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.
The Salt of Meat
December 1892
Dear Children,
This is my third letter about salt and there may be a fourth. It really is one of the most important substances used in bacon production. Michael from Calne taught me a lot about it and while Minette and I are on our voyage back to England, it affords me a great opportunity to review it.
He knows a lot about salt. He has visited many of the great salt mines, from Poland to America, from Austria to the Arabian peninsula Your grandfather has been to salt works in German West Africa to our north. Of course, you heard him tell the many stories of his travels with Livingston. On those adventures, they often trecked through salt pans
Salt had two key functions in antiquity. One was the taste! Exquisite salts were created by artisan salt makers whose trade has been handed down over thousands of years. Each region produces salts as unique to that region as the different wines from Spain or Italy. This is, to me, the supreme function of salt since it is what we love! The other great value is as a preservative of meat.
Witsand by Misty Cliffs on the Cape peninsular where our story is unfolding. Taken around 1949 by Granny Frick.
The Salt in Meat
Before we look at the salt that we put in meat, it is important to know that meat contains salt naturally. Looking into the prehistoric past to try and unravel the mystery behind our use of salt, we consider our biological need for salt. Meat, blood, and milk contain far more salt than many plants. Nomads who subsisted on their flocks and herds or hunters who regularly ate meat did not need additional sources of salt. Agriculturalists or nomads who for any number of reasons did not eat meat required supplementary sources of salt.
Lack of sodium is life-threatening. “Sodium is critical for determining membrane potentials in excitable cells and participates in various metabolic reactions in the body. An adequate intake of sodium is required for optimal growth. Rats maintained on low sodium diets exhibit decreased bone and muscle weights and required a daily intake of 300 μEq Na+ for normal growth of fat, bone, and muscle tissues. In a study conducted by Bursey and Watson “sodium restriction during gestation in rats increased the number of stillborn pups, led to smaller brain size and amount of protein per unit of wet brain tissue, and decreased total brain RNA.” Severe sodium restriction may negatively affect glucose metabolism and disturb normal blood viscosity. Distribution of intracellular and extracellular fluid volumes are dictated by sodium, and either a deficit or excess of sodium will alter overall fluid balance and distribution. Under normal circumstances, deviations from optimal body fluid homeostasis are corrected primarily by the kidneys, and proper renal handling of sodium is necessary for normal cardiovascular function. We can say that “survival and normal mammalian development are dependent on adequate sodium intake and retention” (Morris, M. J., et al., 2008)
A lack of sodium intake causes the onset of hyponatremia, a condition associated with sodium levels not being adequate in blood. It is too low due to either too much water or not enough sodium intake. This condition is characterized by nausea and vomiting, headaches, confusion, loss of energy, fatigue, restlessness, irritability and muscle weakness, spasms or cramps.
Examples of Hyponatremia from Primitive Societies
David Livingston describes that he often saw conditions in the early 1800s on his travels in Africa, where poor people were forced to live on a vegetarian diet alone and as a result of this developed indigestion. His comment came in the context of a reference to the Bakwains, part of the Bechuana people, who allowed rich and poor to eat from the meat hunted. He mentions that the local doctors knew what the cause of the indignation was and that it was related to a lack of salt intake. (Hyde, A., et al.; 1876: 150)
It is fascinating that Livingston describes that on two occasions later in his life, he was himself deprived of salt for months and yet, he did not have any cravings for it (Hyde, A., et al.; 1876: 150). Interestingly enough, he reported cravings for meat and milk which he knew had enough salt to cure the onset of symptoms associated with a low salt diet.
Do we Naturally Crave Salt if our Sodium Levels are too Low?
We have seen that we need salt, but do we know that we need it? Do we feel “sodium deprived” and intuitively seek out salt? We have four or possibly five taste sensors in our mouths. Of the five, one is wholly dedicated to tasting the sodium ion, the charged atom responsible for the love of salt. Vegetarian/ herbivore and omnivore animals are similarly equipped. Interestingly enough, in a study on rats, it was shown that some of them naturally recognize salt deficiency as the cause of their hyponatremia. Others had to be taught through experience. Studies have shown and described how long-term changes in the brain as a result of hyponatremia may be behind an increased appetite for salt in animals. There is in other words, a biological reason for animals to be “directed” to salt. (De Luca, 2014) They either crave salt when in a sodium deficient condition naturally and in some cases, it is clear that they developed the craving.
If we naturally craved salt, it would explain our love for salt and the fact that it is so dominant in our diets. People would have naturally sought out salt deposits to amend their diets. The fact, however, is that the salt appetite of humans does not fit the biological model. There are great similarities between humans and other animals in how we handle sodium, but also very important differences. The sodium ion is essential for both humans and animals and we both have special sensors dedicated to its detection. Humans and animals share the same physiological systems that regulate it in the body, both ingest far too much of it and both show that a lack of sodium immediately following birth enhances the love of it. Unlike animals, people do not enjoy pure salt. Humans don’t like it in water while it has been shown that some rats prefer it. Importantly, humans do not respond to sodium deficiency by craving for it and it never becomes a learned craving after an incident of hyponatremia. (De Luca, 2014)
Animals who have been deprived of salt increase their salt intake robustly. Studies in rats showed that if they have been deprived of it once, they permanently increase consumption of it but not so in humans. The dedicated sodium receptors in humans do not direct us to it when there is a deficiency in our bodies. There are records of humans dying from hyponatremia with salt around them. There have been many studies in humans to try and prove the opposite, but in every case, results are inconclusive at best. The evidence is clear that, unlike animals, humans will seek sodium to satisfy our pallet but not to save our lives. (De Luca, 2014)
In humans, there is no satisfactory current explanation for the prominence of our sodium taste receptors or “for the powerful influence it exerts on our predilection for salt as the prime condiment and food additive that gives taste and tang to our food and is of no nutritional necessity.” (De Luca, 2014) The question comes up, why not? There must obviously have been a time in our pre-history where we did not need this or when having it, was a disadvantage.
The Structure of Salt
Let us pause a bit and look at the structure of salt to help us make sense of all this. Salt is a crystal that contains many elements, but as a matter of practicality and due to the widespread application of sodium chloride in industry, ended up being produced around the world with only these two elements. Both atoms consist of a nucleus with a positive electric charge – an island floating in a sea of electrons which are negatively charged particles. If one brings together one atom of each of these elements, the chlorine atom steals an electron from the sodium atom: the first becomes a negatively charged chlorine atom and the second is transferred into a positively charged sodium atom.
Solid sodium chloride is a crystal of extremely regular structure. The pattern of sodium +/ chlorine – repeats indefinitely in three-dimensional space. Just as a side note, this is also the explanation for the name since a negative chlorine is called a chloride. (Laszlo, 2001)
Salt in Water
Salinity refers to water that contains various concentration levels of salt. The magic of salt happens when it comes into contact with water. When one adds a spoon full of salt to a glass of water, the salt “melts” into the water. When we evaporate the water, the salt forms a crystal.
The sodium chloride (NaCl) comes into contact with a water molecule and the water molecule bestows on the positively charges sodium ion and the negatively charges chloride ion water-sodium and water-chlorine forces of attraction that is at least as strong as the sodium-chlorine force of attraction. This is indeed the case and so, the sodium and chloride ions are pulled apart in water. It “melts away.” (Laszlo, 2001)
Salt we add to Meat
The most important function of salt in bacon is to enhance the taste. Especially non-refined salt! The second function of salt is to preserve. How it achieves this is a matter for science to elucidates further. In the evenings in Denmark, we read the work of Edward Smith. He listed the following mechanisms to deal with spoilage organisms namely drying, cold, immersion into gases and liquids, coating with fat and gelatine, heat, pressure and of course, salt. (Smith, E, 1876: 22 – 38)
Salt can not possibly be responsible for killing microorganisms. At least not in the concentrations we use. There must be some interaction between the salt and the microorganisms and it can’t always be negative for the bacteria. If this was the case, how would the bacteria responsible for changing the nitrate into nitrite from Dr. Polenski’s experiments survive and how would the microorganisms in the ocean deal with different levels of salinity.
The sodium and chlorine ions are separated in the water and have vastly different functions in meat. The first way that salt preserves are however a general one which is the result of the presence of salt on the outside of the cut of pork. It dispenses its first curing action by removing water from inside the pork muscle. Microorganisms want to live in a wet environment. The drier it is, the less active it will be. (Dworkin, M et al, 2006: 146) It is important how much water is available. Most bacteria need water activity at the same level as seawater at 25 deg C to flourish. (1) (Dworkin, 2006)
Endospore
Drying the environment or using salt is not a guarantee to get rid of bacteria. Some bacteria can survive even supersaturated saline solutions. The ones who can survive best are the bacteria that can form endospores and have other resting stages. (Dworkin, 2006)
This is important. Not just from the perspective of what happens inside the meat, but what happens in the environment where the meat is being processed. Endospores are present in soil and any transfer of soil into a processing area can bring about the transfer of bacteria into the meat processing area. This is a major problem related to the home curing of bacon.
An endospore is “a dormant, tough, and non-reproductive structure produced by certain bacteria. The name “endospore” is suggestive of a spore or seed-like form (endo means within), but it is not a true spore (i.e., not an offspring). “It is a stripped-down, dormant form to which the bacterium can reduce itself. Endospore formation is usually triggered by a lack of nutrients. In endospore formation, the bacterium divides within its cell wall. One side then engulfs the other. Endospores enable bacteria to lie dormant for extended periods, even centuries. Revival of spores, millions of years old, has been claimed. When the environment becomes more favourable, the endospore can reactivate itself. Most types of bacteria cannot change to the endospore form. Examples of bacteria that can form endospores include Bacillus and Clostridium.
Endospores can survive without nutrients. They are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, desiccation, high temperature, extreme freezing, and chemical disinfectants. Thermo-resistant endospores were first hypothesized by Ferdinand Cohn after studying Bacillus subtilis growth on cheese after boiling the cheese. His notion of spores being the reproductive mechanism for growth was a large blow to the previous suggestions of spontaneous generation. Astrophysicist Steinn Sigurdsson said, “There are viable bacterial spores that have been found that are 40 million years old on Earth – and we know they’re very hardened to radiation. ”Common anti-bacterial agents that work by destroying vegetative cell walls do not affect endospores. Endospores are commonly found in soil and water, where they may survive for long periods of time.” (BBC Staff, 2011)
Clostridium Botulinum
Clostridium is an example of bacteria that can form endospores. It consists of around 100 species that include common free-living bacteria as well as important pathogens. One of these species is clostridium botulinum. (Baron, 1996). Clostridium botulinum is an important pathogen. It forms endospores that can survive almost anything. Remember that salt has little effect on removing this pathogen from an environment. It also survives without water.
Botulinum toxin is a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. It is the most acutely lethal toxin known, with an estimated human median lethal dose (LD-50) of 1.3–2.1 ng/kg intravenously or intramuscularly and 10–13 ng/kg when inhaled. Nano denotes a factor of one billionth (10-9) which means that there are 1,000,000,000 nanograms in a gram. This shows the extreme toxicity of this substance. Botulinum toxin (BTX) can cause botulism, a serious and life-threatening illness in humans and animals.
Between 1817 and 1822, Justinus Kerner was the medical officer in southern Germany, in Württemberg. He had seen many people with symptoms of impaired breathing, difficulty in speaking, swallowing and seeing double. Kerner suspected that some type of biological poison related to eating sausages caused the symptoms. He investigated what the people ate and found that all of them ate sausages that were not properly cooked.
Between 1817 and 1822 he published a complete description of what he called “sausage poisoning” or wurstfift. The disease came to be known as botulism. He injected himself with the poison and caused many of the symptoms in himself. Luckily he survived, but he managed to show conclusively the causal relationship between the sausage material and the disease. (Emmeluth, 2010) (2)
Water Stress
Water stress, as it is called, is one of the key functions of salt in processing bacon. It becomes very complex, very fast when one relates this to wet cures. However, when we consider dry cute, it is obvious. Salt curing goes in the first place, hand in hand with partial drying techniques, aimed at preserving protein in a more lasting way. (Laszlo,1998) Salt “extracts” moisture from the meat by the water migrating out of the muscle towards the salt in an attempt to “balance” the salt levels on the outside of the meat with the inside. Salt at the same time “migrates” into the muscle.
Once inside the muscle, the salt now poses a threat to bacteria found inside the meat through the process of osmosis. Osmosis is the passage of solvent through a semipermeable membrane in response to different concentrations of solute on the two sides of the membrane. The description comes from the notion that salt or sugar attracts water when it touches the meat.
In 1748 J. A. Nollet used an animal bladder to separate chambers containing water and wine. He noted that the volume in the wine chamber increased and when the chamber was closed, a pressure developed. He named the phenomenon osmosis from the Greek word meaning thrust or impulse. (Sperelakis,1995)
Salt and Bacteria
Most bacteria will not grow at 3% concentration levels of sodium chloride (NaCl). It is important to remember that there are a number of important exceptions to this rule. Some bacteria and archaea (a single cell organism) called halophiles (from the Greek word salt-loving) require NaCl to grow. Moderate halophiles, such as marine bacteria, may show optimum growth at 3% NaCl. They require at least 1.5%. Some bacteria have been found growing in 25% NaCl concentrations. However, most bacteria stop growing at 3% NaCl. This, besides the lack of available water, is the only other way that salt performs its magic as a preservative for meat.
High salt concentration disrupts the membrane and denatures many proteins. (Srivastava, 2003) Generally speaking, salt has the same effect on microorganisms in the meat as it has on the meat itself. Since the sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration outside the microorganism is higher than inside, water flows out of the organism in order to try and restore equilibrium. The effect will be a slowdown in growth and activity.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition
There are other advantages of using salt which becomes clear when one uses wet curing brine as opposed to dry cure. Wet curing has been used as a technique of curing pork for hundreds of years. There is a notable description of this process that Jeppe showed me from a historical American document.
In May 1804, an expedition departed from near St Louis on the Mississippi River, planning to make their way westward, through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. The expedition was known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition or the Corps of Discovery. It was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States.
The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. It consisted of a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark.
The journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. The primary objective was to explore and map the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.
The campaign’s secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Indian tribes. With maps, sketches and journals in hand, the expedition returned to St. Louis to report their findings to Jefferson.
On 3 April 1804, Clark described how pork was being packed and cured in barrels. He wrote on 17 April that they “completed packing 50 kegs of pork and rolled and filled them with brine”. It is clear that they were not using a dry salt preparation but rather a water-diluted salt mixture and perhaps adding sugar or adding flavourings that would make it taste better than and not as harsh as straight salting.
They would have used good kegs as leaking kegs were often responsible for meat spoiling. It went well and a month after Clark’s pork went into the barrels, Major Rumsey inspected it and condemned only approximately 10% of the meat. A curing method for pork that was documented in 1776 shows that wet curing must have been practised for many years before Clark’s description in 1804.
