The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.. Appert Nicolas
of a Letter written to General Caffarelli, Maritime Prefect at Brest, by the Council of Health, dated Brumaire, year 12.
The provisions prepared according to the process of Citizen Appert and sent to this port by the Minister of Marine, have, after lying in the roads three months, been found in the following condition.
The broth or soup (bouillon) in bottles was good; the bouillon with a bouilli in a vessel apart was also good, but weak; the bouilli itself was very eatable.
The beans and green peas, prepared both with meat and vegetable soup, had all the freshness and flavour of recently gathered vegetables.
True Copy.
§ I
All the expedients hitherto made use of for preserving alimentary and medicinal substances, may be reduced to two principal methods; that of dessication; and that of mingling, in greater or less quantities, a foreign substance for the purpose of impeding fermentation or putrefaction.
It is by the former of these methods that we are furnished with smoaked and hung meat, dried fish, fruits, and vegetables. By the latter, we obtain fruits and other vegetable substances preserved in sugar, the juices and decoctions of plants reduced to syrups and essences, all kinds of pickles, salted meat and vegetables. But each of these modes has its peculiar inconveniences. Dessication takes away the odour, changes the taste of the juices, and hardens the fibrous or pulpy matter (the porenchyma).
Sugar, from the strength of its own flavour, conceals and destroys in part other flavours, even that, the enjoyment of which we wish to preserve, such as the pleasant acidity of many fruits. A second inconvenience is this, that a large quantity of sugar is required in order to preserve a small quantity of some other vegetable matter; and hence the use of it is not only very costly, but even in many cases pernicious. Thus the juices of certain plants cannot be reduced to a syrup or essence, but by means of nearly double the quantity of sugar. It results from this, that those syrups or essences contain much more sugar than any medicinal substance, and that most frequently the sugar counteracts the operation of the medicine, and is hurtful to the patient.
Salt communicates an unpleasant acerbity to substances, hardens the animal fibre, and renders it difficult of digestion. It contracts the animal parenchyma.3 On the other hand, as it is indispensable to remove, by means of water, the greater part of the salt employed; almost all the principles which are soluble in cold water, are lost when the salt is taken away: there remains nothing but the fibrous matter, or parenchyma; and even that, as has been said, undergoes a change.
Vinegar can seldom be made use of, but in the preparation of certain articles for seasoning.
I shall not enter into any details concerning what has been said and published on the art of preserving alimentary substances. I shall only observe, that as far as my knowledge extends, no author, either ancient or modern, has ever pointed out, or even led to the suspicion, of the principle which is the basis of the method I propose.
It is known, how much, within a certain period, the public attention, both at Paris and in the departments, has been directed towards the means of diminishing the consumption of sugar, by supplying its place by the use of various extracts, or essences, of indigenous substances. The government, whose philanthropic views are turned towards all useful objects, does not cease to invite all those who pursue the arts and sciences, to investigate the means of drawing the utmost advantage from the productions of our soil, in order to develope, to the utmost, our agriculture and manufactures, and so diminish the consumption of foreign commodities.
In order to attain the same end, the Society for the Promotion of National Industry4 stimulates, by the offer of flattering rewards, all those whose talents and labours are directed towards discoveries, from which the nation and humanity may draw substantial benefits. Animated by this laudable zeal, the Agricultural Society, by its resolution of the 21st of June 1809, and its official notification of it, the 15th of the July following, made an appeal to the whole nation, in order to collect all the information and documents which might contribute to the composition of a work on the art of preserving, by the best possible means, every kind of alimentary substance.
It was after invitations of so great weight, that I resolved to make known a method of effecting this object, of great facility in the execution, and at the same time very cheap, and which, by the extension it admits of, may afford numerous advantages to society.
This method is not a vain theory. It is the fruit of reflection, investigation, long attention, and numerous experiments, the results of which, for more than ten years, have been so surprising, that notwithstanding the proof acquired by repeated practice, that provisions may be preserved two, three, and six years, there are many persons who still refuse to credit the fact.
Brought up to the business of preserving alimentary substance by the received methods; having spent my days in the pantries, the breweries, store-houses, and cellars of Champagne, as well as in the shops, manufactories, and warehouses of confectioners, distillers, and grocers; accustomed to superintend establishments of this kind for forty-five years, I have been able to avail myself, in my process, of a number of advantages, which the greater number of those persons have not possessed, who have devoted themselves to the art of preserving provisions.
I owe to my extensive practice, and more especially to my long perseverance, the conviction:
1st. That fire has the peculiar property, not only of changing the combination of the constituent parts of vegetable and animal productions, but also of retarding, for many years at least, if not of destroying, the natural tendency of those same productions to decomposition.
2d. That the application of fire in a manner variously adapted to various substances, after having with the utmost care and as completely as possible, deprived them of all contact with the air, effects a perfect preservation of those same productions, with all their natural qualities.
Before I state the details of my process, I ought to observe that it consists principally,
1st. In inclosing in bottles the substances to be preserved.
2d. In corking the bottles with the utmost care; for it is chiefly on the corking that the success of the process depends.
3d. In submitting these inclosed substances to the action of boiling water in a water-bath (BALNEUM MARIAE), for a greater or less length of time, according to their nature, and in the manner pointed out with respect to each several kind of substance.
4th. In withdrawing the bottles from the water-bath at the period described.
§ II.
Description of my Rooms set apart for carrying on the Process on a large Scale. 5
My laboratory consists of four apartments. The first of these is furnished with all kinds of kitchen utensils, stoves, and other apparatus, necessary for dressing the animal substances to be preserved, as well as with a kettle for broth, gravy, &c. containing 180 French pints, raised on brick work. This kettle is provided with a pot to be put within it, pierced with holes like a skimmer, with divisions for holding various kinds of meat and poultry. This pot can be put into and taken out of the kettle with ease. The kettle is provided with a wide cock, to which is fitted, within, a little rose, like that of a watering-pot, covered with a piece of boulting-cloth. In this way I can procure broth or gravy quite clear, and ready to be put into bottles.
The second apartment is appropriated to the preparing of milk, cream, and whey.
The third is used for corking and tying the bottles and vessels, and putting them into bags.
The fourth is furnished with three large copper boilers, placed upon stones raised on brick work. These boilers are all furnished with a stout lid, fitted, to rest upon the vessels within. Each boiler is furnished with
“The salt meat with which the crews of vessels are fed, appears to be one of the principal causes of the scurvy. It seems that the same causes which operate to prevent the fermentation of meat, renders it also difficult of digestion. Though a small quantity of salt may be an obstacle in the way of putrefaction, the too abundant and frequent use which is made of it, must cause great obstructions in the smaller vessels of the body, and these obstructions cannot fail to overload the stomach of men who have to digest dry vegetables and biscuits, which sailors advanced in years are not always able to chew completely. Bad digestion and obstruction in the smaller vessels may occasionally give rise to ulcers in the mouth, and spots, which denote the scurvy.” —
It is obvious, that for the use of private families, and for carrying on the process on a small scale, nothing further will be requisite, than such vessels and other conveniences as are found in every house in the country, where provisions are cured for the consumption of the family during winter.