The Meta-Encyclopedia

Canning

Canning names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.

Canning a process of preserving perishable articles of food by excluding agents of decay

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a process of preserving perishable articles of food by excluding agents of decay. The article to be preserved is first heated to sterilize or kill bacterial germs, and is sealed up in sterilized, air-tight glass or metal jars to keep bacteria out. If bacteria within be killed and bacteria without be kept out,--that is, if sterilization and sealing are successful, canned goods keep fresh indefinitely. The process was invented, or rather discovered, in France about the beginning of the nineteenth century, so that no tests of ancient canning are possible; but canned goods sealed up over eighty years ago are still palatable. Housewives not infrequently seal earthen jars with sheets of writing paper, rendered air tight by a sizing of the white of an egg; but glass jars with metal covers are more convenient and are safer. The jars are usually surrounded by boiling water and filled with boiling hot fruit, the covers are screwed on tight, and the process is complete. If all be done with care and neatness, the jars may be set away for years without reason to fear fermentation. The process in large canning establishments is essentially the same. Tin cans are set in hot water, and are filled with boiling hot fruit, vegetables, or fish. The orifice is covered with a piece of tin, which is sealed in place with a soldering iron. An awl hole is left open; the contents of the can are brought to a boil. The hole is then sealed with a drop of solder. If bacteria are excluded successfully, the goods cannot spoil. The canning industry in America appears to have begun in New York City about 1818 with lobster and salmon; but it has been extended to include all kinds of meats, fowl and fish, vegetables, soups, milk, fruits, not to name a large number of pickles and relishes. Canned goods grew in favor slowly until about 1850, when the rush to the gold fields of California, followed by the Civil War and the opening of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions, created a tremendous demand for all sorts of canned food. "Thirty years ago," says the California Fruit Grower, "canned goods were a luxury, relatively expensive, and used only in emergencies, on shipboard, or at remote places where other food was unobtainable. Today their use is universal among the poor as well as the rich. It would be difficult to find a home, hospital, club, hotel, steamer, or buffet car without its assortment of them." The last United States census gives the value of pickles, fruit, and vegetables put up in cans at $78,175,359. The annual number of cans, almost incredible until the reader pauses to recall how omnipresent canned goods are in every grocery, is given by the same authority as: peas, two-pound cans, 65,718,024; corn, two-pound cans, 152,783,208; tomatoes, three-pound cans, 213,739,992; and other vegetables, as string beans, pumpkin, beets, squash, asparagus, etc., in great quantities. Canning is carried on in every province, state, and territory of North America , but shows a tendency to centralize. California leads easily in fruit. The state put up 3,283,296 cases of fruit in 1905. Maryland cans a good fourth of the tomatoes and peas. New York still leads in canned corn, but Illinois and Iowa are in close pursuit. See Salmon ; Oysters; Bacterium

Canning GEORGE, an English orator and statesman

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

GEORGE, an English orator and statesman; born in London, April 11, 1770; educated at Eton and at Oxford. He was first brought into Parliament by Pitt in 1793, and in 1796 became Under-Secretary of State. In 1797 he projected, with some friends, the "Anti-Jacobin," of which Gifford was appointed editor, and to which Canning contributed the "Knife-grinder" and other poems and articles. In 1798 he supported Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave-trade. In 1807 he was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Portland administration, and was slightly wounded in a duel with Lord Castlereagh, arising out of the dispute which occasioned the dissolution of the ministry. In 1814 he was appointed Minister to Portugal, and remained abroad about two years. He refused to take any part in the proceedings against the Queen, and in 1822, 22, having been nominated Governor-General of India, he was on the point of embarking when the death of Castlereagh called him to the Cabinet as foreign Secretary. One of his earliest acts in this situation was to check the French influence in Spain. He continued to support the propositions in favor of Catholic emancipation, arranged the triple alliance for the preservation of Greece, but opposed parliamentary reform and the Test and Corporation ion Acts. April 12, 1827, his appointment to be Prime-Minister was announced. On all the leading political questions of his day, with two exceptions - the emancipation of the Catholics and the recognition of the South American republics he took the high Tory side. He died in Chiswick, Aug. 8, 1827.

Canning CHARLES JOHN, EARL

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

CHARLES JOHN, EARL, an English statesman, son of George Canning; born Dec. 14, 1812; educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1841 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Peel's government, and in 1846 Commissioner of Woods and Forests. In the Aberdeen ministry of 1853, and under Palmerston in 1855, he held the postmaster-generalship, and in 1856 went out to India as Governor-General. Throughout the mutiny he showed a fine coolness and clear-headedness, and though his carefully pondered decisions were sometimes lacking in promptness, yet his admirable moderation did much to re-establish the British Empire in India. He was raised to the rank of Earl and made Viceroy, but returned to England with shattered health, and died in London, June 17, 1862.

What Has Changed in the Last Century

Aiton's 1910 confidence that "if bacteria are excluded successfully, the goods cannot spoil" missed the crucial point: the spores of Clostridium botulinum, identified by Emile van Ermengem in 1895, survive boiling water and germinate in sealed low-acid jars of beans, corn or meat. Modern practice therefore divides the work the old article treated as one: high-acid fruits and pickles may still be processed in a boiling-water bath, while low-acid vegetables, meats and fish require a pressure canner reaching about 240 F, and the USDA has issued and revised home-canning guidelines since the 1910s. The soldering iron and drop of solder are gone too, replaced by machine-seamed cans, and lead solder was eliminated from American food cans by the 1990s. Of the two statesmen, George Canning kept an odd distinction long after Collier's wrote in 1921: his 119 days in office in 1827, ended by his death, made him Britain's shortest-serving prime minister until Liz Truss in 2022.

Written for this edition, 2026.