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Many farms had a spring on the property which provided a steady flow of water at a uniform cool temperature; milk in large "cans' could be partially submerged in the cooler water. A small dairy operated by my grandfather used a "spring house" built around a spring until rural areas were electrified in the 1930's.
What are some modern day foods we eat that were also made way back when before refrigeration because they took a while to spoil?
Is that were cold cut meats come from?
In an sense yes that is where cold cut meats come from. However modern versions of recipes are more about flavor and less about spoilage and will not keep as well. As mentioned before salting, drying, fermenting, pickling, and smoking are all methods used to keep foods from spoiling. Ham for instance is salted, smoked and dried and kept in an cool place. In the 1800's canning becomes an new method for storing food without refrigeration and is very important in the 19th century. Freezing becomes an very useful method in the the early 20th century as you could buy something frozen from the store and let it defrost(like greens) in your home. It is also used in by hospitality and industry before it becomes practical at hom( i.e. most Americans won't have an fridge until the 1950ies and the first home fridges come out in the 20ies/30ies but are too expensive for most people.) Milk(which is available fresh daily because cows need to be milked daily) could be converted to yogurt or cheese for longer storage(Milk simply did not transport well..i.e. could not be shipped days away but hours is fine). Meat and veggies could be dried or pickled.
In fact many modern foods have a long history of use as storage. Grains like wheat, oats, corn and rice are dried and can keep for months to years because of the drying. Beans are dried. Meat was slaughtered and eaten fresh, but what could not be eaten was salted, dried, smoked or pickled giving things like salt pork, corned beef, bacon or turned into sausage. Spices used in the curing process would also inhibit the growth of certain bacteria. Cabbage could be turned into sauerkraut. Root type veggies like carrots, onions, potatoes and turnips can keep very well without refrigeration provided they stay cool. Fruits were dried(grapes to raisins) or fermented(grapes to wine..which turns to vinegar and is used for pickling).
A pretty wide variety of foods have an history of being created for reasons of preservation.
But what about prior to the Ice Trade, and wouldnt the ice melt in summer? What did they do in summer when there was no snow?
The ice was insulated with straw and sawdust.
Root cellars were widely used as coolers. When heavily insulated inside and out with straw and/or any other natural insulation, food could be kept at temps almost as cold as modern refrigerators if the cellar was properly situated in a shady spot. With the use of crocks and canning jars inside the cellar, the food can be quite cool.
Spring houses and wells served similar purposes. Most domestic wells had some pot or other hung in them keeping food cool. Old wool clothing and blankets were also used to insulate stored food.
Frozen food was always suspect, as freezing often speeds rot. The water in the cells freezes and blows up the cell walls, allowing mold and bacteria to enter as soon as the ice inside the food becomes water again.
Only in very cold temps- 10 below or colder- does meat and other foods freeze so fast that the cell walls don't have time to blow up and disintegrate. Such frozen food needs to be thawed carefully and slowly, and must be consumed while it's still cold outside. otherwise, the rot sets in very fast.
Much of the pre-refrigeration diet included foods that were fermented, dried and salted, packed in honey or alcohol, or ground with salt and preservative spices. All were effective ways of preserving food for long periods of time. Fermentation actually added nutritional benefits; that's why sauerkraut is both pickled with salt and fermented.
The use of pottery crocks kept a lot of preserved food properly cool. Crockery, as long as part remains unsealed by glaze, allows a very slow transfer of temperature both ways, An unglazed pot will keep anything liquid quite cool even in intense heat.
Grains and other naturally dry foods were simply dried, then stored in waterproof containers. Grains had to be stirred occasionally to keep mold from forming. In some societies, the mold itself became a delicacy, even though some of it causes cancer or other diseases.
Ergot, a common mold, caused the joints to inflame when eaten; St. Vitus Dance. The afflicted cannot stand the slightest pressure on the feet and hands, so they 'danced' in agony with every movement.
Sugars are preservatives; they are also, like butter and purified fats, antibiotics, as germs cannot live in them from lack of oxygen. Anabolic bacteria need intense positive pressure (from canning) to survive.
Honey is particularly anti-bacterial, as the bee saliva creates the properties as it's made. Wounds were often covered in honey before bandaging while they were healing.
Salted cod and other fish was a world wide staple for protein. Cod was cured in salt until it was as hard as a board, essentially a solid flat block of protein that was inedible until the salt had been soaked out, a process that could take as long as a week. Salt is antibacterial.
Eggshells were painted in a mica solution, making the shells airtight. This preserved the eggs for many months, and while they may have tasted old, were still completely edible and nutritious. In some cases, old eggs actually tasted better, as the natural sulphur compounds in them were allowed to leach out through the shells before they were painted with the icing lass.
Berries and fruits were often preserved in honey or sugar (that's why they're called preserves), and some societies preserved them in purified fats. With the mixture of some ground grain for carbohydrates, this food was completely nutritious and could be carried and eaten at any time of the year for months on end.
