The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.

The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.
Nicolas Appert

M. Appert

The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed. / A work published by the order of the French minister of the interior, on the report of the Board of arts and manufactures

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE

• Fig. 1. A reel with two iron bars, made use of to double the wire, and cut the doubled wire twice the length required for fixing the corks in the bottles.

• Fig. 2. A small machine for twisting the wire one-third of its length after having been doubled by fig. 1.

• Fig. 3. An instrument for compressing (and, as it were, biting) the corks three quarters of their length, beginning at the smallest end.

• Fig. 4. A stool stuffed with straw, furnished with a wooden stand on which the bottles may be placed to be tied. The same stool will serve to sit on during the corking.

• Fig. 5. A hollow block of wood, called a bottle-boot (Casse-Bouteille), within which the bottle is set when it is to be corked. This bottle-boot is furnished with a strong bat for beating in the corks.

• Fig. 6. A front and side view of pointed pincers, used for twisting the wire employed to keep on the corks, and for cutting off the superfluous ends of the wire. I make use of flat pincers and scissars for this operation.

Neele sc. Strand

London Published 25

. Feb

. 1811 by Black & C

. Leadenhall Str.

ADVERTISEMENT

In an advertisement prefixed to the pamphlet, of which the following sheets are a translation, the author publishes his address: “Quai Napoléon, au coin de la rue de la Colombe, No. 4, dans la Cité, à Paris;” and offers for sale there, an assortment of provisions, preserved by the process, of which an account is here communicated to the public. As the book itself is a recommendation of the author’s own goods, it has been thought proper to add to his account of his process, a translation of the authorities and testimonies by which his own statements are authenticated; notwithstanding the repetitions which are in consequence admitted. The recommendation of the process by the French Minister immediately follows. The more elaborate Report of the Paris Society for the Encouragement of National Industry, will be found at the end of the work.

It is needless to anticipate the author’s display of the advantages which must flow from a simple and unexpensive process of keeping fresh articles of animal and vegetable food. If this can be effected for only one year, that is, from the season of produce through the seasons of scarcity; if no other articles, for instance, than eggs, cream, and vegetables, can be preserved in their full flavour and excellence during a long winter, there is not a mistress of a family in the kingdom, rich enough to lay by a stock of those articles, and not too rich to despise the economy of a family, who will not find herself benefitted by the perusal of the small work here put within her reach; and there is no reason to suspect the correctness of this part of the author’s statements. This, however, is but one of the more obvious benefits of his process; and if thus much be ascertained, then an interminable prospect of resources is opened, which the State, still more than the individual, will be called upon to employ.

The author, in his enumeration of the advantages to be derived from his process, places at the head, the saving it will occasion in the consumption of sugar. This process, added to recent improvement in the art of preparing grape syrup, holds forth, in his opinion, a prospect of relief to the suffering proprietors of French vineyards. This statement will have been listened to with great complacency by the French government, which so ostentatiously avows the determination to compel the whole Continent to subsist on its own produce, and dispense with the more luxurious of transatlantic commodities. Our country, however, from its soil and climate, can take little or no share in this branch of the application of the author’s process.

On the other hand it offers us incalculable benefits in the equipment and victualling of our fleets, and in providing for the health and comfort of the floating defence of the country, as well as of that numerous and meritorious class of men, to which the nation owes so much of its prosperity. Whatever promises an improvement in the condition of every order of men who subsist on the Ocean, must be considered as an object of national concern. The French government, at least on the part of some of its members in the subordinate branches of its administration, has taken the lead in recommending the author’s process to the attention of public functionaries. From the superior activity, as well as more enlightened discernment of the people of this country, we may expect that our author’s process will excite equally the notice of the government and country at large; and we trust that government-contractors and commissioners, as well as the pursers of men of war, and the stewards of merchantmen, will not be the last to examine for themselves the promising statements of our author.

From the public papers we learn that a patent has been taken out for preserving provisions according to the process described in this book. We do not pretend to determine how far this patent may interfere with the adoption by other persons of this same process as a manufactory and trade; but, it is certain, that on the small scale on which provisions would be preserved for single families, every person will be at liberty to avail himself of the instructions he may meet with in this volume.

It was thought less objectionable to insert unnecessary matter, than to omit what to some readers might be useful or interesting. Every thing, therefore, has been translated, and we have even copied the author’s plate of the machinery used in corking bottles, though from our improved state of mechanics, the greater part of our readers will stand in no need of its assistance, similar machines being in common use by the wine-coopers, &c.

THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR, COUNT OF THE EMPIRE, TO M. APPERT, &c

    Paris, 30th January 1810.

Second Division

BOARD OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES

My Board of Arts and Manufactures[1 - Mon Bureau consultatif des Arts et Manufactures.] has reported to me, Sir, the examination it has made of your process for the preservation of fruits, vegetables, meat, soup, milk, &c. and from that report no doubt can be entertained of the success of such process. As the preservation of animal and vegetable substances may be of the utmost utility in Sea-voyages, in hospitals and domestic economy, I deem your discovery worthy an especial mark of the good will of the government. I have in consequence acceded to the recommendation made me by my council to grant you a recompence of 12,000 francs.[2 - About £500 sterling.] In so doing I had in view the assigning you the reward due to the inventors of useful processes, and also the indemnifying you for the expences you have been obliged to incur, either in the forming your establishment or in the experiments necessary to establish the success of your process. You shall be immediately informed when you may repair to the public treasury and receive the 12,000 francs.

It appears to me of importance, Sir, that you should spread the knowledge of your preserving process. I desire, therefore, that agreeably to your own proposal, you will digest a detailed and exact description of your process. This description, which you will remit to my Board of Arts and Manufactures, shall be printed at your expence, after it shall have been examined. You will then transmit me 200 copies. The transmission of these copies being the only condition I impose on you for the payment of the 12,000 francs, I doubt not you will hasten to fulfil it. I desire, Sir, you will acknowledge the receipt of my letter.

Accept assurances, &c

    (Signed) Montalivet.

BOARD OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES

The undersigned Members of the Board of Arts and Manufactures attached to the Minister of the Interior, being required by his Excellency to examine the description of the process of Mr. Appert for the preservation of alimentary substance, certify that the details it contains, as well on the mode of carrying on the process as on the results, are exactly conformable to the various experiments which Mr. Appert has made before them, by order of his Excellency.

    (Signed) Bordel,
    Gay-Lussac,
    Scipion-Perrier,
    Molard.

Paris, 19th April 1810.

Copy 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.

    (Signed) Dubreuil,
    Billard,
    Duret,
    Pichon,
    Thaumer.

True Copy.

J. Miriel, Secretary

§ 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 - “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.” —Santé des Marins, by Duhamel.] 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.