Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living
The story of bacon is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s when most of the important developments in bacon took place. The plotline takes place in the 2000s with each character referring to a real person and actual events. The theme is a kind of “steampunk” where modern mannerisms, speech, clothes and practices are superimposed on a historical setting. Modern people interact with old historical figures with all the historical and cultural bias that goes with this.
narrative – the history of bacon
Ammonia from Urine and Horse Sweat-> An Ancient Pathway to Curing
Copenhagen, June 1891
Dear Children,
An unusual week followed our visit to the University of Copenhagen. When we walked into Jeppe’s office on Monday morning for our customary first lecture for the week, Jeppe had a guest. He introduced us to Dr. Julius Jensen, a professor of Chemistry from the University of Copenhagen.
Dr. Thirsten had informed Dr. Jensen of our visit over the weekend and since Dr. Jensen planned to visit Jeppe in any event in the week, he decided to come over on Monday and join us for our first class of the week which Jeppe in turn told him about when the men telephoned each other Sunday evening. It was Jeppe’s idea for Dr. Jensen to join our class and Jeppe asked him to elucidate more on the relationship between ammonia and amino acids since he wanted to talk to Minette and me more about how proteins are formed which would help us understand the “natural” role of nitrogen in curing. His goal was to show us that week that curing is something natural that happens to mean and not a colouring matter that we impose upon it.
After the introduction, Jeppe sat down behind his desk and gave Dr. Jensen the floor.
(Prozess, chemisch Herstellung von Salz-Ammoniak, Ägypten, um 1798) from https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/
Introduction to the Link Between Ammonia and Amino Acids
Dr Jensen is an impressive orator based on his thorough understanding of the subject matter. He started his discussion while talking to us in the same tone as I can imagine, he addressed his students at the University. “The term ‘ammonia,’ has its etymological roots in the ancient world,” he began. “The name originates from ‘sal ammoniac,’ a natural form of ammonium chloride historically obtained near the Temple of Jupiter Ammon in ancient Libya. The compound NH3, now known as ammonia, was named due to its derivation from sal ammoniac. Progressing through the centuries, the development of chemical nomenclature further evolved with the term ‘amino,’ referring to the amino group (-NH2), a cornerstone of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks that form proteins.”
“This term, “amino acids”, is a linguistic derivative of ‘ammonia,’ symbolizing the transformation where one hydrogen atom in ammonia is replaced by another substituent, signifying its integral role in the structure of amino acids.” Speaking of ammonia, he also introduced us to a third related term namely that of an ‘amine’. It refers to organic compounds containing nitrogen and follows this etymological path, derived from ‘ammonia’ to represent structures where hydrogen atoms are replaced by hydrocarbon groups. This progression of naming not only reflects the deepening scientific understanding of these compounds but also ties the modern chemistry of bacon curing to its ancient roots, illustrating a fascinating continuum of discovery and nomenclature that spans millennia.”
The fact that ammonia is related to amino acids and amines is of key importance to the understanding of the chemistry behind curing and I am sure this will become something I refer back to often in the years to come.
“Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrites are related, as we have learned in the fact that certain bacteria can cause the change from ammonia (NH3) to nitrate (NO3-) and nitrate to nitrite (NO2-). Traditionally by the late 1800s curing of meat was done through the application of saltpetre (NO3-) which was reduced through bacteria to nitrite (NO2-), but another starting compound could just as easily be ammonia which is oxidised by bacteria to nitrate (NO3-), which is in turn reduced to nitrite (NO2-).”
Horse Sweat and Urine
After the very academic discussion about ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, Dr Jensen became practical. He believed early curing was done through other sources of ammonia.
“The development of dry curing, as well as nitrate curing into a well-structured and regulated process, was driven by the need to feed armies and navies. The one event that rivalled long sea journeys in contributing to the emergence of these disciplines was the domestication of the horse and it is at this point that we see how different technological sets coincide. What I will demonstrate is that as the technology of horse domestication took hold, there appeared likely technology of curing meat using the sweat and urine from horses.”
We were riveted to our seats as he continued. lets first look at horse domestication. “Various horse breeds roamed across the plains and grasslands of Eurasia. A major development took place between 2000 BC and 2200 BC. During this narrow window of 200 years a dominant genetic horse population appeared on the Western Eurasian Pontic-Caspian steppe of North Caucasus, east of the Dnieper River within the Don and Volga basins in present-day Russia.”