“After the meat has cooled, it is cut into 5 lb. pieces which are then rubbed well with fine salt. The pieces are then placed between boards a weight brought to bear upon the upper board so as to squeeze out the blood. Afterwards, the pieces are shaken to remove the surplus salt, [and] packed rather tightly in a barrel, which when full is closed. A hole is then drilled into the upper end and brine allowed to fill the barrel at the top, the brine is made of 4 lb. of salt, 2 lb. of brown sugar, and 4 gallons of water with a touch of saltpetre. When no more brine can enter, the hole is closed. The method of preserving meat not only assures that it keeps longer but also gives it a rather good taste.” (Holland, 2003)
The account of Clark is intriguing and was the motivation for Michael and my water and salt experiments. If he left the pork for two weeks in the brine, he must have noticed that he took out heavier pieces of meat than he put in when the wet cure method was used. Wet curing was in wide use by the mid-1800s. John Yeats wrote in 1871 about salt and sugar curing of pork, “There are two methods of salting; in one the meat is packed in dry salt, in the other, it is immersed in brine.”
Not just curing by wet-cure in barrels, wet cure was applied to meat through a variety of injection methods. Yeats writes in 1871 that a certain “Professor Morgan, in Dublin, has recently proposed a method of preservation by injecting into the animal as soon as killed a fluid preparation, consisting, to every hundredweight of meat, of one gallon of brine, half a pound of saltpetre, two pounds of sugar, half an ounce of monophosphoric acid, and a small quantity of spice.” (Yeats, J, 1871: 225) The plan was widely tested at several factories in South America and by the Admiralty, who had reported that they had good results from the technique. (Yeats, 1871)
Edward Smith described another method of injection of brine that he witnessed in his book, Foods in 1873. He accounts for the events of a certain “Mr Morgan [who] devised an ingenious process by which the preserving material, composed of water, saltpetre, and salt, with or without flavouring matter, was distributed throughout the animal, and the tissue permeated and charged. His method was exemplified by him at a meeting of the Society of Arts, on April 13, 1854, when I [Edward] presided.” (Smith, 1873)
He then describes how an animal is killed in the usual way, the chest opened and a metal pipe connected to the arterial system. Brine was pumped through gravity feed throughout the animal. Approximately 6 gallons were flushed through the system. Pressure was created to ensure that it was flushed into the small capillaries. Smith reported overall good results from the process with a few exceptions. The brine mix that Mr Morgan suggested was 1 gallon of brine, ¼ to ½ lb. of sugar, ½ oz. of monophosphoric acid, a little spice and sauce to each cwt of meat. (Smith, 1873) An interesting note that we must return to later was the common use of monophosphoric acid, probably as an added preservative.
When the muscle is left in brine, the brine seeps into the meat. By the mid-1800s, the use of wet cute has evolved to include some form of injection. A process that would have further added the likelihood of water to have been retained in the muscle tissue.
Johann Fey has been working on a device in the early 1890s that create compressed air below meat in a curing solution in order to facilitate a more equal absorption of the brine in the meat. (3) (Patents. US474446)
Johann Fey’s patent number US474446 A.
The Salt Experiments
In order to see if we can figure out all the functions of salt in bacon, Michael and I did an experiment on the salt back at the Harris test kitchen. We selected three pork sides, all killed on the same day and from the same pork breed. All were the same size and prepared in the Wiltshire cut. In experiment 1 we diluted salt in the usual amount of water and injected meat with a mixture of salt. We omitted sugar and saltpetre. We rested it and cured it as per the usual method of a wet brine. We then dried and smoked it in a drying oven for 6 hours.
For experiment 2, we repeated the experiment without any salt. Instead of salt, we added the normal amount of water as was used in the salt brine that we injected in experiment 1. We also performed a 3rd experiment as our control where we use the regular amount of salt, water, and saltpetre. Still, we omitted sugar from the mix to allow us to focus on the effect of the salt. After every experiment, the meat was smoked and dried for the same time and at the same temperature. The starting weights were carefully noted before any injection was done, after injection but before smoking and drying and after smoking and drying. We were interested to see what the effect of salt is on the weight of the bacon after smoking and drying.
The results were fascinating! The effect of salt on bacteria, at least in the concentrations we use it are very limited. However, we found that there is a considerable difference between bacon where salt was added or not in terms of its weight after smoking and drying. The sides where salt was added is materially heavier than where only water was injected. Salt must in some way be responsible for keeping the moisture inside the meat.
When Minette and I get back to the Harris operation, I am planning to repeat the test, but focus my attention on sugar. I also intend using beet sugar in one trail and Calne sugar in another.
Water Holding Capacity
The issue of water holding capacity of curing brines slowly but surely started to come to the fore from the mid-1800s even though it has certainly been a consideration in the meat industry for many years despite the lack of documentary evidence. From Michael and my experiments, one thing was clear that salt increases the water holding capacity of meat. One of the professors from Bristol who consults for John Harris elucidated the mechanism behind our observation.
Remember that we have said that salt exists in water as sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) ions. We will see how the different ions have different functions in curing, starting with the aid to the water holding capacity of the meat. “It is the ions that are responsible for this preserving action. An ionic strength of 0.5 or more will cause myofibrils (4) to swell and disintegrate, depolymerizing myosin filaments (threads), and solubilize the myofibrillar protein.
A salt concentration of 2% or more in most meat formulations will achieve the necessary ionic strength. However, even at lower concentrations such as 0.5 – 1.0% as used for many moisture-enhanced fresh meats, the Cl-ion from salt will interact with meat proteins to increase the negative electrical charge on the proteins and increase the water-binding properties of the meat mixture.
This is an essential role of the chloride ions in meat systems because the interaction with meat protein that swells the protein structure is responsible for allowing the proteins to hold more of the weakly bound water within and between their structure. The increased retention of water by the protein structure in the presence of chloride ions has a major impact on cooking yields, juiciness, tenderness, and mouthfeel when the product is consumed.” (Tarte, 2009)
“The chloride ion is much more important than the sodium iron for achieving increased water binding by meat proteins.” (Tarte, 2009) This is important because it means that for the purpose of water binding, one could use other salts such as potassium chloride.
The next direct benefit of salt to the curing process is in the area of colour development. “This is because the chloride ion from salt (Cl-) has been reported to accelerate cured colour formation in cured meat by increasing the rate of nitric oxide formation from nitrite.” (Tarte, 2009)
In my previous letter, I have discussed the importance of the taste of the salt. It is the sodium ion that is responsible for the salty taste in salt. The sodium ion not only gives sodium chloride its salty taste, but it is also responsible for a heightened intensity of all others flavours. Despite extensive research, no alternative to sodium has been found.
It is important to note that other minerals and metals present in natural salt deposits alter the taste of salt slightly so that salt becomes the most important curing agent in pork. It is possible for the Woodys team to produce bacon, as unique as the Marula fruit to the great African land. In the bacon that we produce, we can capture the spirit of the Bushman and the winds that blow across the vast salt pans of Bechuanaland.
These inquiries have completely captured my imagination! In my wildest dreams, I would never have predicted that curing bacon is so beautifully complex with the most magnificent processes at work! I can not imagine being at any other place on earth than on a steamer with Minette, on our way back to Calne which has become the centre of my entire universe.
One of my highest privileges is introducing you to this amazing world through my letters! Send my regards to everyone!
(1) “It is now generally accepted that the water requirements of micro-organisms should be described in terms of the water activity (Aw) in the environment. The parameter is defined by the ratio of the water vapour pressure of food substrate to the vapour pressure to pure water at the same temperature: Aw = P/Po
Where P is the vapor pressure of the solution and Po is the vapor pressure of the solvent (usually water).
The concept is related to relative humidity in the following way: RH = 100 x Aw
Pure water has an Aw of 1.00; A 22% NaCl solution (w/v) has an aw of 0.86; A saturated NaCl has an Aw of 0.75 (Jay, JM, et al. 2005: 45)
Microbial growth in the range of water activity between 0.998 and 0.6 (Dworkin, M et al, 2006: 146)
What is the effect of other ingredients on Aw? So many great discoveries still ahead!
(2) In 1895, Emile van Emergem, professor of bacteriology at the University of Ghent, in Belgium, identified the microorganism causing sausage poisoning as Clostridium botulinum.
In 1897 there was a botulinum outbreak after a funeral dinner where smoked ham was served as the main course. Emile was called to find the cause.
For the bacon industry, this is an organism that should be tested for on a monthly basis by micro swabbing. Salted, smoked and vacuum-packed products can contain the organism if it has been improperly prepared. Forms of the organism exist that can resist heat treatment. (Emmeluth, D , 2010: 19)
(3) John patented his device in 1892.
(4) “A myofibril (also known as a muscle fibril) is a basic rod-like unit of a muscle.[1] Muscles are composed of tubular cells called myocytes, also known as muscle fibers, and these cells, in turn, contain many chains of myofibrils. They are created during embryo development in a process known as myogenesis.
Myofibrils are composed of long proteins such as actin, myosin, and titin, and other proteins that hold them together. These proteins are organized into thin filaments and thick filaments, which repeat along the length of the myofibril in sections called sarcomeres. Muscles contract by sliding the thin (actin) and thick (myosin) filaments along each other.
Actinomyosin motors are important in muscle contraction (relying in this case on “classical myosins”) as well as other processes like retraction of membrane blebs, filiopod retraction, and uropodium advancement (relying in this case on “nonclassical myosins”).”
BBC Staff (23 August 2011). “Impacts ‘more likely’ to have spread life from Earth”. BBC. Archived from the original on 24 August 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
Bud, R and Warner, DJ. 1998. Instruments of science. The science museum, London and the National Museum of American History.
Dworkin, M et al. 2006. The Prokaryotes: Vol. 1: Symbiotic Associations, Biotechnology, Applied Microbiology. Springer Science and Media, Inc.
Emmeluth, D . 2010. Botulism. Infobase Publishing.
Holland, LZ. 2003. Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the early 1800’s. Old Yellowstone Publishing, Inc.
* Jay, JM, et al. 2005. Modern Food Microbiology. Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
Laszlo, P. 1998. Salt, Grain of Life. Columbia University Press.
Smith, Edwards. 1873. Foods. Henry S King and Co.
Stringer, R and Johnston, P. 2001. Chlorine and the environment, An Overview of the Chlorine Industry. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
*Sperelakis, N. 1995. Cell Physiology: Source Book. Academic Press
*Srivastava, S. 2003. Understanding Bacteria. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Tarte, R, et al. 2009. Ingredients in Meat products. Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.
Yeats, J. 1871. The technical history of commerce; or, Skilled labour applied to production. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin
1. The 1st picture was taken at the same place where the cover picture for this blog was taken. The one in 2012 or 2013 and the other in 1949. It was a complete coincidence that I included it. I did not realize where it was taken. I just liked the image when I found it and it related back to the Cape of Good Hope that in the story, I miss and where I currently live.
2. Is Mr Morgan that Edward Smith talks about in 1854 the same person that Yeats describes in 1871 as Professor Morgan, from Dublin, 17 years later? Probably. I am not sure if the methods described are exactly the same. Chances are that Mr. Morgan became Dr and Professor Morgan and that he refined his techniques.
The method of injection through the arterial system is one that is still practiced at select butcheries in Germany in 2014. There is even a butcher in Cape Town who still use this method.
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.
The Salt of Land and the Sea
December 1892
Dear Tristan and Lauren,
The voyage is still long and there is ample time to further develop thoughts on one of the most supreme studies within the broad subject of bacon, namely the epic story of salt. Minette reminded me this morning over breakfast that David de Villiers Graaff also left Cape Town in the mid-1880s for a long trip to Great Britain and America to learn more about the meat trade. It was the talk of the town! His meat company, Combrink & Co was even in those years the biggest butchery in town with an abattoir at the top of Hanover Street, in District Six and retail butcheries throughout the city. (Simons, PB, 2000: 22, 24) I imagine that his motivation for his trip to England and the US was the same as it is for Oscar, myself and the Woodys team. Seek out new developments that will give us the edge over competitors.
There is for us the added element that we must still learn the butcher’s trade. Something that David knew from age 11. I don’t see this as a drawback because it affords us the opportunity to learn from many mentors where David had only Uncle Jakobus Combrink to teach him. Even though Jakobus was a most formidable man, also a mentor to myself, especially during my childhood years, I have come to greatly value the insights of a plurality of mentors. All shape our lives in slightly different ways. One of the opportunities I have is to delve into the chemistry of curing and what better place to pause than on the subject of salt. Last week we touched on sodium chloride a bit but we spend a lot of time on developing the nature of salt generally. It is time to continue out focus narrowly on sodium chloride.
We have it every day, yet, I never understood it! This ordinary substance morphed, right in front of my eyes into the supreme ingredient. It is the food of life! The substance that contains the fullness of the earth. The element of which we live and breathe and have our being! There is so much to teach you about salt and its rich history.
Researchers miss some of its features because they have a narrow focus on sodium chloride as salt. Of course, this is not warranted because this is not how salt occurs in nature. Salt exists as a combination of an acid and a base in many forms. Some of the most famous salts from antiquity are sodium chloride, potassium, calcium or sodium nitrate, ammonium chloride, magnesium sulfate and sodium bicarbonate. It also occurs in combination with a wide variety of minerals and other chemical elements.
Unravelling the different salts and the ability to separate them is the story of the development of modern chemistry and modern technology itself. The technical underpinnings for a culture to advance in terms of glassworks, and different metals such as iron depended on their understanding of different salts and how it’s separated and refined. More than that, it is an understanding of salt that ushered in the age of gunpowder and brought with it the enormous benefit in terms of a nations military capability. Not just were advances in technology related to salt the key to a nations military power, but it also became the basis of modern agriculture in the various nitrate salts, ammonium, and ammonia. Understanding its value reach back to the start of animal husbandry without it, this development would not have succeeded. It is therefore not an overstatement to say that no culture could ever achieve full independence or mastery over its own future without a better understanding of salt. Without it, there would have remained insurmountable obstacles in its ability to manipulate the forces of nature for the common good and for its own independence.
I decided to give you a flavour of the importance of salt around the world and since we have already looked at saltpetre and sal ammoniac in great detail, I thought to restrict this, for the most part, to sodium chloride. The first most general observation we can make is that sodium chloride comes from the earth and the sea.
France
The salt works in the medieval French town of Guérande employed around 900 workers just a few years ago in the mid-1800s (Bitterman, M, 2010: 24) and it has been in operation for hundreds of years. Salt was produced along the coastlines of India, and Africa, in Mexico along the Yucatan Peninsula’s salt lagoons, and along the coast of Central America for centuries. (Bitterman, M, 2010: 18 – 23) In China and North America, everywhere salt was produced from water and rock salt deposits, remnants of dried salt lakes, springs and the receding sea.
Salt production in China
During the imperial era of China between the third century B.C.E. to the early twentieth century A.D., we find that salt and iron monopolies in China often provided the bulk of the state revenue. “Historical accounts even suggest that inland salt sources may have played an important role in the unification of China by Qin in 221 B.C.E.. (Flad, et al.; 2005)
Flad, et al. (2005) demonstrated, using the latest research technology, that “salt production was the most significant activity at Zhongba during the first millennium B.C. E.” (Flad, et al.; 2005) Zhongba is located in the Zhong Xian County, Chongqing Municipality, approximately 200 km down-river along the Yangzi from Chongqing City in central China.
