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Humans have always had to think beyond the box in order to survive. Ancient societies all around the world had to use nature to cultivate their own food while adjusting to their environment's climate. Whether harvesting or hunting, food preservation allowed man to make plans and create a source of food. This was essential not just for surviving, but also for setting up roots and creating communities.
Even today when an oversupply of fruits and veggies from farmers market buying binge, we may find ourselves wondering how to use up the stock. Finding a large pot of chilli or a large packet of peas in your cupboard or freezer for a last-minute meal can be a benefit of learning how to securely preserve food at home.
Protecting food from microbial development is done through food preservation. After preparing the food, we preserve and safeguard it by covering the rice and curries with lids to keep flies and other insects out. By doing this, we guard it against any infection brought on by them. This state is brief. On the other side, food preservation is done to keep food fresh for a longer amount of time. Food should be preserved to prevent spoilage caused by a variety of factors, such as microbial contamination, insect infestation, and endogenous enzymes (enzymes found naturally in food). Physical and chemical changes, such as the tearing of plant or animal tissues or the oxidation of specific food components, may also contribute to food spoilage and make it unfit for human consumption. Therefore, food preservation is necessary for longer food storage and to prevent or slow down food rotting.
Food preservation helps to reduce food waste, which is a crucial step in lowering production costs, boosting the effectiveness of food systems, enhancing food security and nutrition, and promoting environmental sustainability. For instance, it can lessen the harm that food production does to the environment. Multiple food preservation techniques are used in many processes intended to preserve food. For example, to preserve fruit by making jam, it must be boiled (to lower the fruit's moisture content and kill bacteria, etc.), sugared (to stop their regrowth), and then sealed in an airtight jar (to prevent recontamination).
The quality of the food and food systems is affected differently by various food preservation techniques. It has been discovered that some conventional methods of food preservation need less energy and leave a smaller carbon footprint than more contemporary ones. There are some food preservation techniques that are known to produce carcinogens. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer designated processed meat, or meat that has undergone salting, curing, fermentation, and smoking, as "carcinogenic to humans" in 2015.
Some methods of food preservation stretch back to the earliest agricultural practises. While many have only recently been found. The ancient practices include the following.
Drying: It is a long-standing tradition of food preservation. This approach lowers water activity, which prevents bacterial growth. Foods can be conveniently transported from one location to another since drying reduces weight. Both the sun and the wind are used for drying, as well as more sophisticated techniques including freeze-drying, shelf drying, spray drying, bed drying, fluidized bed drying, and commercial and home ovens. Examples of foods dried using this process include meat and fruits including apples, apricots, and grapes.
It is one of the conventional methods still used in India. By removing the moisture, drying food products prevents the formation of germs, yeasts, and mould. The method has been used for centuries, and we continue to use it today—not because we need to preserve food, but rather because the customs have persisted and it allows us to recreate those delicacies. Take papad and wadis, which are important components of our cuisine. In refugee camps, papad and wadis are frequently prepared. Today, potato chips, papad, wadis, red chillies, dry fruits, spices, veggies, etc. are the most frequently used sun-dried products. Vegetables like radish and ash gourd are frequently dried on rooftops in Northeast India.
When asked Shubhra Chatterji, Founder @tonsvalleyshop she explained how in Punjab side there is a whole ton of pickling that happens. However, in Bengal, there's a lot of chutneys that happens there but other methods of preservation she thinks is most important and are the most prevalent method of preservation that her grandmother (Nani) would use and her mother does and one that is also very common in the mountains of Uttarakhand (where she currently lives) is sun drying. She says, “There are multiple aspects to it first of all there is the sun drying of summer vegetables in the summer and autumn because in the winters in the mountains and my mother side of the family has roots in Kashmir, (they're from Poonch) so nothing would grow there in the winter months. At that time then you don't have anything to eat other than your dals and rajmas, onion and potatoes, no fresh vegetables, so a lot of sun drying of vegetables happens over the summers like currently we sundry Linguda which is fiddlehead Fern or Guchi mushrooms which grow in spring, linguda grows in early summer and some of these vegetables are sundried and then they are consumed in the winters. My Nani would sundry shalgam a lot and keep and then cook with that later. Because I've traveled around the country shooting food, this preservation vegetable is something I've seen in Rajasthan, where you have kachri which is sundried. In Kashmir where practically everything is dried from tomatoes to apples to everything. India is a largely tropical country the one thing that we have in abundance is sun so sun drying is a method of preservation that is prevalent across the country and not just a preservation but also to make our papads and wadis. It is also done by sun drying. The best advantage is how to use the produce which is not seasonal in other seasons as well. So if you sundry fiddle headferns or linguda, you can also put them in use in winter months as opposed to only use it in April, May or June July.
Burial: Food can be preserved through burial for a number of reasons, including absence of light, oxygen, cool temperatures, pH level, or desiccants in the soil. Burial can be used in conjunction with other techniques like fermentation or salting. Most foods can be kept fresh for a long time in soil that is frozen or extremely dry and salty (i.e. a desiccant).
