several food television programs in England, chronicles the history of food preservation in detail, from salt-cured pork, fermented soybeans (an Asian staple), fish buried in sand (in Africa and Northern Europe) and wines made from rice, to Bird's Eye dinners and freeze-dried astronaut food. Shephard argues that food preservation has been integral to human progress, allowing us to advance from subsistence hunter-gatherers to explorers and traders who can travel the globe and even outer space. While her focus is food, other interesting tidbits emerge: in 1800, archeologists found and consumed a jar of honey in Egypt, then discovered the body of a small baby preserved inside. (In fact, from the Neolithic era onward, Aryans, Sumerians, Babylonians and Cretans often buried their dead in honey.) One of the book's strongest sections covers explorations. The preservation of food was vital to early explorers like Marco Polo, who needed supplies to last through long, arduous journeys. (On one American Northwest expedition in 1801, Lewis and Clark brought "193 pounds of portable soup, twenty barrels of flour, fourteen barrels of parched corn, forty-two barrels of salt pork, two hundred pounds of beef tallow, and fifty pounds of pig lard stored in whisky barrels.") Shephard's straightforward tone and accessible scholarship make for a thorough and intriguing history. B&w photos and illus. Agent, Jane Turnbull.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Written in a lively style by a creator of several British television food programs, this book recounts the development of food preserving from the time of the ancients to the era of the space program, from East to West and all points in between. The 16 chapters individually treat each technology, e.g., drying, salting, pickling in vinegar, smoking, fermenting, canning, refrigerating and freezing, and dehydration. Well-documented facts come alive with anecdotal support and the sense that the author truly cares about the ingenious way that humanity has preserved itself by preserving its food. Ultimately, one indeed understands that humankind's wanderings would have been impossible without the science of food preserving and its ability to improve flavor. While there are no recipes, the bibliography supplies a superb reading list for picklers, potters, and canners. Culinary history continues to be popular reading, which is just one reason to purchase this fine book. Highly recommended for public, academic, and special libraries. Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., KY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.