They furthermore conclude that “the homogeneity of the ceramic assemblage during Phases I and II suggests that salt production may already have been significant in this area throughout the second millennium B.C. The Zhongba data represent the oldest confirmed example of pottery-based salt production yet found in China. The first millennium B.C. dates alone confirm that salt production was established long before the Qin expansion into Sichuan in 316 B.C.” (Flad, et al.; 2005)
“In southern China, salt from Zhongba was a vital component in the complex process of state formation. For example, the specialized production of surpluses of salt, and possibly salted products, and the trade of these commodities to regions outside the Three Gorges (three adjacent gorges along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, in the hinterland of the People’s Republic of China) stimulated contacts between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangzi River. As coastal and inland lake-salt sources provided this crucial resource to emerging states in the Central Plains and Eastern China during their formative periods in the late second and early first millennium B.C., so, too, did the salt sources in the Sichuan Basin provide this dietary supplement, preserving agent, and industrial component to the emerging polities in the south. Although the Three Gorges remained a relatively peripheral area into the first millennium B.C., the establishment of trade networks based in large part on the exchange of surplus salt brought some elite practices into the region and stimulated the emergence of social differentiation in the area as elites in nearby polities such as Chu engaged in gift-giving and related practices in attempts to create ever-larger networks of political influence. At the same time, salt from the Three Gorges facilitated the development of more complex economic systems in these same nearby polities by providing a resource that was unavailable elsewhere in the middle reaches of the Yangzi River drainage. Eventually, salt became crucial to the provisioning of armies by expansive states such as Qin and Chu, polities that controlled areas adjacent to the Three Gorges region, and the existing networks of salt exchange became catalysts to the incorporation of this area into a unified Chinese empire.” (Flad, et al.; 2005)
So, if we push the history of large-scale salt production in China back to the second millennium B.C.E. and we recognise the key importance of its trade in the region into the 20th century A.D., a picture emerges whereby salt was traded very likely into Polynesia, probably from some time after the 2nd millennium B.C.E., but definitely in the time of the Christian Era.
Salt production in Fiji
Solar-evaporation salt-works has been located on the Sigatoka Sand Dunes on the island of Viti Levu. Fiji. Here seawater was used “on large flanged clay dishes. This short-lived industry of the seventh century AD disappeared beneath the dunes, but its documented nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors offer it many useful analogies: the salt, now extracted by boiling brine, was supplied to inland communities upriver, where it functioned as a prime commodity for prestige and trade and an agent of social change.” (Salt Production at a Post-Lapita Village reporting on Burley, D. V.; 2011)
“The solar production site is dated to between 2100-900 years ago (BP), with cultural characteristics thought to have been influenced by contact with Vanuatu and New Caledonia.” (Salt Production at a Post-Lapita Village reporting on Burley, D. V.; 2011)
This is very significant since it utilizes seawater to produce salt. Williams, T. (1858) reports on salt from inland sources in Fiji. I assume these were very old sites. He also mentions salt regularly as items of trade which leads me to speculate that salt was part of Fijian society for a long time by 1858 when he wrote. Salt was, without doubt, part and parcel of Fijian culture by the time New Zealand was colonised by Polynesians.
Use of salt on Samoa
In Samoa, my attention is drawn, not to salt production but to an ancient reference to salt from one of their legends. In a variety of the legend of Sina and the eel, Sina’s mother went down to the sea to draw saltwater for cooking. This is, in my opinion, probably one of the oldest forms of the use of salt and one that I am sure must have been known by all coastal dwellers. From such natural liquid brines, I suspect, salt as a condiment and salt for preservation developed. (Andersen, J. C.; 1928: 251)
There is an interesting correlation from the island of Madagascar, given to us by Campbell in his 1822 “Campbell’s Travels.” He writes about the local people of Madagascar that salt was almost unknown to them. He says that by the coast, people add a little bit of seawater to the meat they cooked in pots and in the interior, they added the leaves of a tree called the “salt tree.” (Campbell, 1822). This is a concrete historical president of what is eluded to in the myth. The second part of Campbell’s observation speaks about plants containing high salt percentages. It leads us into salt production in New Guinea. It is this technology which was pervasive in southern Africa which I regularly encountered on my trips to the interior.
Salt in New Guinea
One of the areas in Polynesia with the richest history of salt is undoubtedly New Guinea. A method used is burning salted plants and collecting the salt grains from the ashes and charcoal. Here, in “Papua (western part of New Guinea, Indonesia), the Western Dani conduct expeditions and live in temporary habitations built near (salt) springs, where they would work to produce large and hard salt cakes. After an agreement with the landowners (the Moni), who will furnish the necessary food against shells, fineries, pigs or axes, men will look in the forest for necessary raw material: young stems of porous edible plants (Elastostema macrophylla Brogn from Urticaceae family) and trunks of peculiar trees which produce scant ashes and large charcoal after burning. After cleaning the spring pool, and reinforce the dam to prevent the inflow of freshwater from the nearby river, plants are soaked for more than a day and a night. While the plants are soaking in salty water, men go and collect vegetal material (leaves, bark, and rattan) to pack the salt, and clean the flat terrace in front of the houses, in order to install the woodpile where salted plant will be burnt.
Plants are taken out of the pool, and put together near the woodpile during the following night, after the night rains. The slow and controlled combustion of the plants lasts for seven hours. The flames are blown-out with brine. In the early morning, during long hours, from amongst the ashes and charcoal, men will carefully sort out the little salt concentrations in the shape of the hollows of the plants. Collected in a great wooden plate, these concentrations are piled and riddled with a portage net, and the charcoal rejected down the terrace.
The salt and ashes are powder are placed on long pandanus leaves in a rectangular frame limited with thin little boards held vertically with little pegs. Mixed with brine, the paste is compressed and packed down in the mould before the leaves are folded. The salt cakes will be carefully dripped and dried during the more than a week above the fireplace until it becomes a hard and compact “stone salt”, resistant to dampness and long-distance transport.
The obtained salt is a light-gray product, rich in sodium chloride and having very few impurities. New Guinea had a sophisticated form of salt extraction.
Salt in Vanuatu
Vanuatu is a South Pacific Ocean nation made up of roughly 80 islands. “Archaeological evidence supports the theory that people speaking Austronesian languages first came to the islands about 3,300 years ago”. (Bedford, et al, 2008) “Pottery fragments have been found dating to 1300–1100 BC.” Here, the Sago Palm (Metroxylon) has been used as a source of salt from antiquity.
Jean-Michel Dupuyoo (2007) writes that “Sago palms of the genus Metroxylon, is a potential source of salt; or more accurately, vegetable salt. Certain parts of the plant, mainly leaves and petioles, produce ashes rich in salt, which is separated from the ash with water. This saline solution is then used both for seasoning food and the preparation of sauces. Some traditional societies in the center of Espiritu Santo still use these ashes.” “Some other species, such as banana trees (Musa spp.) and tree ferns (Cyathea spp.) are also used in the extraction of vegetable salt.” (Dupuyoo, 2007)
Dupuyoo then makes a startling revelation. He writes, “according to my correspondents, this practice was at one time their only method of obtaining salt, as access to the sea was often forbidden in times of local warfare.” (Dupuyoo, 2007) This correlates to the practice eluded to the Samoan legend of Sina of boiling food in seawater to obtain the salt. It is something I have long suspected as the first addition of salt to food and the origins of discovering its preserving power as meat was often stored in water in ancient times as one of the earliest forms of preservation.
This raises an interesting observation. From my studies of the diets of ancient people from southern Africa, I discovered that a vegetarian diet from the vegetation in this region will not supply you with the necessary daily sodium requirement. This, however, only applies to certain plants, nuts, berries, and fruits. Some of them are high in sodium and they are endemic to certain places in the world where it will then be possible to maintain an adequate sodium intake without the consumption of any meat or milk.
Healthline reports that “we should aim for less than 1500 mg of sodium per day, and definitely not more than 2300 mg. Keep in mind that salt contains both sodium and chloride. Only 40% of the weight of salt consists of sodium, so you can actually eat 2.5 times more salt than sodium. 1500 mg of sodium amounts to 0.75 teaspoons or 3.75 grams of salt per day, while 2300 mg amounts to one teaspoon or 6 grams of salt per day.”
“According to the experts, a mammy apple contains the most sodium per serving. One of these large round tropical fruits contains 127 milligrams of sodium.” (U.S. Department of Agriculture) If we consume 11 of these apples, per day, we will take sufficient sodium in. “Guavas and passion fruit are the only other fruits in the raw form that contain 50 milligrams of sodium or more per serving.” This means we have to eat at least 30 per day to get enough sodium.
One of the leading anthropologists on this region is undoubtedly Joël Bonnemaison whose work stretch from 1960 until his untimely death in 1997. In his work, he covered the archipelago and regional groupings and identities in Maewo, Ambae and, Pentecost in the north, in central Vanuatu, and especially in his classic study of Tanna society. He lists salt and fish as two of the commodities traded between coastal and inland communities which existed pre-European contact. (Haberkorn, G., 1992, quoting Bonnemaison)
Salt was undoubtedly part of popular culture in Vanuatu presumably long before the August 1774 contact with Europeans.
Salt in Taiwan
Like New Zealand, no rock salt deposits exist in Taiwan. Yet, a stela with the inscriptions made by a Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368) official, bearing instructions for the construction of salt fields in Wuzhou, Kinmen was found in Taiwu Mountain in Kinmen. (atc.archives.gov.tw/salt)
There are records of Europeans, Chinese and Japanese coming to Taiwan as early as the second half of the 16th century, for either transferring commodities to the third countries or for trading with the Taiwanese aborigines with agate, cloth, salt, copper, etc. for buckskin (Nakayama, 1959, 24-25). The method of production was presumably based on boiling sea water until salt only is left. This assumption is from the fact that “in the mid-seventeenth century, Cheng Cheng-kung, or Koxinga as he is commonly known, retreated to Taiwan after the fall of the Ming dynasty (around 1644). Chen Yung-hua, one of his generals, disliked the taste of decocted salt which is produced by boiling sea water until nothing is left but a salt residue. Instead, he preferred salt produced using the solar evaporation method. In 1665 he had salt pans constructed at today’s Laikou, located in Tainan County in southern Taiwan.” (Taiwan Today, 1991)
“During the Ching dynasty, six more saltworks were developed. When Liu Ming-chuan was governor of Taiwan in the late nineteenth century, he also served as salt supervisor for the province and established a government salt bureau in Taipei, with a branch in Tainan. Despite his bureaucratic innovations, the island was only able to produce 25,000 tons of salt annually, not enough for local consumption, so additional amounts were imported from the mainland.” (Taiwan Today, 1991)
In the 17th century, there are references from the literature that Taiwan barter traded goods like sulfur, deer hides, and gold for salt, fabrics, and iron with the outside world. (Huang, Fu–san; 2005) This is consistent with the fact that local salt production was too low to supply the local demand.
Salt and the People of Southern Africa
In southern Africa, there are salt pans and salt marshes dotted across the landscape. Technology transfer happened across the region. Högberg, A., and Lombard, M.. 2016 have investigated the nature of the technology transfer related to Still Bay Point-Production at Hollow Rock Shelter and Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter and Knowledge-Transfer Systems in Southern Africa at about 80-70 000 years ago. Even though there is much that is still uncertain, what is clear is that there was technology transfer between groups across the region. (Högberg, A., and Lombard, M.; 2016) They offer a detailed treatment on ways in which technology transfer took place across vast regions at this particular time in prehistory and knowledge of salts, and its trading would most certainly have followed similar patterns.
Looking at the conditions at the Cape, for example, 300 years ago certainly does not tell us what conditions were like 100 000 years ago, but if we recognise that at least as far as human influence on the environment, major changes accompanies European colonialization. It is instructive to get a glimpse of the region pre-European settlement.
Mentzel describes the abundance of salt in the 1700 Cape Conoly when he writes that in the Drakenstein area “shrubs and renoster-bushes have to serve as firewood and a few small springs supply drinking water. The rainwater that remains in deepened holes very soon becomes dirty and foul in summer and partly brak too: an infallible sign that the soil is saturated with many salt particles and could furnish salt in case of need. It is certain that at one time the entire Cape had brine pits in very many places, not only in the Groenekloof, Zwartkops river, Zwellendam, Saldanha Bay, between the Soete Melks and Gouritz Rivers but indeed in a hundred spots besides, even lying above ground in summer in the Cape district, so that one had merely to gather up the salt and carry it away.” This picture of the Cape is one that we are not familiar with and in the face of such abundance, the gathering of salt would not have left any archeological evidence.
It has been shown that the Khoe in Natal traded in salt from the Makgadikgadi basin eastwards to Zimbabwe. The “location of stone ruins of the Zimbabwe IKhami culture on the edge of the Pan suggests that this trade could be of considerable antiquity.” (Denbow, 1986)
It is in my opinion beyond reason to believe that the people used their investigative techniques of taste, smell, feel, grinding, burning, dissolving, evaporation and crystallization on matters related to resins, ochre, and sand, but not in regards to salt. They shared knowledge concerning matters of technology far higher up the development ladder such as producing knives, spear, and arrow points and the technology to fasten these onto handles. They produced complex art from the examples in Blombos. They have clearly experimented with the inclusion of different ingredients in glue, important in hunting. It is unthinkable that they did not use the same techniques in experimenting with the object of the hunting namely their food.
Notice the point about the abundance of salt in the soil from the Mentzel quote. It is my guess that the salt content of the plants would have been a lot higher then than it is today and ash from these shrubs would have had a high concentration of sodium. These conditions did not develop overnight and the formation of the salt pits and the accompanying ease of access for humans and animals undoubtedly reach far back into prehistory.
Archaeology is developing sophisticated analytical techniques which will undoubtedly bring concrete facts to light and will clarify the use of salt in prehistory as it is already doing. I may, however, have found some reference in the work of Schapera (1930), The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa and O. F. Mentzel, in his 1778 work, “A Complete & Authentic GEOGRAPHICAL & TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS & (ALL THINGS CONSIDERED) REMARKABLE AFRICAN CAPE OF GOOD HOPE that may be a prelude of sorts to future findings.
Mantzel, in his book, spars with Kolbe who tried to draw parallels between the Khoi and the Jewish people. Mantzel refutes this and makes his arguments off as nonsense. He writes in reference to the Khoi that “they may never eat salt unless they are among the Christians” and later that “Hottentots have no bread and are accustomed to lack of salt from their childhood since most Hottentots live in regions where salt is unobtainable. But when they visit the colonists, leavened bread and food spiced with salt taste excellent to them.” He is incorrect in saying that the Khoe who lived in areas where no natural salt deposits existed were deprived of it. They would have received it from the meat they ingested. Before the colonists arrived at the Cape, the land belonged to the Khoe who lived there and moved in and out of the area. It is however interesting how emphatic he is about the fact that salt was not part of their culture. It is my opinion that the distinction that local people did not have an intimate relationship with salt is a typical European distinction, a bias reflected in the work of many authors of the time and not necessarily bearing any resemblance to reality.
