These ancient tricks keep food long-lasting without a fridge and canning

500 years ago, although there were no refrigerators and cans, the ancients also had many ways to store food, such as placing food in peat bogs to prevent bacterial growth; storing it in cellars to isolate the air; dehydrating fresh food at low temperatures

In the age of great voyages, food preservation was crucial

It was only after a long time that people discovered that there is a well-preserved food that still contains enough vitamin C - pickled cabbage (called sauerkraut in northern China and sauerkraut in German)

Although refrigerators and cans have not yet been invented, the ancients relied on methods such as salting, vinegar soaking, candiing, and air-drying to preserve food for a long time

Inhibit bacteria

When you go to the mountains in summer, you will find that tourists and vendors often soak watermelons and drinks in mountain streams

Before the invention of the refrigerator, Westerners used mountain streams to keep food fresh

Peat swamps, common in northwestern Europe, are also good places to store food for a long time—swamps with sphagnum moss are cold and oxygen-deprived, making it difficult for bacteria to break down organic matter

Archaeologists in Ireland discovered a barrel of "swamp butter" in 2009, which the ancients probably forgot to remove after storing it

It is a common practice to bury food (and many things that need to be preserved, such as corpses) in peat bogs

Microbial growth and decomposition are inhibited in acidic, anoxic peat wetlands

In 2012, food researcher Ben Reid conducted an experiment

cut off the air

Potatoes are a kind of vegetables that can be stored for a long time, but the premise of storage is that one is cold and the other is not light

Europeans and Americans also traditionally used cellars to preserve root crops such as potatoes and radishes

Food spoilage can be prevented as long as it is not exposed to air

In the same way, medieval Europeans liked to fill every hole in the pie with butter or aspic to prevent the filling from contacting the air for storage

Uncooked animal water is highly perishable, especially blood, which is very nutritious, and will spoil rapidly

Southerners will mix pig blood and glutinous rice to make a soft and glutinous pig blood cake
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Coincidentally, the black pudding that the British like to eat is also made of pig blood mixed with lard and oats
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The famous haggis also belongs to this category
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This dish is available wherever there are Scots
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It is packed with sheep tripe with various offal, some are lamb lungs, lamb liver pieces, some are suet, and some are oatmeal
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Those who are used to it find it very delicious
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Nomads often use this animal offal to store food, because no food is wasted and no containers are needed
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After slaughtering the reindeer, the Nenets in Russia emptied the reindeer's stomach, rinsed it, and then sliced ​​the reindeer meat into thin slices and stored it in the stomach
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Store food in this way in late autumn and it will last up to 8 months
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remove moisture

Lu Xun once complained that in his hometown, all vegetables had to be dried—“If there is vegetables, they are dried in the sun; if there are fish, they are dried in the sun; if there are beans, they are dried in the sun; if there are bamboo shoots, they are dried so that they don’t look like it.
The water chestnut is rich in water, the meat is tender and crispy, and it should also be air-dried.
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.
"

In fact, Shaoxing people are not the only ones who love to eat dry vegetables
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Medieval Europeans also often skewered vegetables and hung them by the fireplace or in a warm, dry place to remove moisture
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People also soak vegetables in water for a period of time before drying them
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Beans made in this way are called "leather pants" because they are extremely tough when dried
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Fruit, squash, and other vegetables can all be kept this way for several months
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The Americans 500 years ago mastered an advanced technology - freeze-drying
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The Incas in the Andes grew potatoes very early on
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They invented freeze-dried potatoes (Chu?o, literally "crumpled") that can be stored for 10 or even decades
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The Incas generally chose a smaller, frost-resistant, bitter potato variety and freeze-dried them in June and July, the beginning of winter
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In the mountains above 3,800 meters above sea level, the nighttime temperature drops to minus 5 degrees Celsius
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Small potatoes are densely spread on a flat ground, frozen at night, and dehydrated by strong sunlight during the day
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Then, people stepped on these potatoes, on the one hand stepping out the water still remaining in the potatoes, and on the other hand removing the skin
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Then freeze and dry the potatoes for another period of time
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In this process, the toxic glycoalkaloids contained in bitter potatoes are also removed
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Freeze-dried potatoes are soft in texture and have a very flat taste on their own, with a slight sour taste
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When cooked, it looks like a sponge, thick, chewy, and easy to taste
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This technology has a history of at least 800 years, and some people believe that the rise of the Inca Empire is relying on "crumpled" logistics
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The Spaniards also quickly realized the importance of this stuff, and the mine workers in the Andes ate it every day
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Today, we can apply Incas techniques to everything
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Strawberries, for example, are frozen, placed in a near-vacuum drying chamber, and heated
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Ice in strawberries sublimates easily into water vapor
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In this way all the water in the strawberry is gone, but the cells are not destroyed, and the vitamins, trace elements and fiber are retained for years or even decades, and are often as fresh as when they were originally picked
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For vegetable hoarders, freeze-dried vegetables are a delicious and nutritious choice
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(Editor Li Chuang)