“Within a few centuries, the world horse populations of Eurasia disappeared and made way for this dominant horse race. Counting from the present, between 4,600 and 4,200 years ago, it was probably herders living in the Don-Volga region that found a way to increase the local horse reproductive pool which meant that they could reproduce more and more such horses, generation after generation. It would have been understood that one could breed for specific qualities and the increased reproduction resulted in the quick development of the breed.”
“These horse breeds were famous in the Dan-Volga basin and south past the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black Sea.” Dr Thisren quoted McCulloch, (1854) who wrote that ‘The horses of the Caucasus have been famous from very high antiquity, the Bechtag mountains having been formerly called Hippicon (ἱππικόν) from the number of these animals which were grazed upon its side (Ptolemy, v., 9). They are not less numerous in the present day and are among the very finest varieties of the species.'” (McCulloch, 1854)
“These horses were famed throughout the ancient world, and it stands to reason that he is describing none other than the descendants of the earliest domesticated horses, referring to their excellence based on the superior qualities they had for the horseman. In other words, domesticated horses but further refined through selective breeding.”
“Researchers collected evidence from interviews with people involved with horse husbandry in Mongolia and northern Kazakhstan in the recent past or present. It is from these accounts that we learn the value of urine and sweat from the animals. The urine from horses was prized as all urine was prized by the ancients. Urine is of course replete with ammonia, and we know that where we have ammonia, one is likely to find nitrates also. It would have been an ideal candidate for meat preservation. The interviews I referenced give us a glimpse into this ancient past. It was reported that horse fat, excrement, bone, hair, liver, kidney, and stomach are used in the treatment of many ailments. . . Back problems were treated by wrapping the sufferer in a fresh horse skin.” Horse sweat had a very specific medicinal value and is said to cure gastric diseases, ulcers, typhoid fever, plague, fever, and cancer of the gullet.”
“The medicinal usages probably followed the discovery of its effect on the meat and the subsequent ingestion of it. Levine, the scholar who did the research said ‘The horse can move rapidly and easily long distances over hard ground, providing its owners with both mobility (riding, packing, traction) and nourishment (milk, meat, fat). Other products, such as bone, hoof, hair, hide, excrement, and even sweat, are also valued, for example, as fuel, raw materials for the fabrication of tools, utensils, musical instruments, and other objects, and for medicinal purposes.'” Dr Jensen added that to this list must most certainly be added the curing and subsequent preservation of meat.
“The point is that using sweat from horses and their urine to cure meat is not farfetched.” Personally, I had a suspicion for a long time that urine and sweat had both been used in antiquity in meat preservation and from food, it entered medicinal use and gained religious value. When the Dutch arrived in the Cape they documented a ceremony where elders urinated over the young men. Look at the occurrence to this day of people bathing in cow urine in India, all incidences that give us glimpses of a rich and important place in human culture in the past. All bodily fluids and anything coming out of the body were viewed as having inherent value.”
“Sweat consists of various salts (mainly sodium chloride), and small amounts of other substances like lactate and urea. From the urea would form nitrates which would be reduced to nitrites and this would cure the meat. Since sweat will only contain small amounts of ammonia, as opposed to urine which will contain large concentrations, the amount of sweat required to cure meat will be substantially more than compared to urine. This would mean that the horse would have to be sweating profusely for curing to take place.”
“History is replete with examples of ancient horseback riders who cured their meat by hanging strips over the neck of the horse or placing it under the saddle for the sweat of the horse to cure the meat. The fact that meat was placed under the saddles shows the importance of “softening the meat” at a time when people did not have many options for caring for their teeth.” I suddenly recalled accounts that the old Boer frontiersmen in South Africa used the same technique to cure meat by hanging it around the necks of their horses when they were out in the bush hunting or tracking.
“The use of ammonia for curing continued in the more recent past, in a time before saltpetre became widely available for medical and military reasons in the form of sal ammoniac. German and Austrian cookbooks pre-1600s reveal that vegetable dyes were used to bolster colour and speak of curing with salt only. It is well known that the Germans and Austrians were familiar with nitrate curing and, I will argue, they would have been acquainted with sal ammoniac as a curing salt also, but no doubt due to the effect of sal ammoniac on taste, it fell out of common use. Hanging meat around the necks of horses had a limited lifespan and as the availability of nitrate salts in Europe increased the nations of Europe started using it to cure their meat instead of salt only.”
