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Meat, Preser-va′tion of.

Mechanical or chemical appliances to prevent decay of animal food have been in use from the earliest ages. Freezing, salting, and drying meat for future use are older than history.

Freezing is perhaps the simplest and quickest mode of preservation, and answers well in cold climates. Attempts have been made to freeze meat by artificial means in countries where live stock is plenty, as in Australia and Texas, and transport it in a frozen state to market. Several hundred tons of beef were packed in a refrigerating ship in Australia, but the attempt to transport it to England failed because of the exhaustion of the supply of ice.

Dried meat is usually prepared by cutting in thin strips and hanging in the sun. The American Indians pound their meat in wooden mortars until it forms a paste, which is mixed with fat and dried in blocks. It is then called pemmican, is quite nutritious, and is used in large quantities by Arctic voyagers.

Artificially dried meat is usually more or less smoked in preservation. The pyroligneous acid and creosote contained in peat or wood smoke coagulates albumen, with which it comes in contact. So-called smoked-meat generally owes its preservation to the salt with which it is saturated, the creosote only penetrating a short distance.

Meat is salted either in a pickle or brine, or drysalted, which latter way is more expensive, but retains more of the nutritive qualities of the meat.

A mode of salting by wholesale is by an injection of brine and saltpeter into the heart of the animal immediately after it is killed. The brine penetrates the whole vascular system, expelling the blood, and flows from the right ventricle in a clear stream.

The first attempt to preserve meat by canning in airtight vessels was made by M. Appert, at Paris, 1810. His process consisted in partly cooking the meat, placing it in a glass vessel in a bath of chloride of calcium, and then hermetically sealing it.

The modern process of putting up “preserved meats” is substantially as follows: —

The meat is placed in the can, which is then filled up with soup. A cover pierced with a small hole is then soldered on. The can is placed in a bath of a solution of chloride of calcium, which boils at about 320° Fah. When the generated steam has expelled the air, a drop of solder closes the hole. When the can cools, the pressure of the air resulting from the condensation of steam bends in the heads, which become concave. The cans are then placed in a proofchamber, and exposed to a tropical heat of say 120° Fah., as high as they will be apt to encounter. Taint in the meat, or imperfect closure, manifests itself by the bulging out of the heads.

1877.

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