He reveals the value we must place on his opinion when he writes that one should “beware of generalising about anything pertaining to the Hottentots. We shall not have a general history of the Hottentots in a hundred years, and not before someone has taken the trouble to travel not only among their tribes but also among their families and to describe their habits and customs.” Certainly, much of his comments should then be taken “with a grain of salt!”
In his work, he is not only Eurocentric but derogatory towards the Khoe and for him, the use of salted meat is a sign of the superior culture of the Europeans. Just how much this influenced later interpreters is a good question and how pervasive was this view at the time? It certainly would have skewed their information related to the subject of salted meat.
The first quote of interest from Schapera who is far more objective than Mantzel and is a possible reference to the antiseptic value in ash. He writes, “Scarification seems also to have been employed among the Cape Hottentots and still is among the Naman, in connexion with a large variety of ceremonies — boys’ puberty rites, hunting rites, remarriage, healing of disease, etc. It consists in a number of small cuts made by the officiating person on the chest of the individual concerned, and the wounds are rubbed with ashes, producing slight permanent scars.”
It is very likely that one of the earliest encounters of humans with salt was in ash when they scavenged on carcasses of animals killed in wildfires. “Grinding” and “dissolving” was probably two of the earliest investigative techniques developed by early humans, probably even before the invention of technology to produce fire. Once this technology was invented, it took the investigation to another level when they were able to burn and dissolve and salt was undoubtedly have been one of the earliest discoveries in plant ash.
The percentage of salt in ash, however, depends on the plant itself and the soil it grew in. There are also a number of other “salts” besides sodium chloride which would have aided in disinfecting the wound. The alkaline character of ash is the main reason behind its disinfecting ability. It is just as likely that they would have noticed that seawater (saltwater) had a similar “cleansing” effect on wounds. Far more complicated mixtures were used as medication from ancient times. It is unlikely that they would not have valued sea and saltwater in a similar manner. In a time when nothing was wasted and any human excrement was valued, they may have even kept and stored urine for exactly the same reason. (How did Ancient Humans Preserve Food?) Whether it was kept and stored or not, it is clear that among the Khoi people of southern Africa, urine had a value.
Upham reports on one such reference, from Mentzel, related to the coming of age ceremony of young men. Mentzel writes that “the sons do not mix with adults until they are fairly grown-up and are at least 18 years of age. They are then supposed to have outgrown their childhood and are initiated into manhood. This is accompanied by some ceremonies and a feast, the youth being well rubbed in with fat, soot, and sprinkled with buchu by the oldest inhabitant of the kraal.” (Upham) (Notice the prominent feature of soot)
“The youth, thus liberally smeared with fat, is not slow to scratch deep ruts in the ointment with his hands and nails across the length and breadth of his body so that they can be well filled with the essence to follow. The old man then approaches the youth and urinates all over him, from top to bottom, as long as there is a drop left in his bladder, and the youth busily rubs this costly balsam in as thoroughly as possible to get full use out of it.” (Upham)
Mentzel displays a severe case of misplaced Eurocentricity in interpretation and misses the point when he states that “some writers see in this ceremony a religious act, but it is nothing of the kind, being only a ceremony invented to provide something out of the common and festive, to attract a measure of attention. Similar festive acts are practised by all idolators and heathens which, in the absence of scientific knowledge, have been invented by their priests and druids, to make a hocus-pocus for the common people, and which have neither a mystical nor mythological nor an allegorical meaning. Superstition, which is much worse than unbelief, demands something perceptible and dazzling. The Hottentots possess no skill, imagination or power of invention and have too few things they might pretend to be mysterious. That is why they have seized upon this most convenient means of providing something, at least at such a festivity, a means which they have at hand without any trouble or expense. They use the same ceremony, called the “Pisplechtigheid” (‘Urinal Ceremony’) by the Hollanders, when 2 persons wish to cohabit or get married.” (Upham) Most certainly, the act of urinating on the boys or the couple to be married was filled with meaning and in all likelihood reflected a rich tradition from prehistory. Liquids, potions, and substances of various kinds had a deep spiritual as well as functional meaning and the earliest inhabitants of the region undoubtedly devoted much time to investigate these matters.
A second interesting Schapera quote relates to the naming of tribes. He writes about a group of San called Xom-khoin. He explains this name by stating that it referred to the “people who xom or scrape together” and then says that “the name indicates their method of collecting salt on the Etosha Pan, along whose southern border they live.” This correlates with what one would expect namely a collection of salt by scraping or gathering it from the surface of the salt pan. There is, however, the possibility that he is wrong in his interpretation of the reason behind the name as he himself acknowledges.
The third interesting Schapera quote relates to the knowledge that animals either congregate around water or salt. Schapera describes a hunting technique used by the San where the men “lie in wait for the game on its way to the water, or in the vicinity of a place where it comes to lick salt. The men hide themselves between stones, or dig a hole in the ground, piling up the earth in front and sticking green branches on top to deceive the game. Occasionally, again, several men surround game in a pan, some standing to leeward ready to shoot, while the others drive from wind-ward, approaching from different quarters.”
The observation that animals are drawn to salt is without a doubt one of the ways that early humans discovered the value of consuming salt. Simple observation would have led them to likewise taste the salt and it would have tasted good due to our own physiology in having special receptors that taste it. If for no other reason, humans would have consumed salt even from a time before we developed complex cognition simply because we like the taste. For the same reason, we would have been drawn to honey. This fact alone would place the incorporation of the consumption of salt at least 100 000 years ago and probably much earlier.
“Tasting” as an investigative technique is undoubtedly behind our very early discovery of different salts and working out how to separate them. We would have tasted the potassium in most of the ash compared to the sodium in some. Dissolving the ash in water, scraping off the particles that float and crystallising what was left by evaporating the water is without a doubt a very ancient technique of extracting two different kinds of salt. We would soon have discovered that different salts re-crystallize at different rates by simple observation and by continuing to taste the water.
Schapera, however, gives more details of the Khoe’s relationship to salt. He writes that when they killed an animal, “there is hardly a single portion of the animal not eaten. Even the skin, when not required for other purposes, is roasted in the fire, so that the hair may burn away, and is then cut into strips, which are beaten soft with stones and cooked in water, or preferably milk. All meat is as a rule prepared; sometimes it is cooked in water in wooden (formerly clay) pots, sometimes roasted on spits over the fire, or it may be baked in hot ashes. Fire was formerly made by friction, by the same drilling method as used by the Bushmen.” This was one of the ways that the San and the Khoi added salt to meat.
He then continues with the most interesting reference to meat as it directly speaks to preservation. He writes that “when not eaten immediately, or when plenty of game has been caught and not all of it can be taken home, the meat is cut into thin strips, which are salted and dried in the air. In this condition, it will last for a considerable time, and can also be eaten raw.” This 1930 report on a Khoe practice becomes my earliest possible reference to meat preservation by an indigenous southern African tribe to preserve meat. He writes that “the Boer method of making “biltong” is probably derived from this old Hottentot practice.” As an interesting side note, notice the love of fat which is similar to something I learned from the Maori people. He writes that “meat broth is not especially esteemed, but the fat of the animal, either raw or as dripping, is highly appreciated and is sometimes drunk warm as a separate dish.”
The question is of course if the Dutch farmers saw the salting of Bilting from the Khoe or were it the other way round? I don’t for a second believe that salt preservation of meat was something completely unfamiliar to the San and Khoe people and I am convinced that salt was generally available throughout the region, albeit as a “luxury item” and scarce in many areas. Whether one can rely on one reference from one author in the 1930’s to say that the Khoi made biltong and that this is its origin is a hard sell. I think it is far more plausible that biltong is the slight re-working of an old Dutch dish but it was definitely inspired by the indigenous practice (Saltpeter, Horse Sweat, and Biltong: The origins of our national food)
Upon publishing this article, M. G. Upham sent me a note and referred me to the work of Anders Sparrman. He published his 1786 account entitled, “A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic Polar Circle, and Round the World: but chiefly into the Country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772 to 1776. He writes about the Khoe “that they absolutely detest salt.” It is a sweeping statement. I have never come across people who “absolutely detest” salt. The context of the statement refers to the use of salt in meat. If his statement means that they detest the European heavy salted meat – they would be in good company as most people, even in Europe detested this taste which is one of the reasons why sugar was added at this time in curing recipes (to break the extremely salty taste) and why even bacon was first left in freshwater to draw some of the salt out before consuming it.
He says that they either eat the meat fresh or else dry it in the sun. The fresh meat is “dressed” by “broiling” it over coals. According to Sparrman, meat preservation of the Koe was sun-drying without salt being added. So far, then, I can only find the statement of Schapera about salt used by the Khoe to produce a kind of biltong. More references by different authors on this matter will swing the weight of the evidence, but for now, I remain sceptical.
There is one further Schapera-reference to look at. He writes about the burial practices of the Khoe people. “As soon as a death has taken place, the body of the person is prepared for burial. Formerly according to a description given by Scheppmann, the hands were crossed over the breast, and the head bent forward between the legs, which were sharply folded at the knee. The body was then fastened together and wrapped in skins. Hahn adds that before the body was wrapped up in this way or sewn up in skins, the son of the dead man first killed a goat and smeared the body of his father with the blood — a practice not mentioned by other writers.” Nowadays the eyes of the dead person are closed, then the body is washed by old women, and stretched flat on its back; the arms lie along the sides, and the hands, palm downward, are folded over the bosom. The body is then wrapped and sewn up in skins, whose hairy side, strewn with huchu is turned inwards. The face remains free till shortly before burial, when it is covered with a bit of skin which has been set aside and which is now loosely stitched to the others.”
The fascinating part of the quote is a reference to a 1712 work by Biden and Kling which says that “in these more degenerate days the body may sometimes be sewn up in old bags, if obtainable, and a small amount of salt is placed on its chest, to prevent it from decomposing. Burial takes place as a rule on the afternoon following the day of death. Till then the corpse is left alone lying on the ground skins in the hut, while the relatives, neighbours, and friends spend the whole night together outside the hut singing.”
The dating of the reference is of interest. It is made 60 years after the arrival of Van Riebeeck at the Cape of Good Hope. The possible reference to meat preservation is certainly in reference to a time before any Western influences changed the Khoe’s burial culture. Of course, there is the possibility that Biden and Kling misinterpreted the purpose of the salt. In reality, placing salt on the chest of the deceased would not have contributed to preserving the body in any way and he states in the very next sentence that the body was buried the next day which makes it even more irrelevant.
Unlike the biltong reference, there are ample references from history, African history and southern African history in particular related to salt being used in preserving human bodies, as a medicine for people who develop complications due to a meat deficient diet and its value as an antiseptic and the treatment of wounds. These references all stem from Botswana and Zambia and it refers in all likelihood to traditions that predate European influences.
David Livingston, working in Botswana, describes that he often saw conditions in the early 1800’s on his travels in Africa, where poor people were forced to live on a vegetarian diet alone and as a result of this developed indigestion. His comment came in the context of a reference to the Bakwains, part of the Bechuana people, who allowed rich and poor to eat from the meat hunted. He mentions that the doctors knew what the cause of the indignation was and that it was related to a lack of salt intake. (Hyde, A., et al.; 1876: 150)
When Livingston passed away in Zambia in 1875, the tribe used salt to preserve his body after which his body was exposed to the sun for 14 days to dry in an embalming ceremony. Livingston’s embalming was done in order to facilitate the repatriation of the body. (Hyde, A., et al.; 1867: 150) This shows that even though salt consumption in this region was by all accounts low, especially in light of the abundance of the resource, the knowledge of its benefits existed and was a part of pre-Colonial life.
Another credible report came to us from the father-in-law of David Livingston in the person of Robert Moffat (21 December 1795 – 9 August 1883), the Scottish Congregationalist missionary to Africa. The observations of Moffat is reported by Johnston (1914) in his work, Pioneers in South Africa. Around 1826 Moffatt made the following observation which directly speaks to salt as a preservative. Not for animal flesh, but insects. Locusts in particular. He wrote that “whenever a cloud of locusts alighted at a place not far distant from a native town or village, the natives turned out with sacks and even with pack-oxen, and returned to their homes with millions of locusts, which were soon afterwards prepared for eating by being boiled, or rather steamed, in a large pot with a little water, closely covered. After boiling for a short time they were taken out and spread on mats in the sun to dry. Then, by winnowing, they were rid of their legs and wings, and were afterwards packed into sacks or thrown in heaps on the clean floors of huts. The natives either ate them whole with a little salt or pounded them in a wooden mortar into a kind of meal, which they afterwards mixed with water and made into a cold porridge of locusts. On food like this, the natives would become fat, and even the missionaries did not refuse to eat the locusts; for, when well fed on new vegetation, they were ”as good as shrimps”
Whenever salt was available and preservation with salt was an option, it can be well imagined that the native inhabitants of southern Africa did not hesitate to use it as such. Indeed the knowledge was part of this lad before the arrival of Europeans and there is no reason to doubt that it has been the case for aeons of time. It is, after all, not such a difficult thing to figure out!
The abundance of food – a possible reason for low salt usage
It is undeniable that salt was scarce in many regions in southern Africa. This is however not true for vast regions where salt was in abundance. The question comes up why not even in these regions salt never became entrenched in the culture of local peoples, at least not those in recent history that we still had contact with before European influences changed their culture. Deacon (1993) found no evidence that stone age foragers stored plants for future consumption other than oil-rich seed and fruits used as cosmetics. It seemed that there was a heavy reliance on the bounty of food in the environment and sharing networks. Peoples living in the Kalahari relied heavily on plant foods which in the past possibly made up as much as 80% of all food consumed.
This would have applied to meat preservation also and despite the fact that it occurred, there is no evidence that it was a regular practice by either the Khoe or the San. The abundance of food in prehistoric southern Africa must have been something to behold. I recently spoke to a man who told me when he was a small boy and they went fishing with his father, the size of shellfish they used to pick up on the beach was astronomical. This is a small example of the scale of the abundance of food in southern Africa which places the question of meat preservation in a completely new light. Coupled with this the realization that ancient humans probably ate fermented and partially decomposed meat for the largest part of prehistory, puts the lack of salt-preserved meat even further in context. BUT, the notion that the people, native to southern Africa did not know about the antiseptic and preserving nature of salt is in my opinion not probable.
Ash in Food
On one of my own journeys into the interior, Minette accompanied me. In the Eastern Transvaal, we passed a cave that has been intermittently inhabited since 85 000 before the present. At the cave, we found an old man who was stationed there by the farmer who owned the land to prevent people from entering it and vandalising it. This old man’s memory through his father goes back at least 170 years. He gave a very definitive link between dried meat and salt. Not in the form of salt, but in the form of ash. He clearly remembers his dad telling him that before meat that was hung out to dry is consumed, the meat is either boiled again or roasted in ash.