There was another fascinating conclusion that Dr Jensen drew from the relationship of horse domestication to curing. “It is probable that humans used their own urine and sweat to cure meat long before horse domestication took place. Horse domestication was a new invention. It makes sense that they experimented with the new technology by incorporating all previously known techniques and technology sets into this. There are, for example, accounts of the riders learning to keep riding for days on end. They would have two sets of morses and when they needed sustenance, they would, while the horses were galloping, puncture a neck vein of the spare horse running alongside them and drink from the blood in full gallop. This may or may not have occurred, but it shows that someone was thinking about it. They were learning the full implications of having horses to ride.”
“Remember that the ancients had this concept of “living” things containing some “vital” or “vitality” principal. This magical vitality of the living made all fluids and everything from the “living” vitally important, endowed with magical qualities. Urine in the eye of the ancient is not the same as we have of it today. They would have noticed that the urine from animals (and therefore from humans as an animal) had this magical power to cure meat. Imagine how they would have marvelled that urine could change the colour of meat from dull brown to bright pink and give it longevity! They would have noticed that sweat, if one could get enough of it, had the same effect and that if a horse gallops for even a short time, copious amounts of sweat form. It is therefore easy to see how they would have incorporated older technology sets into their attempts to fully understand all the benefits of the horse.”
“The fact that urine was in all likelihood used for curing meat stems from the fact that ammonia is present in large quantities. Dr Jensen elucidated the point further as a chemist. “In the intricate process of bodily waste elimination, urine plays a pivotal role as a carrier of excess water, salts, and metabolic byproducts, meticulously filtered by the kidneys. Among these byproducts, urea stands out as a critical component, synthesized in the liver and representing the body’s method of expelling surplus nitrogen. Intriguingly, once excreted, urea doesn’t remain static; it undergoes a transformative process, particularly under the influence of urease-producing bacteria. These microorganisms catalyze the conversion of urea into ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2), a reaction that can occur within the urinary tract, often in cases of specific infections, or after the urine has been discharged from the body. This conversion is responsible for urine’s distinctive odour, which intensifies in more concentrated forms or when left to decompose. The presence and concentration of ammonia in urine, thus, serve as indicators, subtly influenced by dietary habits, hydration levels, and the body’s overall health state, painting a vivid picture of the body’s complex waste management system. It also becomes a powerful curing agent, similar to sal ammoniac!”
Links Between Turfan and the Black Sea Region
“Now,” Dr Jensen concluded, “let’s tie what we know about the relationship between horse domestication in with what Dr Thirsten taught you about the priority of the Turfan depression in terms of the development of meat curing. (see From Sea to Deserts -> Sal Ammoniac Predating Saltpetre for the full discussion) “It is interesting that a prominent relationship exists culturally between the people who lived in the Turfan depression and the nations living around the Black Sea. That the same people who domesticated the horse had a detailed understanding of curing stems from the historical relationship between horses and met curing, from a tight link with the Turfan community which we know had a great understanding of the power of saltpetre and from the fact that till the present day, people living around the Black Sea possess some of the most advanced meat curing traditions on earth.” He pointed at me and said that from what I told him of the urine ceremonies of the indigenous Khoe people at the Cape and from the Indian tradition of bathing in the urine of cows and bulls it is evident that the power of urine was probably universally appreciated, but none of these communities developed the particular art of meat curing as the people of the Russian Steppe did.”
“Dr Thirsten did a lot of work on nitrate salts. He was initially interested in natural mummification and wondered what salt or mineral was in the soil that contributed to this. He discovered the one area on earth where vast nitrate deposits occur on the top layer of soil with records of astonishing ancient technology based on the use of nitrates, the Turfan Depression! Not only are nitrates replete in the basin, but in the surrounding mountains, sal ammoniac is mined and traded into Europe along the northern Silk Road. Frustrated by not finding a strong and surviving meat-curing culture in the area he kept looking, following the Silk Road to present-day Iran, in the search for the exact location where the horse was domesticated, knowing that cured meat must have become much more important for people who travelled vast distances on horseback. So it happened that he discovered the Scythians.”