Many root vegetables are quite resilient to rotting and only need to be stored in cool, dark environments, such as in a storage clamp or by burying them in the ground (not to be confused with a root cellar). In the past, farms in the northern US would bury their cabbage in the fall to preserve it. While some techniques preserve the crispness, others result in sauerkraut. Kimchi is traditionally made in a manner akin to this.
In some cases, preservation-causing conditions are used to bury meat. Hot coals or ashes can kill microorganisms, dry ash can desiccate, and the dirt can prevent oxygen from reaching the body and further contamination if a body is buried there. The earth behaves like a refrigerator or a freezer if anything is buried somewhere extremely cold, such as in permafrost regions. It is practicable to bury rice underground in the Indian state of Orissa to store it. For three to six months during the dry season, this strategy aids in storage.
Canning: Canning is the process of heating food, putting it in sterilised jars or cans, and then boiling the containers to get rid of or weaken any microorganisms. Nicolas Appert, a French confectioner, created it. By 1806, the French Navy was preserving meat, fruit, vegetables, and even milk using this method. Although Louis Pasteur revealed the link between microbes, food rotting, and illness in 1864, Appert's novel method of preservation was not fully appreciated until then. Foods have varied levels of natural preservation; therefore the last step might need to be completed in a pressure cooker. While marginal veggies like carrots require a longer boiling cycle and preservatives, high-acid fruits like strawberries merely require a brief boiling cycle.
Curing: Dehydration or drying was the first method of cure, utilised as early as 12,000 BC. Techniques like smoking and salting enhance the drying process and include antibacterial ingredients that help preserve food. The phenols syringol, guaiacol, and catechol are among the pyrolysis compounds that smoke leaves on food. By employing osmosis, salt speeds up the drying process and prevents the formation of several common bacterial strains. In more recent times, nitrites have been employed to cure meat, giving it its distinctive pink colour.
Fermentation: Certain foods, including many cheeses, wines, and beers, employ particular microorganisms to fend off deterioration by other less friendly microbes. By producing acid or alcohol, these microorganisms control pathogens by making the environment poisonous for them and other microorganisms. Among the techniques for fermentation are starter microorganisms, salt, hops, controlled (often cool) temperatures, and controlled (typically low) oxygen levels. These techniques are used to establish the precise regulated environments needed to support the desired organisms needed to generate food fit for human consumption.
The microbial process of turning starch and sugar into alcohol is known as fermentation. In addition to producing alcohol, fermentation can also be an effective method of preservation. Foods can become more pleasant and nutritious through fermentation. For instance, drinking water in the Middle Ages was risky since bacteria that may spread disease were frequently present. Any bacteria present in the water that can make people unwell are destroyed during the brewing process when water is turned into beer. Additionally, the nutrients from the barley and other ingredients are now present in the water, and when the microbes ferment, they can also make vitamins.
Freezing: One of the most popular methods for preserving a wide variety of foods, including prepared items that wouldn't have needed freezing in their unprepared state, is freezing. This method is employed both commercially and domestically. For example, potato waffles are stored in the freezer, but potatoes themselves require merely a cool dark spot to assure many months' preservation. Strategic food reserves are kept in cold depots for long-term, high-volume storage in several nations in case of a national emergency.
Pickling: The Dutch word "pekel" or "pókel," which in Northern German means "salt" or "brine," is where the name "pickle" originates. The Portuguese introduced vinegar to India and this method of preservation to Indians for the first time. The process of pickling involves preserving food in a palatable antibacterial liquid. Chemical pickling and fermentation pickling are the two basic categories into which pickling may be divided.
When food is chemically pickled, bacteria and other microbes are either inhibited or killed by an edible liquid. Brine, which is heavy in salt, vinegar, alcohol, and vegetable oil are common pickling ingredients. In many chemical pickling procedures, the item being preserved is heated or cooked in order to saturate it with the pickling ingredient. Cucumbers, peppers, along with a variety of mixed vegetables like piccalilli, are typical foods that are chemically preserved. In fermentation pickling, bacteria in the liquid create organic acids as preservation agents, usually by a process that generates lactic acid due to the presence of lactobacillales. The pickles that are fermented include surstromming, kimchi, nukazuke, and sauerkraut.
In Gujarat, people could pickle and preserve a number of foods that would otherwise spoil quickly. Today, pickles can be made with oil, vinegar, or salt. Lemons and mangoes are the most popular pickling ingredients in India. The raw mango chunks are cleaned, dried in the sun, and then seasoned with salt, turmeric, and oil to make the raw mango pickle. Later spices may be added, and mustard oil is used to preserve the pickle. The pickle has a long shelf life.
Salt and Sugar: Most foods were preserved using sugar, salt, or a combination of the two before the invention of industrial refrigeration. Sugar and salt help preserve food by lowering the water content and preventing microbial development in meats, fruits, and vegetables. Jams and jellies are typical sugar-preserved foods, whereas salt cod, salt pork, corned beef, and bacon are typical salt-preserved meals.
Dry Roasting: Dry roast your food and store it in airtight containers if you need to make it last a long time. Ingredients like dalia and sooji can be kept pest-free and preserved by being dry-roasted.