This speaks to the entire issue of the history of biltong, but it shows that meat was indeed, as one can expect, cooked “in the ash” and was probably done so for many years before cooking pots were invented. That the ash gave a flavour to the meat is evident from the enduring nature of the practice and by the testimony of the elder at the cave. Not only is it improbable for the ancients of Southern Africa not to have known about the preserving power of salt, but in all likelihood, they regularly supplemented their diet with salt through ash. The percentage of salt is dependant on the type of tree or shrub used for the source of the ash, but that they received a variety of minerals through this practice is clear.
FAR more important than any of this, he remembers that they rolled the meat in the ash before it was hung out to dry. He makes a very interesting point that if you don’t do that, how else will you keep the flies and other insects from the meat. This is a remarkable statement. It means that salt and minerals like potassium were definitely applied to the meat BEFORE it was hung out to dry.
Elanor Muller sent me the following additional information regarding the practice of drying meat and then rehydrating it in a stew. The Zimbabwean Ndebele people have a traditional dish which they call Ewomileyo. Modern-day people add peanut butter to the dish. This is no doubt done in accordance with an old practice of adding nuts to the meat dish. It is also called Umhwabha or the Zulu name for it is Umqayiba. In Venda, it is done in two ways. Dried meat is placed on a braai or they grill it and stump it. It is then cooked, or dried meat is recooked and mixed with peanuts. All vegetables and meat, mixed with peanuts are called Dovhi.
The fact of dried meat as something that was customarily done when large game was killed is by now a well-documented fact and one that reaches back into antiquity. The thing that everybody probably omits when they describe the practice of drying may be the rubbing of the meat with ash because even in rural Africa today, there are today other ways to keep flies and insects off the meat. In describing the way it is currently done, eyewitnesses may either omit the testimony by the elder at the cave or they may, in reality, use different modern methods. Their purpose in antiquity for rubbing or rolling the meat in ash may have been to manage the flies, but in actual fact, they achieved the rapid kind of dehydration required to lower the water activity in the meat to a level where microorganisms could no longer proliferate. This dehydration (lowering of the water activity) is even today the main reason why salt is used. In many ways, preservation IS the removal of free, unbound water from meat. The dehydration would be achieved through the salts as well as the air movement in the form of wind as the meat hangs in the trees. If this was done in the cool of the day and sufficient dehydration occurred before the meat temperature was raised to levels that would favour microbial growth (through the sun), the ancients of Southern Africa would have indeed cured their meat! If the curing was not effective, the meat would be roasted in ash again, as explained by the elder at the cave, which would have mitigated the off-flavours in exactly the same way as we use garlic or pepper or any other strong spice to “mask” off flavours today.
A few days after our arrival in the far North East of the country, we had a fascinating discussion with Piet Otto. Piet grew up as a Zulu boy, even undergoing their inauguration rights. As a young man, he was so fascinated with the ability of the Bushman to track their prey that he lived with a tribe of Bushman in the wild for almost 8 months. In small pouches, Bushman, to this day carries a small quantity of salt with them for a variety of purposes. He further attests to the practice that many tribes cooked their meat by burying it in the hot ash or laying it on top of the ash and the nice flavour that was imparted into the meat in this manner. He told us that there are many ancient salt mines in the area and that salt was not unknown to the local tribes. They, however, seldom used it in its pure form the way westerners did and still do.
The clear evidence, however, stands that local people of Southern Africa salted and dried their meat. The salting was achieved through ash. Once I knew not to look for salt, but for ash, I found the practice remarkably well documented. In his 1908 publication, Travels in Southern Africa, Henry Lichtenstein records, about the Tswana people from Bechuana Land that “salt properly, they have none; instead of it they make use of natron, or the ash of a certain salt succulent plant: their favourite mode of dressing their meat is to roast it in the ashes.” (Lichtenstein, 1803)
Evidence from 1687
Evidence is clear that the people from Southern Africa were well aware of salt including its use as a preservative. In 1897 George McCall Theal published his “History of South Africa Under the Administration of the Dutch East India Company, 1652 to 1795″. He tells a story that goes back to 1687 where “a party of shipwrecked men arrived at the Bay of Natal.” They were from the Bona Ventura of London which was lost on 25 December 1686 at St. Lucia Bay. “One of her crew was drowned, and the remaining eight men and a boy set out with the intention of walking overland to the Cape of Good Hope, but to their great joy, they found at Natal a party of Europeans and a vessel nearly ready for sea. The newcomers were welcomed to a share of whatever the others had, and in return joined them in the labour on hand.”
“Soon after this, the little vessel was launched and named the Centaurus.” He then makes the following fascinating statement. He writes that “a supply of provisions was purchased from the natives (at the bay of Natal), consisting of about six or seven thousand pounds of millet, a thousand pounds of salted and smoked meat, a quantity of millet ground into meal, twenty goats, between two and three hundred fowls, and a hundred and fifty pumpkins. Seventeen small casks of water were put on board, and the ivory which the Englishmen had obtained in barter was shipped.” The native people of Natal smoked and salted their meat. That is clear.
To complete the story, “the difficult task which they had undertaken was at length finished, and on the 17th of February 1687, a year and a day after the wreck of the Stavenisse, the Centaurus was ready for sea. But at the last moment throe of the Englishmen who had been wrecked in the William Christian of the Good Hope resolved to remain behind. They had formed connections with the natives, and contrasting the ease of life at Natal with the hardships endured at sea, they clung to the former. An Englishman and a Frenchman of the Rmoi Ventura’s crew also preferred to stay where they were. There sailed then in the Centaurtis the eleven men of the Stavenisse, seven of the Bona Ventura, and John Kingston and William Christian of the Good Hope.”
“They had neither chart nor compass, so they kept in sight of the coast all the way to Table Bay, where they arrived safely on the 1st of March.” (McCall Theal, 1897) The facts of the knowledge of salt and its many uses by the peoples of southern Africa is obscure, but when one begins to dig, its evidence becomes replete. It becomes clear that curing and smoking of meat are not confined to the people of Italy, Germany, Spain or England and that Africa itself has a rich and long history, stretching back into antiquity.
Why is the Sea Salty?
Having given ample treatment to salt found on land, there is the last question we have to look at and that is the nature of the salinity of the sea. How does salt end up in the sea and other bodies of water? Why is the sea, salty? These questions plagued humanity for centuries and many authors examined the question. The famous pre-Socratic philosopher and poet, Empedocles (490-430BC) said that seawater is “the Sweat of the Earth.” Aristotle (384-322BC) observed that saltwater was heavier and denser than freshwater and that it contained more than just salt and commented on both its salt and bitter taste. The Roman natural philosopher and naval commander Pliny the Elder (25 – 76AC) wrote extensively about it; the philosopher, Lucius Seneca (3BCE – 65AD) noticed that water level and the salinity of the sea remained constant even though the water was constantly being added by rivers and rain. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) discussed the matter at length in his famous “The Notebooks” (Note 946). Robert Boyle, published in 1674, “Observations and Experiments in the Saltness of the Sea.” In the late 18th century, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) used evaporation with a solvent extraction to obtain data for his analysis of seawater. He wrote papers on seawater and the Dead Sea. Torbern Bergman (1774) examined all natural water and developed a list of the substances that he had identified in seawater. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), the famous French chemist and physicist devoted considerable energy to the study of seawater and its saltiness. The Danish chemist Johann Georg Forchhammer (1794-1865) focused on an accurate estimation of the principal salt components, such as chlorine, sulfuric acid, magnesia, lime, potash, and soda. Georg Forchhammer found that the ratio of major salts in samples of seawater from various locations was constant, known as Forchhammer’s Principle, or the Principle of Constant Proportions. There is the legendary work of W Dittmar (1884) on 77 samples collected by the chemist J Y Buchanan during the Challenger Expedition (1872-1876). (progression from salinometry.com)
Hundreds of years of scientific inquiry eventually culminated in the realisation that the saltiness of the sea was the result of the erosion of the earth’s crust and its transport to the sea by the rivers. Condensation of freshwater from the sea would probably increase the saltiness. Every mineral and element found in the earth is therefore found in seawater, salt marches, and salt springs. The most abundant two elements in the sea are the elements of sodium and chloride (47 millimoles of sodium and 546 millimoles of chloride per L of seawater). This fact reflects the abundance of these elements in the earth’s crust and throughout the universe. (Laszlo, P, 1998: 92)
The salt of the earth becomes the salt of the sea and marshes and springs where the elements from the soil are transported to and combine in a crystal, rich in the fullness of the earth itself with elements like magnesium, sulfur, calcium, potassium, bromine, carbon and many others. These elements add taste to salt, yet industrialisation demands that we strip them out to produce what is called a pure salt comprising of only sodium and chloride.
Pure Sodium Chloride for Industry
The hungry monster created by the industrialized revolution had to be fed and one of the foods it loved most is salt – pure salt! So followed a scramble to produce just that. The Belgian chemist, Ernest Sovay invented a process to create soda ash (sodium carbonate) in 1861 from salt brine. He took limestone which contains calcium carbonate and applied heat to it which releases the carbon dioxide. Together with ammonia and sodium chloride, it is one of the main chemical feedstocks of the industrial revolution and is used to make glass. Much of the chlorine production in the world currently in the 1890s goes towards the production of bleaching agents, produced by an electrolysis method. (Stringer, R and Johnston, P, 2001: 1)
The Chloralkali process is emerging as an even larger industry using salt. When electricity is passed through salt brine (often with the aid of mercury), two major chemical products are produced: caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and chlorine. (1) (Bitterman, M, 2010: 25) There is currently recognition around the world that much money is to be made from electrochemistry and the transmission of table salt to chlorine and caustic soda in a single step. (Stringer, R and Johnston, P, 2001: 1)
Synthesised salt industries are emerging, for example, the Wyandotte Chemical Company and Dow Chemical Company in the USA. Dow Chemicals is pioneering its own processes to produce caustic soda and hydrochloric acid that will be used in producing sodium chloride (table salt). (Laszlo, P, 1998: 109)
I can understand the focus on sodium chloride, from an industrial perspective. If the other components found in seawater are not required to drive the industrial processes; if other elements can complicate it for the industrial machine, why not purify it to the point where almost all other elements have been removed? In experiments done at many of the universities, we already see glimpses of what chlorine can give us. It is magnificent. I can see a future time when there will only be pure sodium chloride available as salt and the world will be poorer for it.
Natural Salt
Industrialization takes salt to what nature never intended it to be namely pure sodium chloride. Naturally and normally, when this happens, the main thing that suffers is our own taste and the culinary arts that rely on the rich and fullness of the taste of natural salt, brought about by the presence of many elements.
There is a move in Europe, as probably across the world, away from the different artisan salt companies, who produce salts, as distinct as different wines from Italy and Spain. It becomes difficult for them to compete with salt that is produced synthetically for industry. Industry also demands salt companies who recover salt from the ocean, springs, and mine it from the earth to remove every other element except sodium and chloride.
Despite the obvious advantages of science and industrialisation, this seems to be a wholly unfortunate move. We are losing our soul! Sacrificing that which is unique and tasty and requires skills, passed down through hundreds of years, yes, in many instances for thousands of years, for something common and ordinary and universally the same, intended for industrial use.
Livingston once told my dad about huge salt reserves in the interior of the continent, the vast salt pans of Africa. One is called Ntwetwe in Betsuhana Land (3), which he, Livingston, has described as 25km’s long and 160 across. Then there are the salt pans of Unyanyembe and many more. (Livingstone, D, 2002: 72,630) Even just to the north of Cape Town are salt works that have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years. I intend to suggest to Oscar that we keep using this natural salt with its unique quality and that we get hold of the salts of Ntwetwe to see if the taste differs from that which we find in Europe. I strongly suspect it will!
I see no reason why we cannot produce bacon in Africa as unique as the bacon from England, Germany, America, and Holland and a differentiating feature can be that we use unrefined African salt. Our mission is to first understand how the Europeans make bacon and then to change it slightly, thus creating a signature product that contains the spirit of the African land.
The Taste of Salt
I thought that we would start our consideration of sodium chloride by looking at its preserving function. In fact, to my surprise, we started with salt and its taste. Taste is as important as its function and saltpetre and sugar are normally added to mask the saltiness of the meat. If we can alter the taste, enhance it, by the simple act of being very careful where we buy our salt, then this seems like a most excellent suggestion. John Harris reminded me that if our trade is the production of food, we are in the first place obliged to produce something of superb taste.
Our own bodies are about 99% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorous. The remaining 1% is potassium, sulfur, sodium, magnesium, iron and many other elements. The similarities between our bodies and what we find in seawater are striking. (Bitterman, M, 2010: 33)
I think one of the functions of taste is to differentiate between what is harmful to us and what our body needs. If salt that contains the fullness of seawater or marsh salt or salt springs taste better than pure sodium chloride (pure salt as some people call it), does it not stand to reason that there must be something intrinsically healthy in the natural, unrefined salt? Taste is one of the most important determining factors in what we use in our food. It is known that taste elicits a sensation, on parr with sexual experiences which explains why food prominently feature in combination with the sexual.
Lake Asale
Implications about the origin of nitrite/ nitrate curing
It is not possible for a curing man to discuss sodium chloride and after such a lengthy consideration not return to the matter of nitrate curing. While people living in desert areas would have discovered that certain salts have the ability to change the colour of meat from brown, back to pinkish/ reddish, along with increased preservation power and a slightly distinct taste, it is certainly true that coastal dwellers would have observed the same. They would have noticed that sea salt or bay salt have the same ability.
Dr. Francois Mellett, a renown South African food scientist, sent me the following very interesting theory about the earliest discovery of the curing process in a private communication between us on the matter. He wrote, “I have a theory that curing started even earlier by early seafarers: when a protein is placed in seawater, the surface amino acids are de-aminated to form nitrite for a period of 4 to 6 weeks. Nitrite is then converted to nitrate over the next 4 weeks. Finally, ammonia and ammoniac are formed from nitrate. It is possible that they preserved meat in seawater barrels and that the whole process of curing was discovered accidentally.”
I think he is on the right track. I suspect that people discovered this even long before barrels were invented. The use of seawater for meat storage and further preparation was so widespread that it would have been impossible not to have noticed meat curing taking place. If it is generally true that earliest humans first settled around coastal locations before migrating inland, it could push the discovery of curing many thousands of years earlier than we ever imagined, to a time when modern humans started spreading around the globe. When did it develop into an art or a trade is another question altogether, but I think we can safely push the time when it was noticed back to the earliest cognitive and cultured humans whom we would have recognized as thinking “like us” if we could travel back in time and meet them. I think the question of recognition in different regions we can safely put at the time when these areas were populated. The story of salt and meat curing is truly a story as old as cognitive and cultured humanity itself.