Canning is also pre-refrigeration. Pressure cooked foods stored in glass containers, with ceramic stoppers, remain edible for a very long time, although the vitamins and other nutrients often lose their potency or slowly disappear. With some additional fresh food, canned foods, even when old, still can fill nutrition needs.
The biggest problem with canning proved to be the lead used in metallic can's solder joint.
Summers were never a problem in most of the world; that's the season when crops become ripe and fresh food is most bountiful. The real food preservation problem was early spring- early March to the end of May. Those were the months when the winter's food supply was running out, but the crops were just beginning to grow. A lot of semi-rotten food was eaten during those 60-90 days.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the human gut. Eating slightly rotten meats and vegetables is more a matter of taste than a gastric danger; people's guts were hardier pre-refrigeration, so a little rot didn't make them ill, and their palate became used to the taste of slightly spoiled foods. Much of the taste leaves when meat is cooked, a speculative reason why humans began cooking meat very early on. Cooking is also a preservative.
Someone should start a restaurant that utilizes food preserved in these manners.
When they canned food, they could solder the lid back then? How? I did not think they had map gas or electric welding tool.
Canned food originally used wine bottles then the metal can was invented. The ability to solder the lid was present in the 19th century and they used tin cans originally. Lead solder is an problem in this time period(it can contaminate the food).
The problem with food preserved in these manners is that they can be riskier to eat and more laborious to cook. The salt has to be removed by soaking(and the more of it the longer it is going to take). Meats and sausages would be made much dryer. We still use a lot of these methods(see all the items that don't go into the fridge) but refrigeration adds safety, improves the variety of items we can eat year round.
Canned food originally used wine bottles then the metal can was invented. The ability to solder the lid was present in the 19th century and they used tin cans originally. Lead solder is an problem in this time period(it can contaminate the food).
The problem with food preserved in these manners is that they can be riskier to eat and more laborious to cook. The salt has to be removed by soaking(and the more of it the longer it is going to take). Meats and sausages would be made much dryer. We still use a lot of these methods(see all the items that don't go into the fridge) but refrigeration adds safety, improves the variety of items we can eat year round.
All very true, chirack.
I think that in most instances, Grandma knew best. Canning with glass jars made for the purpose with the correct lids and sealing rings is better overall than using tin cans. The cans are safe, and are now lined with acidic barriers for use with some food, but tin cans still dent easily, and a dent can cause food safety failure if the container has opened up the least bit. Glass breaks of course, and clear glass will allow the food inside to lose color if stored in bright daylight, but glass is neutral and infinitely reusable until it becomes chipped on the lip or something.
Any canned food will lose some of its nutrition over time, particularly some of the important water soluble vitamins, and all food tends to lose its fresh textures as well. A mushy old canned carrot may be safe to eat, but it also may not look very orange, and it may not have the vitamin content. But it will still be food.
Very dry preserved meats will often develop mold on the outside. Some might be harmful, and some not, but we have more fear of mold in general now than folks did in the past. I'm no expert, so I don't know anything about mold good or bad.
Refrigeration, I think, is over-used. There's no reason to refrigerate jams and jellies; they're so high in sugar content they won't spoil, and butter doesn't spoil either. Butter can be canned or frozen, and left out, may change flavor as it can pick up odor particles on the surface, but it remains edible. The same goes with vegetable fats.
Purified lard is very similar to butter. Purification is simply rendering the fat until it's liquid, then filtering it until its nothing but fat. When its in that form its very stable and doesn't go bad, but it can also pick up off flavors. Its just as nutritious as butter, and is a better form of fat for cooking than vegetable fats, which have to go through a much more involved purification process. Calories in both are no different- both are high, but lard doesn't need additives to keep it stable, and no hydrogenation is needed.
Lard got a bad rep when the makers of margarine and vegetable cooking fats wanted a bigger piece of the market about 100 years ago. Crisco is a lot cheaper to make, but it simply isn't as good. The Depression was what turned folks to using much more vegetable fat, simply because it's a lot cheaper.
Stomach cancer was MUCH more prevalent in the late 1800s and early 1900s, before refrigeration became a household standard.
It's because of the preservatives and salt used to keep meat from spoiling. Those preservatives wreaked havoc on the human body. So that's one instance of modern practices improving our collective health.
As a Civil War researcher/reenactor for the past 35 years, I can tell you that there were very few restaurants and the few that were around were in metropolis's (?) These had very limited menus and of course, served what was in season.
What we call "game animals" were the meats and in fact, the game laws we have today that limit catches and prohibit selling game meats are derived from the excesses of the early restaurant businesses. Huge shotguns (Punt guns) would take down several birds at once.
A cellar was the repository of butter, smoked meats, preserved foods (some preserved in alcoholic fluids as in Brandied peaches or 'bitters').
What about Barbecue? I hear barbecue is quite old and utilized by tainos. Are barbecued meats long lasting?
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