“He long identified that countries around the Black Sea are extraordinary in terms of their meat-curing technology! He learned that the closest nations we have to the ancient Scythians are those living to the east around the Black Sea. Here live people with a level of understanding of meat curing that he has not even found in Germany! Having said that, he re-looked at the ancient links between these nations and Germany and Poland, both giants in the meat-curing world and the influence of Russia.”
“Russia, along with the nations of Western Europe with their intimate links to the Scythians and their deep understanding of meat curing and rich history in this field made him realise that he is in the right region! All this again feeds back to the western region of China with the Turfan depression as a rich source for ancient curing salts in the form of sal ammoniac and saltpetre! These are the areas where the technology of meat curing was developed and from here it influenced regions such as Italy, Spain and Greece.”
An Unforgettable Day
I was completely stunned by the fact that bacon curing becomes not only a doorway into the specific chemical reactions driving the curing reaction but also a potent introduction to the natural world and the intricate processes that underlie its functioning. That night I went to bed, thankful that I could be in Denmark at this time, and that Minette was with me to witness and hear, firsthand about the monumental discoveries being made daily all around us.
Please remember to share these letters with my dad also. I know he will be frantic for detailed news about our progress.
Lots of love!
Dad
Note on the Presence of “amine” in Vitamins
In the context of the history of chemistry and the development of scientific understanding, the naming of “vitamins” is a fascinating story that reflects the evolution of knowledge over time. Initially, when these essential nutrients were first discovered in the early 20th century, they were believed to be amines, a type of compound derived from ammonia. This belief stemmed from the discovery that these substances were vital for life. As a result, they were named “vitamines,” combining “vital” and “amines.” The term was coined by Polish biochemist Casimir Funk in 1912, who theorized that these compounds were necessary for life and contained an amino group. However, as research progressed, it became clear that not all vitamins contain an amine group. In light of this new understanding, the “e” was dropped, simplifying the term to “vitamin.” This change in naming underscores a broader theme in scientific discovery: as our knowledge deepens and evolves, so too does the language we use to describe the phenomena around us. The story of vitamin naming is an apt example of how scientific terminology adapts in response to advancing understanding.
Further Reading
From The Salt Bridge,
01. Salt – 7000 years of meat-curing
02. Nitrate salt’s epic journey: From Turfan in China, through Nepal to North India
03. And then the mummies spoke!
06. Ancient plant Curing of Meats
07. The Turfan Depression links with the Black Sea Region
(c) eben van tonder
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Note 1
The exact sequence of discoveries as set out in this chapter are out of sync. Many happened before 1891, but the full implication of the link between the various processes only happened many years later. For example, the reduction of NO3-2 to NO2- was knows, but that NO (nitric oxide) was the actual curing molecule only became known after 1900.
Note 2
The character, Julius Jensen, is based on the life of the famous Danish chemist, Julius Thomsen (1826 – 1909). Thomsen made significant contributions to the field of chemistry during his lifetime.
Julius Thomsen is particularly famous for his work in thermochemistry. He conducted extensive research on the heat involved in chemical reactions, making vital contributions to our understanding of exothermic and endothermic processes. His studies laid the groundwork for the principles of energy conservation in chemical reactions.
Thomsen’s work was influential during a time when the foundations of physical chemistry were being established. His contributions helped shape the way scientists understand the energy changes during chemical reactions, which is a fundamental aspect of both theoretical and applied chemistry.
He worked at the University of Copenhagen for a significant part of his career. He became a professor of chemistry at this prestigious institution in 1857 and later served as the director of its chemical laboratory. Thomsen’s tenure at the University of Copenhagen was marked by his influential research in thermochemistry, contributing significantly to the scientific community’s understanding of the heat effects in chemical reactions. His work at the university played a vital role in establishing the principles of energy conservation in chemistry.
References
All the “Further Reading” articles are my references.
Bacon Curing – A Historical Review
Photo References
Domingos, S. S.. (2011) Vertical flow constructed wetlands for the treatment of inorganic industrial wastewater. Murdoch University WA, Australia.
Featured Image: Bezeklik caves on mountain slopes near Turfan. https://www.advantour.com/china/turpan/bezeklik-caves.htm
Flaming Mountains of Turfan: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/334251603567115799/?lp=true
McCulloch, John Ramsy. (1845) M’Culloch’s Universal Gazetteer: A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World.
Turfan Depression: http://www.howderfamily.com/blog/turpan-depression/