When Napoleon crossed northern Italy at 1800 and met the Austrian army at the Battle of Marengo, the shortcomings of this system became very obvious. When the Austrians learned that the French army was scattered on the Italian border, they launched an attack before Napoleon assembled his army. When the hay arrived, the Austrians were driven away, and the immediate disaster was eliminated. From this, Napoleon learned an important lesson: in the future, food must follow his army.
Napoleon's plan to revive France included government assistance to French industry. The government rewards creative inventions. A brewer named Nicholas Appel is very concerned about the preservation of food. He put fruits, vegetables, soup and stew in thick-walled bottles and boiled them in water for a long time. Then seal the bottle with a cork to prevent the bottle from inadvertently opening on the container. By 1805, Appel had built a cannery, and the business was very prosperous.
Encouraged by the Ministry of Industry, Appel announced some of his technical methods and provided canned samples for the government to test. The navy reported excellent test results, and Appel won a prize of 12000 francs for his invention. 18 10 year, Napoleon summoned 200,000 people, carrying many cans full of food, and traveled long distances to fight Russia.
The story of inventing canned food
1795 One day, a notice was posted on the streets of Paris, to the effect that a reward was offered for the collection of the Food Storage Law, requiring that it can be stored for a long time in any climate without corruption and keep its taste fresh. For inventors, the government will give 12000 francs as a bonus.
The discovery of the Long-term Grain Storage Law is entirely due to the military needs of the French government. 1789 Shortly after the French Revolution, France came to power at the stage of big assets, and the Parisian King Party plotted to regain power, while Napoléon Bonaparte made great contributions in suppressing the rebellion of the King Party. 1795, Napoleon was appointed as the deputy commander of the French Ministry of the Interior. Napoleon was an ambitious man. If he wants to ascend the throne of the supreme ruler of France by military force, he has to solve the problem of food supply for the army, because the logistics forces are dragged down by many pots and pans, food, fuel and other sundries, and their actions are slow, and they often can't keep up with the combat troops. Besides, when the fighting was fierce, they didn't.
At that time, 12000 francs was a huge sum, which was very attractive, so many people tried and studied it one after another. Among these researchers, there is a Parisian named Abel, who has been engaged in pastry making for many years. He has rich knowledge and experience in food processing and is not proficient in the brewing technology of wine and whisky. In his long-term practice, he realized that food is easy to be stored in clay pots and glass bottles, especially glass bottles, so he chose clay pots and glass bottles as storage containers for storing food. Secondly, the air is perishable. For example, if pickles are put in a jar, the top layer with the most air contact will be moldy first. Pickles will go bad from top to bottom if they are left for a long time. It can be seen that food must be completely isolated from the air if it wants to be preserved for a long time. Abel cleared his mind and started the experiment. That is, air is everywhere, so he can't completely separate food from air. The air in the bottle is only a matter of more or less, but he can't do it without air, so he made great efforts and failed.
1804 One summer day, Abel was preparing to make a cake. He boiled some juice and cooled it in a jar. In order to prevent it from crawling into insects or falling into dust, he stuffed the jar tightly with a cork. But when he wanted to knead the cake, the man told him there was no flour in the warehouse. "A clever woman cannot cook without rice," Abel sighed helplessly, so he had to take off his apron.
At that time, there was a lack of flour suitable for making cakes in the Paris market. After waiting for a golden month, I finally bought flour, and Abel resumed the skill of making cakes. He thinks the juice in the jar must be bad, and he is going to throw it out. However, the cork of the can was too tight for him to pull out by hand. He found a girl and pried it out. At this time, a fruity smell came to the nose. He couldn't believe it. The juice must be smelly after being left for such a long time, but it just hasn't gone bad! This is really a miracle.
Abel had a brainwave. He thinks this method can be used to protect food. So he found some meat, put it in a bottle, steamed it in a steamer for two hours, took it out, stuffed it with a cork while it was hot, and sealed the bottle with wax. He put the bottle aside to see if there was any special change every day. After two months, after he opened the cork, the meat inside was fine and the taste was not bad. He was so happy that he finally succeeded!
Abel reported his "new technology of storing food in sealed containers" to the government. Napoleon, who had proclaimed himself emperor, was very happy to hear the news and ordered the navy to transport a batch of sealed glass bottles of food to the sea to withstand the test of humidity and high temperature. A few months later, an appraisal report signed by the navy commander was sent to Napoleon. The report said: "After three months, beans and vegetables with or without meat still remain fresh and delicious fresh vegetables." In 1809, Abel finally got the reward of 12000 francs. He continued to study the improvement of canned food. He built a canned food factory and produced more than 70 kinds of canned products. Without the airtight wall, Abel's food preservation method soon spread to European countries, and countries produced canned food one after another.
There is a problem with the glass jar, which is easily broken. The question whether glass bottles can be replaced by better materials is before people. Durand, a British canner, is very interested in this issue. One day, when he was drinking tea, he stared at the teapot, which made him suddenly realize. The tea that English people drink is shipped from China, which was originally packed in wooden cases or bamboo tubes, and later packed in tin cans. /kloc-At the beginning of the 0/9th century, tin-coated tinplate was invented, and then tinplate tea cans were used, which was light in weight and not easy to be damaged. Durand immediately thought of using tinplate jars instead of glass bottles to make jars. He ran to the workshop to test, put the instrument into the tinplate jar, heated it at high temperature, and welded the jar mouth with hot solder, thus making the world's first tinplate jar. 1823, Durand applied for an invention patent in Britain and built the world's first tinplate cannery. But this kind of canned food is completely handmade, with high cost and low output. It was not until 1847 was produced by using a special can press that the cost of cans was reduced and mass production began.
After the 1960s, the plastic industry developed rapidly, and the "soft cans" of composite film packaging sprang up everywhere. After the 1980s, the United States introduced a kind of "cold canned food" and a kind of "hot canned food", which truly achieved both cold and hot. Japan has also introduced a kind of "canned live fish". Live fish that fall asleep in "water" will not die for two or three days. Open the can and put the fish in clean water. 10 minutes later, the fish woke up from a coma and swam leisurely in the water. Don't you know it will be in the oil pan in a few minutes?