19th Century Food Preservation by Chris Propes
In the 1800s, there were no Frigidaires, freeze drying, or vacuum packaging. Our ancestors, however, made do surprisingly well when it came to preserving food. Most homes still grew and put up a great deal of food even though, increasingly, canned foods were becoming more and more common by mid-century. There were many processes that evolved to keep food from spoiling, and thus ensure a well fed family through the lean months of winter, and beyond.
Preserved foods in the nineteenth century were stored in a
variety of containers. Ever present were stoneware crocks, a universal tool. By
the mid 1850s, glass jars had been developed for home canning, and tin cans with
metal screw tops for home use were being made and sold by Wells &
Provost
in New York by 1854 (see the photo at left). Many foods were commercially
available in tin cans, which were soldered closed. Virtually any food could be
found in a bottle of some form. Depending on the type of food, it could be
stored in something as simple as a wooden box, or a cloth sack.
What do you think of when I say "pickle"? Cucumbers, right? In the 19th century, "pickle" meant anything that had been soaked in a pickling solution. Not only cucumbers, but nearly all vegetables, many fruits and meats were pickled. Foods such as peppers, cucumbers, gherkins, green beans, parsley, musk-melons, cherries, peaches, plums, grapes, walnuts (in the hull according to Miss Leslie’s Cookery, 1850), onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cauliflower, red cabbage, and oysters were commonly pickled.
Pickling solutions were all basically the same. Most used
differing ratios of vinegar, black pepper, cloves, allspice, and mace. Some used
salt. To pickle an item, it was washed and then soaked in the solution for
several days, several months, or indefinitely. Although any vinegar would
suffice,
cider vinegar was considered the best.
Food that had been pickled was to be stored in glass vessels and unglazed stoneware. Glazed crocks were shunned for pickled food as the vinegar would react with lead in the glaze and have "pernicious"1 effects.
One food that we today would probably not think to pickle is sausage. Sausage that was to be smoked was prepared in the following manner. A mixture of lean beef and pork, in a ratio of about 2.5 to 1 was stuffed into a casing (made of beef or pig intestines) and put into a brine solution and left for three weeks. Then the sausages were hung in the smoke house and smoked. Afterwards, the sausages were taken down and rubbed over with sweet oil and stored in ashes. Pickled foods, depending on what it was could last from a few weeks to several years.
Another popular food preservation technique was smoking. Smoking was usually an end point for another process such as salting, or pickling. As with pickling, a wide variety of foods were smoked. Fish were smoked in abundance in the days before reliable refrigeration. The fish were first rubbed down with a mixture of salt and sugar. A weighted board was laid on the meat and left for two days and two nights.2 The meat was then washed and splayed with sticks and hung in the smokehouse to be smoked for five to six days.
I often get the question about jerky in the 1800s. The answer is, "yes"; they did have what we would think of as jerky, but the process was a lot different. Dried meats that were closest to modern jerky were beef, mutton and venison. The meat was prepared by soaking it in a vinegar-brine solution for six weeks. It was then smoked and could keep as long as kept dry.
Everyone has seen potted meat. Some have actually eaten
it. That gooey paste we have today that no one can identify, is a descendant of
the potted meats in the 19th century. Practically any meat could be
potted. It was first boiled until tender. After patting the meat dry, it was
laid before a
fire
until it was dry through out. The meat was then ground in a mortar until fine.
During the grinding, spices would be added such as black pepper, mace, nutmeg,
cloves, and butter. Miss Leslie suggested putting the meat into block tin cans
or ironstone pots. The meat was then covered with a layer of butter to seal out
the air. The container was covered with a cloth and tied down tight.
The king of meats in the 19th century was pork, hands down. Pork was eaten, in some form at every meal. Hogs were easy to raise and could be fattened in a short time, so it made the meat very accessible to the table 150 years ago. Pork does very well when preserved with salt. Slaughtering was performed in the winter months so as to prevent spoilage of the meat before it could be cured. Hams, shoulders, and middling meat were taken from the hog, washed and dried with a cloth. The meat was then buried in salt and be left there from one to two months. Salt would slowly draw the moisture out of the meat. The salt also penetrated the meat to the bone. After the requisite time in the salt, it would be hung in the smoke house for use later. Most of the time, the meat was also smoked, a measure that added flavor and probably also acted as a deterrent to insects.
Much like salt, sugar was a good preservative as well. While sugar was used in some salt curing processes, it was used primarily for preserving fruits. The most common methods of putting up fruits was to make a syrup of sugar, water and a little of the fruit itself. The fruit was afterwards cleaned and stored in the syrup. Examples are marmalades, jellies, and jams. Another sugar process would be familiar to most kids today. Peach leather3, as it was made by Martha Jones, is what we might call today a fruit "roll-up". Peach, apple, or other "leathers" were made by boiling the fruit to a pulp, adding to it sugar, and once it started to thicken, it was spread out on a pan and left in the sun to dry. The result is a chewy confection that would keep indefinitely as long as dry.
For those who preferred a less labor intensive method of
keeping fruits, drying was another option. All manner of fruits were dried and
this usually involved pitting in the case of peaches, apricots and cherries, or
pared and quartered as with apples and quinces. The fruit could be spread out on
a pan or put on a string and set in the sun to dry naturally. The Shakers at
Pleasant Hill, Ky built their own dry house in 1862 where trays of fruit were
dried by a slow fire.
Another popular process for preserving fruits involved Brandy. The liquor, which was itself made from fruit, usually apples, was used one of two ways. The first, was much like the above mentioned method of making a syrup except the Brandy was added to the mix and then the fruit was put up into a vessel and covered with the brandied syrup. Brandy was also mixed cold with sugar and then poured over the fruit. This second manner was faster.
A few last preservation tricks are added for fun. According to Miss Leslie, eggs could be kept in a lime paste. Lime was added to boiling water until the mixture was the consistency of a thin cream. The eggs were covered over in a stone jar, and simply washed before use. Tomatoes could be put into a crock and covered over with melted mutton fat. Yum.
While our forebears did not have all the modern conveniences of refrigerators, pressure cookers and dehydrators, they found the means to preserve their food. They had the same needs as us, and through their ingenuity, they made a way and excelled at the culinary arts long before cooks had ever heard of Ball, Hamilton Beach, or Fields.
1. Miss Leslie’s Complete Cookery, Directions For Cookery In Its Various Branches, p212
2. Ibid p.46
3. From Peach Leather and Rebel Gray, the diary of Martha Jones, edited by Mary E. Wharton and Ellen F. Williams