WI: Earlier Appert canning method
- Thread starter Richard V
- Start date
I don't see why not, and smaller containers are easier than big ones to heat and transport. Sealing food in air tight containers is ancient. That's how kimchi is made after all. Its one of those transformational inventions that are so simple it's a wonder wasn't done earlier. It probably was in some form but forgotten.
Makes sense, since ISTR hearing that Appert's initial proof of concept used champagne bottles as the containers before switching to wide-mouthed glass containers similar to modern mason jars.
While googling to confirm, I came across this:
He believes that Appert wasn’t working totally from scratch. The idea of preservation by heat was known. There are also historical references to preservation of juice by mild heat treatments, a process now known as “hot filling.” This method was known in Roman times, although the Romans did not have hermetically sealed containers. But Appert could have known of hermetic sealing using water to tighten the lid to the jar for preserving kimchee and sauerkraut in crockery.
And I found this contradicting the claim that Romans didn't have hermetically sealed containers.
A team of chemists from the University of Valencia (UV) has confirmed that the substance used to hermetically seal an amphora found among remains at Lixus, in Morocco, was pine resin. The scientists also studied the metallic fragments inside the 2,000-year-old vessel, which could be fragments of material used for iron-working.
If accurate, the Romans had all the pieces but just didn't happen to have anyone put them together, probably because the hermetic sealing technique wasn't in widespread use, combined with a lack of theoretical groundwork (such as Spallanzani's work IOTL) that would lead someone to think to try combining heat treatments with hermetic seals.
Main issue with Amphoras in my mind is the question if it is possible, with the available pottery technique, to make them small enough (mealsized), to serve as a intermediate towards something more logisticly sound (idealy something 'box' sized), and prehaps with an easier to 'mass fabricate' material as the resourced used to build them.
That and a good enough reason to throw knowhow at transporting it longer or further instead of living off the land, which is the relatively easy way, if prehaps a bit expensive if it happens on/near home ground or allied ground where you have to pay local farmers. Or having non-combatants pulling the heavy load in terms of running a supply train (getting grain for its easy storage) for the army (optionally via a navy), which would be a cheaper but more cumbersome way.
Maybe create a good reason for Rome to want to control the transsaharan trade routes?
That and a good enough reason to throw knowhow at transporting it longer or further instead of living off the land, which is the relatively easy way, if prehaps a bit expensive if it happens on/near home ground or allied ground where you have to pay local farmers. Or having non-combatants pulling the heavy load in terms of running a supply train (getting grain for its easy storage) for the army (optionally via a navy), which would be a cheaper but more cumbersome way.
Maybe create a good reason for Rome to want to control the transsaharan trade routes?
It would be reserved for emergency rations for when food cannot be secured by normal means, as a boost to strength and moral before battle, and restore health for the sick. Canning was originally adopted by navies and armies on long campaigns. The Romans being a highly militarized culture would certainly use it for the same purpose.
Campaigning against the Scythians, trade along the Silk Road, the exploration of Africa by circumnavigation and expeditions into the interior would all be made easier. In Asia this technology would facilitate trade along the Maritime Silk Road, allow campaigns against the steppe nomads, etc. It would effectively make the world smaller.
A new way of preserving food also means an expansion of agriculture. You can now grow more than you can eat. Too much lemons? Make marmalade and sell them to places far away that don't have citrus. Milk and yogurt now keeps for years and can be sold anywhere.
Campaigning against the Scythians, trade along the Silk Road, the exploration of Africa by circumnavigation and expeditions into the interior would all be made easier. In Asia this technology would facilitate trade along the Maritime Silk Road, allow campaigns against the steppe nomads, etc. It would effectively make the world smaller.
A new way of preserving food also means an expansion of agriculture. You can now grow more than you can eat. Too much lemons? Make marmalade and sell them to places far away that don't have citrus. Milk and yogurt now keeps for years and can be sold anywhere.
Last edited: