SO THAT THEY WILL ENDURE FOR MANY YEARS

SO THAT THEY WILL ENDURE FOR MANY YEARS
by Rabbi Zushe Yosef Blech

Reprinted with permission of Rabbi Blech. Originally published in the MK Vaad News & Views, August 2000
When it comes to food, we generally consider fresh food to be best. We relish fresh fruits and vegetables to the extent that Chazal decreed a special blessing of thanksgiving ("Shehechiyanu") when we first partake of the new crop each season. However, fruits and many vegetables are generally harvested only once a year, and our preference for freshness must also give way to the need to preserve such foods for consumption during the rest of the year. Fruit, vegetables, milk and meat are very perishable, all the more so in the days before modern refrigeration. History is replete with innovations that allow food to be stored for long periods without spoiling. Some hearken back to the times of the Tanach, where they often played a pivotal role in the vicissitudes of history. Noach fermented grape juice into wine, allowing his sons to demonstrate the characteristics that would mark them for eternity. Yosef succeeded in dominating the entire world by developing a means of preserving grain during the seven years of famine (see Rashi, Bereishis 41:48). Yishai sent preserved milk in the form of rounds of cheese with Dovid to provision the army against the Philistines (the first c-rations!), allowing Dovid to be in the right place and the right time to slay Golyas. In modern times, NASA was only able to put a man on the moon after it developed "space food" for its astronauts. The means used to preserve food can result in entirely new foods (as in pickling, smoking, or sausage making), or in the maintenance of the original state of the food for a long period (such as in canning, freezing, and drying). Each process raises its own unique Kashrus concerns.

Our story begins about two hundred years ago with Napoleon Bonaparte�s famous dictum "An army marches on its stomach." Napoleon�s armies were in the process of conquering Europe, which entailed a lot of marching, and he needed a means of providing his French army with wholesome and palatable provisions. To this end he offered a 12,000-franc prize to anyone who could develop a means of preserving food for the army and navy, which was won French chef named Nicholas Appert in 1809. Mssr. Appert spent 14 years developing his new process, which he published under the title L'Art de conserver, pendant plusieurs années, toutes les substances animales et végétales (The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years). The process consisted of enclosing it hermetically sealed glass containers and heating it for a period of time. While he did not understand how the process worked (this would wait until Louis Pasteur explained that the heat sterilized the bacteria in the jar and thus prevented spoilage), he was nevertheless able to provision Napoleon�s army and begin the canning industry. In 1810 Peter Durand of England patented the use of tin-coated iron can instead of bottles, forming the basis of modern tin-coated steel cans used today. [The term "tin can" is a bit of misnomer, since only an extremely thin layer of tin covers the steel to prevent rust.] While the history of the process may be of only passing interest, the Kashrus issues relating to it are extremely topical.

http://www.kashrut.com/articles/canning/