Ancient fermentation

Fermentation has been known and practiced by humankind since prehistoric times, long before the underlying scientific principles were understood.

There is evidence that pure or almost pure yeast could be made by 1500 BC in Egypt. The practical knowledge that fermentation could be produce by human saliva, certain animal fluids and the like, was much older.

The most primitive methodology utilizes chewing the grains to introduce saliva as a source of amylase to hydrolyze the starch to sugar and has been use for centuries.

Fermentation of grains into alcoholic drinks arose independently in China and in the West. Thousands of years ago in Egypt, wheat grains/flour were made into lightly baked bread that was then moistened with water and fermented to a primitive beer – bouza.
Ancient fermentation

Sugar processing during ancient time

The processing of sugar products was one of the first extensive agro-industrial operations in the world.

In ancient and early medieval times, the Mediterranean did not know sugar; sweetening came from honey and fruit juices.  The sugarcane itself had its origin in New Guinea and gradually spread, with human assistance, through Southeast Asia, then gained significance in China and India.

Sugarcane’s early use in Southeast Asia was restricted to chewing and it was cultivated strictly for this purpose. It is believed that the technique of boiling cane juices to make solid sugar was not discovered until the 1st century BC in the Indian subcontinent.  Processing technologies remained simple and cultivation was typically on a small scale, for local consumption.

By 325 BC when the armies of Alexander the Great entered the Punjab, they encountered sugar cane.

Although sugar cane possibly known in the holy land in biblical time only syrups could be obtained from it. In the 7th – 10 th centuries AD, the Arabs spread sugarcane throughout their region of influence in the Mediterranean and eastwards.

Previously, the processing of sugar had been done by crushing the cane, extracting the juice, and boiling it down into a black paste.

Sugar was used as a medicinal agent as well as a sweetener. And then the method of adding potash to clarify the sugar in the refining process was invented. The raw sugar is further refined to produce white and other kinds of sugar.

By the 12th century sugarcane reached Europe and Marco Polo reported advanced sugar refining in China toward the end of 13th century.

Sugar cultivation and processing moved into the Atlantic islands of Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde and Sao Tome, in association the beginning of Portuguese expansion into Africa in the fifteenth century.

The sugar beet extraction was developed late, but sugar cane processing is ancient. When Europeans came to known the product call sugar, it was cane sugar.

The development of the sugar industry from the 16th century onward is closely associated with slavery, which supplied the largest amount of labour used at the time. During the European Renaissance, and for the succeeding two centuries, sugar manufacturing constituted one of the largest pre-modern industrial operations in the world.
Sugar processing during ancient time

History of Dutching process of cocoa powder

There are two basic types of cocoa powder, natural and Dutch process. Dutch process cocoa is traditionally thought of as European-style. Before 1800s, people enjoyed hot chocolate with pools of grease floating on top. At that time chocolate drinks had a gritty texture and a greasy appearance. The cocoa butter or fat of the cacao beans, left on oily substance on the surface.

Then along came the Dutch chemist, who figured out how to press out the cocoa butter from the coca beans. He attempts to reduce the harsh acidity of cocoa. Coenraad van Houten had been experimenting in his factory to find a better way to make chocolate rather than boiling and skimming off the cocoa butter.

In 1828, Van Houten patented a press that removed two thirds of the cocoa butter from chocolate liquor, or paste ground of roasted beans. He used a technique of using a large hydraulic press to separate the coca butter from the chocolate liquor.

This new process reduced the fat content of cacao to 27% from 50-55% and primed it to become ground into powder.

He eventually treated that the acid taste of the cocoa nibs could be neutralized by adding an alkali –carbonate of potash – prior to the roasting process. This changes the color dramatically, as well as the flavor, produces a slight physical swelling of the cocoa particles, and neutralizes free acids.

This type of cocoa called: Dutch processed cocoa powder. This make chocolate darker and milder which results in more pronounced chocolate flavor.

Due to this, chocolate drinks become a lot smoother and easier to digest. Dutch cocoa powder is also known as alkalized cocoa powder.

This processing of chocolate became known as “Dutching.”
History of Dutching process of cocoa powder

High pressure in food processing

A high pressure food process generally relies on the applications of isostatic or hydraulic pressures in the range from 1o0 to 1000 MPas.

Studies of the effects of high pressures on foods date back over a century. The first data in history on the effects of high hydrostatic pressure on organisms were most likely complied by Certes in 1883 who found viable bacteria in water samples obtained from 5100 m depth.

In 1899, Bert Hite of the Agriculture Research Stations in Morganstown, West Virginia, USA, designed and constructed a high pressure unit to pasteurize milk and other food products.

It was the first time demonstrated in the destruction bacteria. He reported that the high pressure processing of food involves the application of hydrostatic pressure typically in the order of 100 MPa and above. Subsequent work by Hite and co-workers expanded from treatment of milk and meats products to fruit and vegetables.

High pressure processing or pascalization is named after Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French scientist who describes how contained fluids are affected by pressure.

The drawback of this method it is costly to implement.

Scientists reactivated research on high pressure processing from the end of the 1980’s.  In 1989 food related high pressure activities were begun at Kyoto University in Japan. This high pressure process consists of applying an isostatic pressure to a food place in a high pressure vessel.
High pressure in food processing

History of Food Processing Development

The history of chilled and/or refrigerated foods dates to very early times. The first references are to the use of natural ice used to preserve food products for extended periods of time.

Natural ice was being used even by late eighteen century with salmon being packed in ice for transport to London by 1876, and sea fish from Harwich and Grimsby by the end of the century.

While earliest of biological processing include the production of fermented foods and beverages, even though they pre-date any understanding of the nature of the biological agents or the scientific principles involved. Mesopotamians are often given credit for the first brewing process.

The earliest writings from many part of the world indicate that vinegar, produced from fermentation of apple, grape or other fruits, was already known many centuries BC and that it was widely used to preserve fruits, vegetables, fish and other foods.

Technologies developed in the early and middle 20th century allowed the manufacture and distribution of canned, chilled and frozen foods and furnished consumers with electric-driven refrigerators and freezers.

A patent for use of a commercial refrigeration process for first was registered in 1842. The use of refrigeration to reduce the temperature of food below the point of ice crystallization was developed by Birdseye in the 1920s.

The use of high temperature to produce safe food products dates to the 1790s in France. Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to scientist to develop preserved foods for the armies of France.

This offer leads to the research of Nicholas Appert and the commercial sterilization of foods. The technique was invented using glass jars for storage.

In 1810, Peter Durand, and Englishman, proposed the use of tin cans, a method that proved successful.

In the 1860s, Louis Pasteur, working with beer and wine, developed the process of pasteurization.

During the 1830s, preservation techniques for milk emerged, with ‘condensed milk’ being patented in 1835, although diffusion came much later.

All developments in food processing have similar and common origins. One common aspect was that of achieving and maintaining microbial safety in the product.

It was quite evident throughout history that foods without some form of preservation could create illness after consumption.

Considerable time elapsed after these observations before an association with the microbial quality of the product was established.

The second common factor associated with the history of food processing is the interest in extending the shelf life of the product.

In most situations, there is a desire on the part of the consumer to have an opportunity to acquire many of the seasonal commodities on a year round basis.
History of Food Processing Development