Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management/Chapter XXVII
TINNED AND PRESERVED FOODS.
CHAPTER XXVII.General Remarks on the various Foods, Instructions for opening tins and serving, etc.
The Nutritive Value of Tinned Meat is less than that of fresh meat, and it is somewhat insipid owing to the loss of the osmasome, which gives to meat its agreeable flavour. In consequence of this, and because when it is overcooked the fibres become tough, a comparatively small proportion may be digested and assimilated, and so it is less satisfying than an equal amount of fresh meat. Tinned goods of nearly every description are more or less cooked, the time varying from five minutes to an hour. Tinned food is a valuable substitute for salt meat on board ship and elsewhere, and is especially useful to persons removed from the general sources of supply.
Tins containing meat are placed in a vessel and surrounded by a strong solution of common salt, which is heated to a temperature of 230° to 260° F. The top of each tin is securely soldered, and provided with a small hole through which the air and some of the steam escapes. As soon as the air is exhausted the aperture is immediately closed with a drop of solder, thus hermetically sealing and preserving all the essential elements of the meat. If any air remains, fermentation may ensue: a bulging tin indicates this condition. In all tinned foods there is a danger that small lumps of solder, used in sealing the tin, may fall inside, and be accidentally swallowed with the meat. In turning out a tin they should be looked for in the sediment at the bottom and removed. The danger is frequently obviated by the manufacturer leaving a small projection of tin underneath the hole to catch the solder.
Tinned Goods to be Stored in a Cool Place.—They can then be turned out easily and sliced more evenly. The larger end of the tin should be cut away, and a small hole made in the opposite end to admit air, which, by its pressure, enables the meat to slip out easily. Great care is needed in opening tinned game and poultry.
To Re-heat Tinned Meat, etc.—The tin containing meat, game or poultry should be immersed in boiling water until its contents are sufficiently heated, then opened and emptied. Birds may be served whole, but they are better cut up and cooked gently in a good sauce, which should be highly seasoned and flavoured to counteract the insipidity which very often characterizes tinned foods. Birds, intended to be served cold should be taken out of the tin very carefully, well-dried and glazed. Breasts and wings of tinned birds are, as a rule, quite tender, but the legs are usually hard and tough, and should be converted into rissoles or croquettes and disposed of with as little delay as possible. Tinned foods of this description soon become unfit for use.
Tinned Fish.—Salmon, lobster, oysters, prawns, sardines, anchovies, herrings and red mullet are the chief varieties of tinned fish. A good brand of the two first-named, if well drained, may be used as a substitute for fresh fish in many fish entrees and salads, thus materially reducing their cost. Tinned oysters should not be served "au naturel," but they answer very well for soup, sauce and forcemeat. A good brand of prawns may be used for a curry.
Tinned and Bottled Soups.—Among the best may be mentioned: gravy, mock turtle, oxtail, tomato, turtle and other thick soups; the thin soups are less satisfactory. In an emergency tinned soups are invaluable, as they only require warming and a little additional flavouring and seasoning. Generally they may be diluted by rinsing out the tin or bottle with a small quantity of hot water.
Tinned or Bottled Vegetables are used extensively, and form an excellent substitute for fresh vegetables. To obtain satisfactory results, the method of warming should be adapted to the vegetable. A tin containing asparagus should be immersed in boiling water for about ten minutes and afterwards carefully opened, and its contents allowed to slide gently on to a drainer or a slice of toast. Peas, flageolets, lima beans and haricots verts should be well rinsed and afterwards immersed in cold water for a short time, well drained, and cooked for a few minutes in boiling water. Salt to taste should be added; a little fresh mint and a good pinch of sugar will greatly improve the flavour of peas. A little butter and a good seasoning of salt and pepper should be added to spinach, while tomatoes should be well drained, heated and seasoned to taste. Vegetables are also preserved in bottles.
Tinned and Bottled Fruits of all kinds should be emptied into a glass or porcelain dish several hours before being served, and, when possible, chilled in a refrigerator. Unsweetened bottled fruit will be found an excellent substitute for fresh fruit.
Other Methods of Preserving Meat.—There are, of course, other means of preserving meat than by tinning it. Much of the fresh meat is spoken of as "frozen" meat, and it is actually frozen as hard as a board directly it is killed, and in that state carried to the coast and put on board ships fitted with refrigerating chambers, where the air is maintained at a temperature just below freezing point, experience having shown that meat is better preserved by this method than if kept below 32° F. On its arrival in England it is transferred to similar store-houses on land. So long as the heat does not rise above a certain point it is preserved, but, like the fish taken from the slab of ice used by the fishmongers, it very soon goes bad at the ordinary temperature. This method of preserving meat is merely a larger application of the common practice of storing meat in an ice-chamber or refrigerator. Neither meat nor any other food can putrefy without some air, some moisture, and a certain degree of heat. From the tins all the air is excluded, and so whatever the temperature of the tin, after once it is sealed the meat remains sweet. It may be carried to the tropics, or stand in the hottest cupboard in the house, with the same satisfactory result. A few years ago some bodies of the extinct mammoth were found in Siberia buried in the ice, but although they had lain there for so long a period, they were as well preserved as if the animals had only died the day before.
Dried Meat.—Both animal and vegetable food is also preserved by drying. Fish is constantly smoked and dried, and thus prepared, forms a large part of the food of our town poor. Beef and other meat is cut in slices, and dried in the sun and wind in countries where the heat of the sun is more powerful than in our own land. Pemmican is dried meat reduced to powder and mixed with fat, but even that is now much less used than formerly; and in general it may be said that drying as a means of preserving meat has been superseded by more modern and improved methods.
Salt Meat.—Salt and saltpetre are the antiseptics most commonly used in the preservation of food, and their use for this purpose dates from long ago. Centuries back, even in the more favoured districts of the south of England, there was no food to keep the cattle all the winter, for the grass was scanty, and turnips were then unknown. In the autumn everyone killed the cattle and salted the meat down for home consumption through the coming months. Fresh meat, winter and summer alike, was a luxury which no one could have, and no one expected.
It is not to be regretted if salt meat is driven away from our markets by fresh, for salt draws the juice out of the meat with all its soluble constituents, and at the same time hardens the fibre of the meat itself, and so makes it less digestible. The brine in which several pieces of meat have been pickled will almost set into a jelly, so much of the valuable juices has it extracted from the meat, and all these are of course, wasted. It is said that a third of the meat, or even a greater proportion, is lost by salting. The salt can be drawn out of the meat by soaking it in water, but nothing can restore to it what it has lost. Every one knows that salted food cannot be used for any length of time without injury to the health. Its smallest drawback is—and even this smallest is considerable—that it naturally encourages thirst, and it is allowed that all animals thrive better on moist foods than on dry foods and water. The worst is that salted meat has lost those saline constituents that are not readily supplied except in fresh fruits and vegetables, precisely those foods that are rarest wherever salt meat is most likely to be used, in large towns, cold countries, during the winter season, or at sea. Sailors at sea get rations of lime-juice when their supply of vegetables brought from shore comes to an end, not to counteract the effects of the salt, as some suppose, but to furnish in another form what the brine has taken away. In Norway, salt food and scurvy are alike common.
Smoked Meat.—Smoking meat and fish greatly increases its power of keeping. Creosote is an excellent antiseptic, and is sold to paint over meat as a substitute for the lengthy and troublesome process of smoking. Borax is also used as a preservative.