Michail at C & T Harris pointed out that not all the elements in natural salt may react with meat in the same way and that it is important that scientists apply their minds to these matters. Other elements may interfere with the curing process. Salt is a “simple crystal” with complex implications for meat curing. There is potassium in saltpetre and this does not seem to have a detrimental effect on meat curing even though it has a slight aftertaste which is unpleasant. Chilean saltpetre, being sodium nitrate seems to be a most excellent curing agent. Then again, scientists from ages past had great difficulty in distinguishing between potassium and sodium based on taste.
At first, we were looking at factory space behind the cold rooms of Combrink & Co.. Oscar showed me the land he is considering buying for the Woodys factory just outside of Paarl. There is an old butchery that we may be able to take over (4). I am very excited. It means that the plan of producing the best bacon in the world is coming together.
At the beginning of the project, I saw David and his Combrinck & Co. as our opposition, but I realise that he may end up being our customer. I am very much interested in talking to him about his plans to set up a large refrigeration plant in Cape Town. He may end up being our client and distributor.
However it works out, we have many options and have the luxury to sit back and see which one of the plans come to fruition. I am enjoying the trip back to England so much more with Minette being with me than travelling there on my own. I seriously wish that you guys could join us.
For now, focus on your schoolwork. Study hard. Spend much time on Table Mountain. Look after each other. Please send your mom and Johann our love and greetings as well as your grandparents. Minette also send you loads of love!
(1) “Today, chloralkali processing is the largest single consumer of salt. Rayon, explosives, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, shampoos, soaps, skin lotions, drying bleach, surgical cautery, petroleum refining – about fourteen thousand other products and processes all require these chemicals or the chemicals made from them. Between the Sovay and choloralkali processes, salt is the second biggest chemical feedstock after petroleum”
K+S, a German based salt producer, had a production capacity of 30 million tons of salt in 2009. China National Salt had a 19 million ton capacity. Compass Minerals and Cargill each have a capacity of about 14 million tons. Dampier has a capacity of 9 million tons, Artyomos, 7.5 million tons, Exportadora de Sel, 7 million tons, Sudsalz, 5.3 million tons, the Salins Group, 4.1 million tons, Mitsui & Co, 3.8 million tons, Kzo Nobel, 3.6 million tons. Their production is split between salt for industry/ pharmaceuticals, chemicals, roads, and the food sector.
Production is understandably geared towards the production of a pure sodium chloride salt from an industrialised perspective. Everything else is unfortunately and unjustifiably viewed as contaminants.
NaCl (sodium chloride) is a celebration of the industrialism. (Bitterman, M, 2010: 25 – 27)
Most of the small salt companies with their unique methods of salt production have been driven out of business by the march of industrialisation. Today there is a strong movement back to these artisan techniques of salt production.
Salt remains the most under-valued food ingredient and at the same time, the ingredient with the biggest potential.
(2) Northern Rhodesia is present-day Zambia and Southern Rhodesia is present-day Zimbabwe. (Gray, W, 2007: 20)
(3) Betsuhana Land is present-day Botswana.
(4) Negotiation started with Roelcor in 2013 to take over half of an existing meat factory to be used as the production facility for Woodys Consumer Brands (Pty) Ltd.
References
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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.
The Salt of the Earth
December 1892
Dear Kids,
We are bound for England, my beautiful fiance and I! Thank you for your amazing arrangements for our engagement. You guys give me endless pleasure! You made it all possible! I had the most amazing time with your grandfather! He is a formidable man. Every interaction we have is precious. He is getting old. On the one hand, it saddens me to see him being unable to do the things he could just a few years ago. On the other hand, his clarity of thought and insight into life becomes even more poignant. He continues to be intensely interested in my quest. Like he did every time I returned from a trip to the Transvaal, he prompted me to tell him everything, leaving nothing out. He would sit in his lounge chair and listen very intently, making careful mental notes on the different points he wanted clarification on.
He asked me how I propose one lives when there is so much evil perpetrated in our land against the indigenous people by the culture that I developed such enormous respect for. More than that, he wanted to know how I will respond if war would break about between the Boer republics and England. Of course, I gave him my view which is not important now. His suggestion is what I want you guys to take careful note of.
He proposed that four qualities should always rule supreme in our thinking. These four are love, compassion, understanding and respect. He explained to me that the older he gets, as he looks back over his life, the responses he had to various situations which were not in accordance with these four qualities were the ones that he regrets. The times when he responded with these attitudes, whether the outcome was materially beneficial to him or not, are the times that he is the proudest of. His motivation for choosing these are of huge interest. “It is these qualities”, he told me, “that makes us human. These qualities are all that is good and beautiful in life and its consistent application will, in the end, lead to the best outcome.” My dad then said something that I will never forget. “As you are learning the secrets of creating bacon, remember to use your knowledge in terms of love, compassion, understanding and respect. This does not mean that you don’t have to be competitive or keep secrets where it will protect work that you have done, but when faced with a choice of responses, choose the four qualities we are talking about and you will have a regret-free life. “Remains as fiercely inquisitive as you are, but never deviate from these qualities.” Your grandfather is an imposing man and has become one of my best friends. Make sure that you visit him often!
I want to use my travel time back to London to tell you more about the next beautiful aspect of making bacon namely salt.
A tender Document to supply the English navy with salted pork.
Salt
In terms of the chemistry of curing, we have made impressive progress. We learned about the importance of nitrogen and some of the compounds it forms. We looked in a bit of detail at saltpetre and how it is reduced through bacteria to nitrite which shortens the curing time of meat. It is nitrite that is responsible for the curing of meat. One will be forgiven if you think that saltpetre or sodium or potassium nitrite is the most important salts in curing, but that will be completely wrong.
The real magical ingredient in bacon is salt! So opens up to us, another vast world. The world of salt. You are by this time well familiar with the book we read in Denmark, Foods by Edward Smith, written in 1867. He writes, “the oldest and best known preserving agent is salt, with or without saltpetre.” (Smith, E, 1867: 34) (1) Remember the quote from the American Encyclopedia of 1858. It said that “Very excellent bacon may be made with common salt alone, provided it is well rubbed in, and changed sufficiently often. Six weeks in moderate weather will be sufficient for the curing of a hog of 12 score.” (Governor Emerson. 1858: 1031) (1) As I could have guessed, the story of the use of salt goes back as far as the existence of humanity itself!
Prehistory
A study has shown that common salt (sodium chloride) was probably collected and stored by one of the oldest species of the genus Homo, Homo Habilis who lived between 1.4 and 2.4 million years ago. (Munas, F.; 2014 :213) Evidence suggests that our closest extinct relative, Neanderthal who lived between 40 000 and 400 000 years ago, dried meat as a way to preserve it. (anthropology.net) It is easy to imagine them learning this very early on by observing meat scraps that remained at a killing or slaughtering site and freeze-dried or simply dried out and lasted longer than the fresh meat that was removed from the carcass. Whether they used salt is not known, but if Homo Habilis did and if they dried their meat to preserve it, it is easy to think that Neanderthal used salt also. Linking salt with nutrition and preservation of meat is easily identified by simple observation of nature. A society living next to the sea or any other salt source such as a salt pan or a salt spring, would have seen this and have incorporated it into their culture.
There is clear evidence that using salt to preserve has been practised since before the last ice age, some 12 000 years ago. Salt deposits in the hills of Austria and Poland, the shores of the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, the salt springs and sea marches across Europe and Asia (Bitterman, M, 2010: 16) and on the vast plains of Africa would have provided salt to cultures across the world. It seems as if there is not a time known to humans when salt was not used to amend our diet and quite possibly to preserve meat. Humans dried their meat and salted it and this salting was called curing (2). Adding salt to meat evolved into art from the earliest time known to us.
As our way of life evolved, we domesticated our food sources. We started with the fig, probably many years before we did the same with grain. Archaeologists found domesticated figs dating back to 9400 BCE. Sheep were domesticated around 8000 BCE, cattle and pigs around 7000 BCE. (Bitterman, M, 2010: 17)
In general, we can say that sometime between 15 000 and 5 000 BCE, human society’s need for salt increased rapidly as we needed salt for ourselves and our domesticated livestock. The livestock had to supplement their diet with salt and we needed it for curing and preserving foods, tanning hides, producing dyes and other chemicals and for medicine. “We evolved with a physiological requirement for salt; our culture was born from it. Access to salt became essential to survive. Salt localized groups of people.” (Bitterman, M, 2010: 17) Curing took meat which we culled from nature and brought it into culture. (Laszlo, P, 1998: 14) It turned the art of preserving into an expression of community and “togetherness” by transforming “preservation of food” into culinary delights of great enjoyment.
There is evidence that by 1,200 BCE, another great traders civilization of ages past, the Phoenicians, were trading salted fish in the Eastern Mediterranean region. (Binkerd, E. F.; Kolari, O. E. 1975: 655–661) Saltworks was one of the main features of their settlements in Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily. By 900 BCE, salt was being produced in ‘salt gardens’ in Greece and dry salt curing and smoking of meat were practised and documented. (Binkerd, E. F.; Kolari, O. E. 1975: 655–661)
Ancient records of 200 BCE tell us that the Romans learned how to cure meat of the Greeks and further developed methods to “pickle” various kinds of meats in a brine marinade. Salting had the effect of reddening the meat and the report of this observation became the first recorded record of the colour effect of saltpetre. (Binkerd, E. F.; Kolari, O. E. 1975: 655–661)
Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BCE – 149 BCE) or Cato the Elder was a Roman statesman, who devoted himself to agriculture when he was not engaged in military service. He recorded careful instructions in the dry-curing of hams. (Hui, YH, et al, 2001: 505) In his Latin work, De Agricultura (On Farming), written in 160 BCE, this Roman statesman, and farmer, gives an ancient recipe for curing pork with salt.
“After buying legs of pork, cut off the `feet. One-half peck ground Roman salt per ham. Spread the salt in the base of a vat or jar, then place a ham with the skin facing downwards. Cover completely with salt. After standing in salt for five days, take all hams out with the salt. Put those that were above below, and so rearrange and replace. After a total of 12 days take out the hams, clean off the salt and hang in the fresh air for two days. On the third day take down, rub all over with oil, hang in smoke for two days…take down, rub all over with a mixture of oil and vinegar and hang in the meat store. Neither moths nor worms will attack it.” (economist.com)
Cato may have imitated a process whereby hams are smoked over juniper and beech wood. The process was probably imported by the Roman gourmets from Germania. (economist.com) Phoenician ships spread the technology of salt making across the Atlantic, to Spain and as far north as England. India, China, Japan, and Africa developed their own salt industries. Hardly a region on earth or a civilisation could be found who did not produce salt. Salt was taxed, traded, used as currency and consumed on a global scale. (Bitterman, M, 2010: 17 – 25)
A Dutch legend says that the curing of herring was invented by Willem Beukelsz around the early 1300s. Whether this is entirely true or not, we know that the Cossack’s produced cured caviar. The Romans used a sauce called garum on their food. Garum was made among others with brine (salt solution). (Laszlo, P, 1998: 5, 7, 11) The Danes are great traders and Copenhagen is a key centre for trading salt and Saltpeter. The domestication of our food sources, the need for preservation and the technology to produce salt developed hand in hand as features of the spread of human culture and civilization.
What was the mechanism that made salt such an effective preservative? What exactly is salt and how did we unravel its composition? In order to understand the mechanism of salts’ preservative power, we must first know what salt is. Initially, only common salt was known and a handful of others, including nitre. (Leicester, H. et al.; 1952: 75)
What is Salt?
Humans noticed that not all salts were the same. Simple observation through taste and visual evaluation made us aware of differences in salt from different locations and regions. Some salts seemed to have almost magical properties. It is our desire to understand these differences that directly lead to the establishment of the science of chemistry. Unravelling the character of salt is one of the greatest stories that exist.
Today we know that salt is formed when an acid and a base are combined through what is called a neutralisation reaction. The crystal or in many cases, polycrystal are ionic compounds, meaning that it is a rigid and regular arrangement of particles of opposing electric charge. The particles are “glued” together by strong ionic or less strong, electrostatic bonds.
This simple explanation did not come easily and unravelling the mystery of the composition of salt took many years and the dedicated work of some of the most brilliant and often, eccentric people who ever walked this earth in recent years. Simple observations of the reaction of different salts in combination with various compounds and understanding their characteristics such as taste was the first step. Soon, though, simple observations were not enough and a comprehensive system had to be built to take the analysis further. It took many years and the labour of many to develop a theoretical understanding of the nature of matter and the forces that hold it together and govern its reactions. Today we know this system as the scientific discipline of “chemistry.” In the process, often, understanding had to wait for the foundations of science itself to be developed before real progress became possible. In the end, incremental as it was and over many generations, insight developed to the point where we could claim the basic understanding of the nature, composition, and function of salts.
Early on, different salts that were known included sea salt, rock salt, saltpetre, and tartar. Clues to their identification come to us in writings and in drawings. Below is the woodcut of the “Man Collecting Tartar From an Empty Wine Barrel”, taken from Ortus Sanitatis, a book published in Strasbourg in 1497. The man is “collecting precipitated solids (potassium hydrogen tartrate) from a wine barrel for use in making potash (potassium carbonate). The solids, known as wine lees, argol or tartar, are formed during wine fermentation. When the argol is heated it forms potash. Potash is used in the manufacture of soap and glass.”
The Principles of Paracelsus
The multi-talented physician, Paracelsus (1493 – 1541), saw salt as one of the three principles namely salt, sulfur, and mercury. This contemporary of Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, and Martin Luther, widely regarded as the founder of toxicology, imagined that in every object the principle responsible for its solid-state is salt; a second principle (sulfur) is responsible for its inflammability or “fatty” state, and a third (mercury) is responsible for its smoky (vaporous) or fluid state. (www.scs.illinois.edu)
A “fire analysis” was done on a body to isolate the salt. Many cultures, across the world, developed the concept which in the West became popular by the teachings of Empedocle (c. 490 – c. 430 BCE) that all matter comprises of earth, air, fire, and water. Earth being the passive element that remains after the fire analysis. By the late 16th and early 17th century, it was realized that the solid which remained after the fire analysis, could further be divided into SALT, which could be removed by diluting it in water and what remained was called EARTH. EARTH was the non-volatile residue left after burning and SALT diluted in water and had a saline taste. While Luther’s reformation gained a foothold in Central Europe and Da Vinci was painting the Last Supper in the Convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, in the city of Milan, Paracelsus taught that salt, thus extracted, demonstrated the presence of the universal salt principle and that it was this principle that was behind any body’s solid-state and its resistance to fire. The criteria for SALT being that it is diluted by water and have a saline taste is the reason why liquid acids also came to be known as salts. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 76, 80, 81)
Johann Glauber
The Bavarian alchemist and chemist, Johann Glauber (1604 – 1670) reported in the mid-1600s on the mutual destruction of acids and alkali’. Hailing from a poor background, he travelled and learn alchemy from various laboratories and teachers. At age 20 he was afflicted with stomach problems, probably after contracting spotted typhus which, for some time after contracting it, causes nausea and vomiting. His travels across Europe brought him to the city of Vienna where the residents recommended that he drinks from a local miracle spring which will restore him to health again. Glauber was sceptical about the idea but did it in any event. He drank from the “Hungarian Spring.” (5) His appetite returned and soon he was in good health again. (www.thechemicalengineer.com and Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
This unlikely outcome pricked his curiosity. Locals believed the healing power to be due to the presence of saltpetre in the water. He spent the winter, evaporating water from the spring and analyzing the salt. What he found was not saltpetre, but sodium sulfate. (www.thechemicalengineer.com) Sodium sulfate is a mild laxative and he would later market it as Glauber’s salt. The study of nitre would preoccupy him for years to come, but in his mid-fifties, sodium sulfate would take front and centre stage in his research work. He got carried away a bit when naming it “Sal Mirabilis Glauberi.” He overstated its healing power so dramatically that he received considerable opposition from his contemporaries who regarded him as a dreamer and charlatan. (The Guardian, 1934) An interesting fact to note for our continued interest in the study of saltpetre is the ease with which he was able to test for saltpetre by the mid-1600s. He was able to produce nitric acid (HNO3) by applying sulfuric acid to saltpetre. Later he made potassium carbonate (K2CO3, which is produced by burning saltpetre with charcoal) and nitric acid (HNO3, which they made by distilling saltpetre with fullers earth) from saltpetre and was able to combine these two, potassium carbonate and nitric acid to yield saltpetre, showing his thorough grasp of the acid-base composition of salts. (www.encyclopedia.com) Nitric acid or spirit of niter is a volatile acid and fixed niter (potassium carbonate) is a solid caustic. From this, Glauber concluded that twofold substance, containing both an acid and an alkali.
