Book for All Households - Or, The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances for Many Years

The manual that invented canning: how to seal food in glass, heat it, and keep it good for years, written in 1810 by the man who worked it out.

Nicolas Appert (1749-1841) was born at Châlons-sur-Marne and worked in confectionery, kitchens, distilleries, and breweries before turning to the problem of making food last. His answer - fill a bottle, close it tight, and hold it in boiling water - was taken up by a French government that badly needed to feed its fleets, and which paid him twelve thousand francs for the discovery and had him set the method down in print. The result appeared in Paris in 1810 as Le Livre de tous les ménages, published at the invitation of the Minister of the Interior and known in English as The Book for All Households; the wording here is the translation made in 1920 by the bacteriologist Katherine Golden Bitting.

Appert is completely practical. He describes the vessels and their stoppers, how they are corked and closed, and the manufactories he set up to work his process at scale, then goes through the foods one at a time: pot-au-feu, consommé, bouillon, fillets of beef and mutton, fowl and partridge, fresh eggs, milk, cream, whey, and on to peas, asparagus, beans, artichokes, cauliflower, sorrel, spinach, and the fruits of the season. He had no idea why any of it worked - that explanation waited half a century for Pasteur - and he was right anyway.

This edition features:

• The founding text of modern food preservation, first published in Paris in 1810 by Nicolas Appert
• Full working instructions on vessels, stoppers, closure, and the boiling water bath at the heart of the method
• Timings and directions for soups, meats, poultry, eggs, dairy, garden produce, and fruit
• The English translation prepared in 1920 by the bacteriologist Katherine Golden Bitting
• A primary source for food historians, home preservers, and readers of culinary history