Food preservation during ancient time

Food preservation is as old as human civilization. Preservation of foods inhibits spoilage cause by bacterial growth, oxidation, insects or desiccation.

Two staples of the ancient armies, wine and beer, were preserved for use as military rations. Some armies, the Sumerian and Egyptians preferred beer, while other Romans, Assyrians, Hittites and Germans preferred wine. Sealed properly in jars or wooden casks, wine could be kept for years.

The earliest recorded instances of food preservation date back to ancient Egypt and the drying of grains and subsequent storage in seal silos.

The stored grain could be kept for several years to insure against famine in case the Nile River flooded. 

People in many parts of the world developed techniques for drying and smoking foods as far as 6000 BC. Microorganisms need water to carry out their metabolic processes.

Smoking was known to the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe. This process not only dries the food but it also changes its taste by decomposition of the fats and so often avoids the use of spices.

It was used by the German tribes and even by the Romans in historic times.

Salting was so important in Roman life that Roman soldiers received “salarium,” or salt, as payment. This is the origin of today’s term, ‘salary.’

Ancient Mesoamericans used salt as a preservative for trade in fish and other food stuff over long distances, as well as for storing food for long periods of time.

Since Phoenician times (from around 1250 BC) the standard practice for preserving fish was to gut it, dry it and pack it in layers with salt. In Egypt, remains of food found in a tomb dating before 2000 BC included salted fish and a wooden container holding table salt.

Ancient peoples living in areas with cold winters would observe that frozen foods remained in good conditions almost indefinitely, whereupon humans developed rudimentary cold storage by cooling the recesses of caves and other shelters with ice and snow.

After the collapse of the ancient societies, the knowledge of food preservation for military rations was mostly lost and not rediscovered by modern armies until the nineteenth century, when it began to be preserved in tins and other methods of storage.
Food preservation during ancient time