It was the fact that he could reconstitute saltpetre with fixed potassium carbonate and nitric acid that showed him that saltpetre was not the ultimate universal solvent that alchemists were looking for and that he claimed to have found. It was this disillusionment with niter that caused him to turn his attention back to his Sal Mirabilis Glauberi or sodium sulfate. The formulation of Glauber’s salt is Na2SO4·10H2O.
Glauber’s contribution to the study of salts was considerable. He eventually expanded the list of known salts far beyond common salt and niter. His work on the mutual destruction of acids and alkali’s was done with Otto Tachenius. (The Age, 1975) The effervescence that was observed when acids and alkalies are mixed became the standard way of judging the alkali or acid quality of a body. The idea was simple. If a known acid is added to something and it effervesced, the other body is an alkali and vice versa. The early chemists did not see this effervescence as gas being liberated but as some kind of vigorous strife. Acid-base reactions usually produce heat and it is easy to see how the bubbling was seen as “boiling.” (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 76)
Glauber introduced the idea that acids could combine with metals or alkali’s to form a salt. The mechanism behind the combinations is seen by him as a certain associative principle which he called “Gemeinschaft.” In his work, he insisted on an accurate description of the technical operation at work. (todayinsci.com) (6)
The Acid-Alkaline reaction of Salts
The medical chemist, Van Helmont, created a model in the 1600s and he postulated that this acid-alkali reaction is part of animal digestion. One of his students by the name of Sylvius progressed this idea and thought of all bodily functions as acid-alkali reactions and bodily fluids are either acid or alkali. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 76) Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691) refuted this suggestion by showing some of the many exceptions, yet the reaction between acids and alkali remained “the most familiar among real laboratory material.” By the end of the 1600s, there were three well-known mineral acids, namely, spirit of niter (nitric acid), spirit of salt (hydrochloric acid), and vitriolic acid or spirit of sulphur (sulfuric acid). (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
When exactly the acid-alkali reaction was first studied or who identified it has not been uncovered. It is one of the great untold stories of science. What we know is that during the 1600s, the term alkali was first used in the Arab world and referred to as a vegetable alkali. Books from that time refer to a plant that was called kali and contained potassium carbonate. The ancients obtained it from leaching ashes from the burned remains of the plant. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
By the 1600s, they recognized another common alkali namely alkali of tartar. This was obtained from the residue in wine barrels and today we know that it was also potassium carbonate. In the early days, they retained the particular name to link it to where it was found. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
The saturation point of an acid-alkali reaction was believed to be the point where the effervescence stops. At this time, air was not a recognized chemical element and nobody had the idea that the effervescence could be due to the liberation of air. Robert Boyle developed an alternative way to test for acidity or alkalinity and to determine the saturation point of acid-alkali reactions. In his time it was already well known that acids turn green vegetable colour, red. Boyle was probably the first to observe that an alkali would turn the blue to green. It took until 1750 before the use of colours to identify acids and alkali’s became commonplace in the scientific community. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
Neutral Salts
By the beginning of the 1700s, a third class of salts was well established namely neutral salts, containing both acid and alkali. These salts did not effervesce with either acids or alkalies. This category was soon expanded to include the combination of an “acid with earths and metals as well as with alkalies.” (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 77)
Earth is what remains at the end in a distillation vessel and can not be dissolved in water. There has been a debate whether different earths exist as was the case with different salts and sulfurs (or oils). Scientists were able to, for example, identify a certain kind of earth derived from stones, coral or seashell. It is able to dissolve in acid and when strongly heated, it forms a powdery residue that absorbs water. These were known as absorbent earths. (Heilbron, J. L.; 2003: 226)
The great French chemist, Guillaume- François Rouelle (1703-1770), under whom Lavoisier studied, published some of his most important work between 1744 and 1754 on the subject of salt. At this time, salt was defined as water-soluble, saline-tasting solid. He suggested what is essential, the modern understanding of salt (sel). He was the first to distinguish between acid, neutral, and basic salts. That is anything that would fix the acid into a solid-state whether an alkali, an earth or a metal. (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 79)
Another scientist of this time who devoted much effort to the study of neutral salts was the German scientist, Wilhelm Homberg (1652 – 1713). He spent his adult career in Paris. By the time of his most important work, the following has been established during the previous century. The neutralisation of an acid by an alkali. The mutual destruction of properties. “The available salts were the vitriolic or spirit of sulphur, spirit of niter, spirit of sea salt, and acid of vinegar. The only alkali was salt of tartar (potassium carbonate). ” (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 86)
From the work of Homberg, it is clear the implicit principle behind his experimental work was the conservation of weight. An example is an experiment he did in 1699 where he set out to determine the number of volatile acid salts contained in its solution. “He added acid to weight quantity of alkali until the alkali was saturated, presumably judging that point by the cessation of effervescence. The resultant salt was then dried as thoroughly as possible and weighed. The increase in weight Homburg took to be the weight of the real acid in the solution used. He carried out this procedure using spirit of niter, oil of vitriol, aqua regia, and distilled vinegar, compiling tables of his results. He took no account of the loss of carbon dioxide that escaped from the alkali, of course, for he knew nothing of it.” We see “how futile these attempts were until glasses were recognized as part of chemistry and techniques were developed for measuring and isolating the different kinds of air.” (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 88)
It was about this time when the analysis/synthesis cycle was established as a way to confirm the qualitative composition of a body. If elements obtained from an analysis by fire could be reformed again into the original body, it would prove that the analysis was done correctly and the elements that constitute it, identified. “The permanent secretary of the Academy (of science in France), whose duties included the writing of summaries of the worthy articles in the Mémoires commented that “One is never so sure of having decomposed a mix into its true principles as when with the same principles one can recompose it.” (Siegfried, R.; 2002: 90)
Salts known in the 1700s
Before the 1700s, a scientist could not distinguish between the different alkali metals. Sodium and potassium were often confused. Potassium was produced artificially by slowly pouring water over wood ashes and then drying the crystal deposits. Some of these metals were also found naturally on the edges of dried lake beds and mines and sometimes at the surface of the ground.
Henri-Louis Duhamel (1700 – 1782) realised that certain metals had similar characteristics. He studied samples of salts found in nature and produced by people artificially. This included the study of saltpetre (potassium nitrite), table salt, Glauber’s salt, sea salt, and borax. (Krebs, RE, 2006: 51) He discovered sodium carbonate and hydrochloric acid, a solution with a salty taste, in 1736. (Brian Clegg, rsc, chemistryworld)
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
It would be the work of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier that finally establishes chemistry into a science. He did for chemistry, what Newton did for mechanics 100 years earlier. Lavoisier did not discover any new substance, nor did he build any new laboratory- or investigative device. What he brilliantly did was to take the known facts and from these, gleaned the right interpretations. Acids and bases have been examined systematically, chemical substances have been described and characterized, and much work has been done on the relative affinity of bodies for one another.
About saltpetre, Lavoisier concluded that “nitrous and nitric acids are produced from a neutral salt long known in the arts under the name saltpetre.” He explains that this salt is extracted through the process of leaching from the “earth of cellars, stables, or barns, and in general of all inhabited places.” In these places, the reaction of nitric acid takes place with various bases such as lime, magnesia (magnesium oxide; magnesium reacts with nitric acid to give magnesium nitrate and hydrogen gas), potash or argyll. (Lavoisier, A; 1965: 214)
Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy, an English Chemist, was the uniquely talented young man who changed history when he isolated sodium and potassium in 1807. He had the first direct electric current generator at his disposal, the electric battery that Alessandro Volta invented in Paris in 1800. Davy ran an electric current through caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and was able to isolate sodium from it. He did the same for potassium, isolating it from potash.
Chlorine was already being produced through electrolysis by the decomposition of sea salt by the electric current. Caustic soda and chlorine had many applications by the end of the 1700s. Fats were processed with caustic soda to produce soap. Fabrics were being bleached with chlorine, a process discovered by Berthollet. (Laszlo, P, 1998: 50)
In 1807, Humphry Davy found that the “muriate of soda” produced by burning sodium in a vessel full of chlorine was chemically identical to salt. (Brian Clegg, rsc, chemistryworld) Humphry wrote in 1840, “Sodium has a much stronger attraction for chlorine than oxygen; and soda or hydrate of soda is decomposed by chlorine, oxygen being expelled from the first, and oxygen and water from the second.”
“Potassium has a stronger attraction for chlorine than sodium has, and one mode of procuring sodium easily is by heating together to redness common salt and potassium. The compound of sodium and chloride has been called muriate of soda, in the French nomenclature; for it was falsely supposed to be composed of muriatic acid and soda; and it is a curious circumstance that the progress of discovery should have shewn that it is a less compounded body than hydrate of soda, which 6 years ago was considered as a simple substance, and one of its elements. According to the nomenclature which I have ventured to propose, the chemical name for common salt will be sodane.”
“Common salt consists of one proportion of sodium, 88, and two of chlorine 134; and the number representing it is 222” (Davy, H. 1840: 247) The importance of this is that the knowledge that the salt used for preserving food is mainly sodium chloride, existed from the early 1800s. It was now possible to analyse the nature of sodium chloride and the other kind of salts that exist. The nature of the composition of salt that has been dissolved in water and the interaction between salt and meat and between salt and microorganisms such as bacteria that are present in meat now became possible. We can look at everything that makes up sea salt and salt from inland springs and dry salt beds and we can begin to understand and appreciate the effect of salting meat and how it happens that it preserves the meat.
It was found that salt had other metals and compounds of a diverse, but consistent nature. Are these other elements present in salt that we find naturally on earth, do they impact the curing process at all? And if so, how? (4) As I have learned, answering these questions would be very important in order to improve the consistency and the quality of the bacon we cure.
Salt is one of the studies that we will return to time and time again over the following years due to its importance in meat curing. Without it, we can not make any bacon.
(1) We have seen how pervasive the occurrence of nitrate is on earth. One expects to find it in every natural salt spring, salt marsh, dry salt lake and in seawater. “Some curing” will take place with almost any natural salt. However, it has been shown that bacon that was produced with either no nitrites or nitrite levels of 15 ppm, “off-flavors were high and increasing rancidity. A significant reduction in off-flavours in pork during storage was observed when nitrites were added > 50 ppm.” (Rahman, SM, 2007: 307)
Salt springs, analysed in South Africa contained as little as < 1 mg/ L of Nitrate (H)
This does not correlate with the statement by Smith and the American Encyclopedia about the fact that normal salt was equally successful in curing meat.
Adding salt enhances the flavour, but it also accelerates lipid oxidation, even at low levels of addition. Lipid oxidation leads to off-flavour development in meat that does not contain any nitrites. Even a 0.5% addition of sodium chloride significantly increases lipid oxidation when added to restructured pork chops and pork sausage patties following freezer storage. (Pearson, AM, et al, 1997: 269)
(2) ‘The binomial name Homo neanderthalensis – extending the name “Neanderthal man” from the individual type specimen to the entire species – was first proposed by the Anglo-Irish geologist William King in 1864 and this had priority over the proposal put forward in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, Homo stupidus. The practice of referring to “the Neanderthals” and “a Neanderthal” emerged in the popular literature of the 1920.” (Wikipedia. Neanderthal)
(3). Meat curing can be defined as the addition of salt to meat for the purpose of preservation. (Hui, YH, et al, 2001: 505)
(4) It turns out that “food-grade salt of the highest purity should be used in meat curing practices. Impurities such as metals (copper, iron, and chromium) found in natural salt beds, salt produced from salt springs or sea salt accelerate the development of lipid oxidation and concomitant rancidity in cured meats. Although salt may be of very high purity, it nonetheless contributes to meat lipid oxidation. Nitrite and phosphates, help retard this effect.” (Hui, YH, Wai-Kit Nip, Rogers, R. 2001: 492)
(5) One source says that this took place in Naples and not Vienna. There could have been been a spring in Naples, called Hungarian Spring. Drug Discovery: A History by Walter Sneader, 2005, John Wiley and Sons Ltd., p. 64 puts the place where he became ill as Vienna, which fits the Hungarian Spring designation much better.
(6) There is at least one source that puts his invention of Glauber’s salt at 1659. However, from The Renaissance of Science: The Story of the Cell and Biology, by Albert Martini, 2015, Abbott Communications Group, Glauber discovered a simple method of manufacturing hydrochloric acid in 1625 when he was 21. He did this by combining sulfuric acid with table salt (sodium chloride). Sodium sulfate salt was produced by this reaction which is Glauber’s salt, a mild laxative. On the other hand, the 1659 date for the invention of Glauber’s salt may refer to the publication in 1658 of his Tractatus de natura salium. In 1660 a second part was added to the Miraculum mundi. Is is apparently only here when Glauber started to make “sal mirabile” (Glauber’s salt) the main focus of his work, replacing niter. (www.encyclopedia.com).
References
The Age, Melbourne, Australia, 3 June 1975, Page 1
Davy, H. 1840. The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy …: Elements of chemical philosophy. Smith, Elder & Co.
Gouverneur Emerson . 1858. The American Farmer’s Encyclopedia. A O Moore.
Heilbron, J. L.. 2003. The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. Oxford University Press.
Hui, YH, Wai-Kit Nip, Rogers, R. 2001. Meat Science and Applications. Marcel Dekker, Inc.
Krebs, RE. 2006. The History and Use of Earths Chemical Elements. Greenwood Press.
