Drying, smoking curing or salting by application of a dry granular salt and pickling or combination of these processes were applied to foodstuffs.
The earliest recorded instances of food preservation date back to ancient Egypt and the drying of grains and subsequent storage in seal silos.
Fermentation beverages were ubiquitous in the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Not only did wine facilitate conviviality, it was usually more potable than the available water. The Chinese reportedly preserved vegetables by fermentation in prehistoric times and Plinius preserved white cabbage in earthenware pots in Italy in the first century AD.
Refrigeration in caves or under cool water were also well known ancient techniques of food preservation. But the potential of this particular food preservation technique was not fully realized until the 1900’s when Clarence Birdseye introduced frozen foods to the American public.
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 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, Pope Zacharias (8th century AD) warned Boniface to stick to boiled or smoked bacon and pork during his travels amongst the heathen tribes.
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.
Food preservation during ancient times
