Containing Nature: The Ongoing Invention Of Canned Food

Nicolas Appert invented canned food in Paris in 1810 and is celebrated as the founder of modern food processing and the field of food science, but does he deserve the recognition?  Appert was no scientist and the “cans” he made by a process of trial and error were expensive glass bottles with corks held in place with twisted wire. Reliable, affordable, modern canning depends on the accumulation of small improvements made by the generations of innovators who followed and whose names are largely forgotten. Containing Nature uses the histories of the science and technology of canning to show how the ways we understand and shape the world evolve.

The story follows Appert’s cans from Paris to London, where engineers built a business supplying the British Navy, and then to America, where small innovations made canning faster and cheaper. But cans alone aren’t enough — the stories of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and soup in New Jersey show how canning must adapt to the nature of the food, labor conditions, and consumer demands.

Meanwhile, the science of canning lagged behind the technology. Enlightenment-era paradigms led to mistakes only corrected decades later. An applied science of canning only emerged after the industry grew large enough for its needs to matter and groups of scientists were organized in campaigns to eliminate botulism and BPA.

Containing Nature is valuable to anyone working in science and technology and interested in how their contributions, often individually unseen, collectively shape the world.

John Coupland is a Professor of Food Science at Penn State, where he teaches a large general education course exploring how food and food technologies are integral to human culture and conducts research on the physical chemistry of foods. He is a former president of the Institute of Food Technologists.