Food Preservation: The Earliest Methods

Food preservation has played a crucial role in human history, the ability to store food made us more flexible. We could live through winters and travel longer distances.

"Surstromming" is fermented herring from Sweden.

Smoking Food

The practice of smoking is only really effective together with other methods like drying or salting. Smoke is antimicrobial and antioxidant and can create a protective surface layer. If you smoke a salted or dried fatty fish like salmon it can keep without refrigeration for months. Meat and fish have traditionally been smoked for preservation. When we started to smoke is hard to determine but we can assume it was a discovery made from observing that food hanging next to the fire kept longer and tasted better.

Drying Food

This is a brilliant method to preserve food and just like with smoking it is hard to determine when the practice started. By removing liquid from the dried product it prohibits bacterias and their likes to grow. The methods for drying are plenty, you can use heat from a fire or from the sun, wind or dry air can also do the job. Much of the nutritional values are kept, however vitamins like A and can get destroyed in the process. This is a very usable food preservation method. You can dry meat, fish and many vegetables and fruit.

Refrigeration

Lower temperatures slow the progress of bacterias thus preserving food longer. It is an ancient method, soon it must have been observed that cold food kept longer. In cultures all over the world ice was harvested and kept in different types of ice storages, so-called "ice houses" were well in use until the 20th century. Different chemical and mechanical ways to refrigerate has been developed since the 16th century. Today the use of refrigerators is widespread, both for commercial and domestic use.

Salting Food

It is a very effective way of preserving food, simply because almost none of the potentially harmful organisms can survive in a very salty environment. The other effect it has is that it draws out liquid from the food treated with salt further hampering the life of the nasty microbes. Before modern methods of preservation like canning or freezing took over, salt was a really valuable commodity - wars have been fought over ready access. Access to products like dried salted cod was very important for long periods in history. The first record of using salt for preservation is from over 3000BC.

Pickling Food

This method dates back to the early Indian civilization more than 4000 years ago. Basically, you ferment food in salt and/or vinegar solutions in a closed container. A low PH value kills bacteria and makes vegetables like cucumber keep for months. Common in most cultures.

Fermented Food

Another important way to preserve food is to let bacterias or yeast act in an oxygen-free environment, ie. a closed container. In food preservation it is mostly used for:
- Fish (ex. gravlax)
- Cabbage (ex. Kim Chi)
- Beans (ex. Tofu)
- Dairy products (ex. Yoghurt)