Laszlo, P. 1998. Salt, Grain of Life. Columbia University Press.
Leicester, H. M., Klickstein, H. S.. 1952. A Source Book in Chemistry, 1400-1900. Harvard University Press.
Munas, F.. 2014. Mission To Earth. New Authors Press.
Pearson, AM, et al. 1997. Healthy Production and Processing of Meat, Poultry and Fish Products, Volume 11. Chapman & Hall
Rahman, SM. 2007. Handbook of Food Preservation. Second edition. CRC Press.
Siegfried, R. 2002. From Elements to Atoms: A History of Chemical Composition, Volume 92, Issues 4-6. American Philosophical Society
The Guardian, London, Greater London, 13 Oct 1934, page 13
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.
Engaged to be Married
December 1892
Dear Dawie1,
The quest that I embarked on with your support proved to be spectacular! I tried to write to you every few weeks and keep you abreast of our progress, but it has not always been possible. I think back with great fondness to the meeting we had on Oscar’s farm where the company was founded. Of everybody who was there, you were the only one to support our quest besides Anton. I hope that life is settling into a rhythm for you in Los Angeles.
I often think back to the years of our youth in Pretoria. Yes, we thought we were men when we met, but we were barely out of our boyhood. Nights was nothing for us! We could stay up from the setting of the sun till the next morning discussing life. We had the best of times! I wrote to you a couple of months ago that I intend to ask Minette to marry me. I was in Calne at the Harris factory when I decided to come back to South Africa for a short break. We have been growing ever closer and we had an amazing time in Denmark. Likewise, being together in England is fantastic! She is a great friend and companion! She is exceedingly bright and these adventures would not have been the same if I had to be completely alone.
This is something I want to discuss with you. We identified that we live life in our minds and that every cultural expression is a product of our mental world including religion, nationalism, etc. We also recognised that thought is a material product based on memories. Experience always has to be questioned because we can not separate the experience from the experiencer! The experience means nothing to anybody if it is not interpreted by our brains in light of historical knowledge which is material. We are at the time when we are alive the totality of the collective consciousness of our world. This extraordinary thing that happened that matter became self aware. This is who we are. It occurred to me when I contemplated this that despite the fact that our memories are material, the fact that we are aware of it is something very precious. We are the collective consciousness of our material world but also the particular consciousness of ourselves. We recognised with us a deep desire to be permanent, not temporary and through religion and other devices such as art, we strive for permanency, not understanding that the universal consciousness is permanent and we already that! What I discover in myself is that I derive immense pleasure from my memories. My memories can not be the same for you or anybody else, but I enjoy it when I am able to experience something with another conscious person and point to something which is pleasurable and say, “look at that!” “Do you experience the same pleasure that I am experiencing at this moment?!” In this way being together gives us great connectedness with people around us. It is this experience that binds the two of us together because we are able to construct and deconstruct mental images and as it were, see the same thing, and this collective seeing binds us through shared memories. Being on my adventures with Minette gives me the same remarkable sensation of shared memories binds us in a unique way.
So, I decided to ask her hand in marriage. I now know what it is like to be around someone and enjoy their company insanely but never realise that I was falling in love with her! That is what happened to me. Julie Pickton, Kevin’s wife, had a real heart to heart with me in Peterborough. Ever since I left for Calne I have been plotting to return with Minette to Cape Town to make our relationship formal.
Well, you know that none of these things is still in the future. At the moment we are already leaving Cape Town on a steamer, returning to London and from there back to Calne. It already happened. We are engaged. I wish that you could have been with us for our engagement but I realise America is very far!
My first week in Cape Town was hectic! I wanted to spend as much time with Tristan and Lauren whom I have not seen for almost two years. They have grown so much and are developing into the most amazing two human beings! Of course, I spend every free minute with my mom and dad. My dad is getting old. He wanted every bit of detail and we had a time that I will never forget. The bond between us is stronger than ever! In between everything, I met up with two old mountain friends of Minette and me, Tahir and Achmat.
I discussed the plan for our engagement with them and we set a date for Tuesday, 18 October 1982. (3) They would meet Elmar, Juanita, Pieter Willem, Luani, Liam, Tristan, and Lauren at Kloof corner at the front of the mountain and hike up with Corridor Ravine to the spot where Minette and I would be waiting. It was all a complete surprise for her.
I thought I had a lot of time to plan everything but this was not the case at all. I had no time left! If it hasn’t been for Tristan and Lauren I would not have finished everything in time. They ended up almost planning everything!
The Pendant
In Cape Town, I commissioned the work on the design and production of an engagement pendant. The company I used is freeRange JEWELS. They assigned the most perceptive designer to our case, Dawn Bolton. Her love for nature and for the indigenous tribes of southern Africa made her perfect for the job. I was struck by the respect she has for all people which is very important to both Minette and me.
The main features that I chose for the design of the pendant, are words from the Korana language that describes Minette and my relationship. Close to Parys on the Vaal River is a Korana village that I like visiting whenever I have a chance. The Korana is a nomadic Khoe group and got their name from a chief called Kora (or Gora), who was the first leader of the Gorachouqua. They are related to the Griqua who originated from a freed slave, Adam Kok. He got burgher rights and a farm near the present Piketberg. Here he founded a vigorously mixed community. Some say that he was married to the daughter of the chief of a Khoikhoi (Khoe) clan, the Chariguriqua, during the 1750s. As he moved up from Piketberg to Little Namaqualand he attracted a following and by the 1790s the community moved to the Orange River and then eastwards along the bank. The place where they finally settled became known as Griqualand West. The leader at this time was Cornelius who gathered a large number of Basters, some Khoikhoi and escaped slaves around him. (sahistory.org.za)
They are very talented people! The Korana, like the Khoe is semi-pastoral people who grow their own crops and keep cattle and sheep. They live in villages and they used bricks for building and have an efficient method of government with a legislator. Their revenue sources are taxes, trading licenses, and fines. They printed their own currency in 1867. The coins and notes had a limited circulation use and levies were paid with cattle, goats, sheep, and grain. (History of the Griqua) The Griqua was free but for only a very limited time. Their way of life and short-lived freedom inspired early astronomers to call asteroids with a short lifespan, a Griqua. This became convention is what they still call this phenomenon to this day.
From Children of the Mist, The lost tribe of South Africa by Scott Balson. He tells the story of how he met a man wearing one of the old coins around his neck which set him on a quest to discover the story behind it and these remarkable people. For more information visit http://www.griquas.com/ and read his synopsis at Die Griekwa.
Dawie, I realised that my own memories are important to me. Likewise, Minette and my shared memories are important, but I find something within me from the time when I was a child that finds great importance in the collective memories of our world. The big things are impressive to me and capture my imagination, but also the little. The small stories of people all around us and especially those who are not so well known. In England, I gained the greatest respect for English culture. I can see why they are the most powerful nation on earth. It is not only powerful and productive, but it is also beautiful. Still, the Korana people equally arrested my heart and I have an affinity for them which is hard to explain. Here, over the last few hundred years, these semi-nomadic, pastoral people who came down from up north quickly adapted to the reality of western influence and through interaction with the San Bushman and the Europeans and by accepting many slaves into their midst to give them a new life of freedom, they created a magnificent society. I have a natural affinity for small stories like this and if I have a choice, I would just as much want to celebrate their lives and existence as I would want to recognise the beauty of the English culture!
This background is important to explain why I chose phrases from the Korana language for Minette’s pendant. I selected a pendant because I remembered Minette had previously said that she wouldn’t be very keen on a ring. I wanted something which reflects her character who always identifies with the lowly and downtrodden of society. Her spirit is bound to the earth – to what is beautiful and natural. She is very careful to treat poor former slaves and the richest of our community exactly the same. In this regard, she reminds me very much of the Korana. It is this spirit that I learned from her which motivated me to visit the Korana village at the Vaal River as often as I could. The story of Adam Kok and the kind of followers that he attracted beautifully reflects Minette’s spirit. If we were alive in the time of Adam Kok I, I have no doubt that we would have joined them in their trek to their own homeland. I used their language on the pendant and planned to follow their tradition of courtship when I propose to her. These I learned from the Korana people.
The reason why I chose a pendant is not only because Minette preferred it, but I got the idea when I visited a Griqua village just South of Bloemfontein on the farm Wilhelmshöhe. It was part of the farm Bruidegomspruit which was owned by the Griqua tribe. Adam Kok III, who was the captain of the tribe, gave the farm to Johannes Witvoet as a wedding present. The name Bruidegomspruit which means Bridegroom’s creek is in celebration of this event. The farm was later bought from Witvoet by a missionary by the name of Friedrich Wilhelm Salzmann. It was Salzmann who divided the farm between his two sons, Carel and Martin, and so, part of the farm became Wilhelmshöhe. Martin Salzmann built the original house in 1885.
There was a large Khoi community who once lived on the farm, the ruins of which are still visible to this day as well as the old stone kraals that were built by M.J. Salzmann (Snr.) in amongst the stone ruins where the Khoi people lived. It was here where I met a man wearing one of the coins that were minted in 1867 which gave me the idea of a pendant. I attach photos of the ruins and the view they had from their homes. The sheep they kept were fat tale sheep along with game from the area.
The other group that I, of course, interacted with a lot when I was riding transport, was the San Bushman. I selected 8 words that are important to Minette and I being, Family, Peace, Fire, Friendship, Marriage, Joy, Love, and Beauty. These I translated into the Bushman and Korana language to honour the hunter-gatherer people who roamed this land for millennia and the Griqua.
The words were placed around the image of an eland which I chose from a painting in a cave in Larinston, Barkley East. This is engraved on the one face of the pendant. The eland is a symbol of growth and spirituality in San culture. It is their most sacred animal, often evoked at rites of passage for women and men and features in a wedding dance.
Dawn suggested that for the other side of the small disc, the Quiver Tree, which is indigenous to South Africa and known as ‘choje’ to the San people. They hollowed branches out to use as a quiver for their arrows. Around this image she placed our names with the phrase, I love you, translated from Khoekhoe (Nama), a Khoisan language spoken in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, by a bushman scholar from Namibia, Dr Niklaas Fredericks. Dr Fredericks consulted with his tribe and got permission from the elders that we may use the two images. They also checked the translation of the words and its spelling.
Will You Marry Me?
All was set for an amazing day. The ruse I used to get Minette to go on the hike with me is that I told her that her sister’s son, Liam, is hiking up with Achmat from the other side which is easier and less tricky, to meet us on top. She has always wanted Liam to do the route with us and despite her initial reluctance for such a strenuous hike she agreed quite excitedly. She was convinced the great surprise was that we will meet Liam on top.
On the 18th of October 2018 (3), we hiked the Suikerbossie route from Hout Bay, and halfway with the ascent towards the mid-way point I stopped and picked up a stick. In the tradition of the Korana people, I broke the stick in two and asked Minette to marry me while I explain the Korana tradition. I did this as we were ascending a very steep hill on top of the mountain. Minette thought I was telling a story, as I often do, and remarked that it was a nice story and that we must press on. She was concerned about Liam and Achmat being alone on the mountain. For a second I wondered what on earth I was to do now. I tried again. “Will you marry me?” I asked her again. Slowly the reality of what I am doing dawned on her. She was completely taken by surprise. When she said “yes”, I handed her one half of the stick and kept the other half. We completed the short distance to the midway point where we sat down and I gave her the necklace with the Eland/Quiver-tree pendant.
I served her coffee, an act that was also inspired by a Korana tradition. The young man would ask the mother of his bride-to-be, if he could marry her daughter, in the presence of her father. If she agreed, he would return to his home where his own mother would give him coffee. He would return to his fiance’s family where he would serve them the coffee as a sign that his own mom agrees to the union.
Minette and I had just finished our coffee when our two mountain guide friends, Taahir and Achmat arrived. The first thing she knew about the visitors was when her sister appeared through a hole in the rock. Minette exploded with excitement! Completely unbeknown to Minette, at 5:00 that morning, Achmat Jackson and Taahir Osman guided a small party of family onto the top of Table Mountain, and joined the Suikerbossie trail. This small party was made up of my brother, Elmar and his son, Pieter-Willem, Minette’s sister, Luani and her son Liam, as well as you two.
When we all settled down I recounted how I proposed to her and that she had accepted, and I further explained the symbolism of the pendant, the breaking of the stick, and the coffee. Each person was given a mug, on which we had printed the pendant designs on each side, and each person’s name. I served the rest of the group coffee, and we drank together.
Fanie, Luani’s husband, graciously offered to stay home with Luan, her second son, who is still too small for such a serious treck. On the way back we went past Tranquility cracks. We delayed here and soaked in the magic of this amazing place. It was an amazing gift we could give our guests who don’t make it onto the mountain and Tranquility Cracks is as special as it gets on top of Table Mountain. It was all in all the most magical time imaginable. When everybody eventually made it off the mountain, the celebrations continued at Klein Constantia wine farm.
Tristan and Lauren were magnificent and made the day possible. All the preparations were done by them and without their involvement, this would not have been possible. Johann and Julie attended as did Oscar and Trudie.
The Art of Living
The basis of our quest to understand and make the best bacon on earth is seated in family and love and great friendship. As we did during the wedding, so I will do now and not speak about business or bacon, but can this really be separated? Is bacon not the supreme example of how life is lived. One small discovery at a time! Loads of hard work. Luck! Serendipity! Commitment! And love! In the end, it all merges together into a beautiful relationship, as all the hard work we put into bacon will one day bloom into what is the best bacon on earth!
Everything I am learning about bacon culminates in a delicious delicacy and like discovering the art of bacon, our friendship and love culminated into what is nothing less than a mountain peak of our existence – such as what Minette and I experienced on Table Mountain with family and friends. We celebrated deep into the night on a beautiful wine farm. So, the story of bacon and the art of living merge into one.
I am blessed to have you as my friend, Dawie and even though you were not here, still, your spirit soared with us over mountain tops. With my brothers and their wives and family; Luani, Fanie, Liam, and Luan; Minette’s mom and dad; My mom and dad, the amazing and beautiful Tristan and Lauren, together with my most precious friend, you Mr. Dawie Hyman, we embrace life and all the good it has to offer.
Most of all, in this letter I celebrate my beautiful fiance. As we sail towards England, Minette is with me and I am insanely excited to introduce her to John Harris and the many friends I made in Calne; Michael and to Kevin and Julie Pickton and their family; to Lord Landsdown and his family and the beautiful people of Bowood. It all leaves me speechless and a bit afraid because I know I must find a way to do even better when it comes to our wedding! I, like you, am a firm believer that if one is going to do something, we may just as well do it excellently! For this, I trust the spirit of bacon to take us on many more adventures among which will be our wedding! Life will show me the way and I can hardly wait to see what is installed for us!
I am planning to visit you when I am done in Calne. I will love it if Minette can join me! Maybe we sail for America after England! In America, there is much to learn and we have a lot of catching up to do.
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.
The Wiltshire Cut
August 1892
Dear Oscar,
Minette and I boarded the Union Shipping liner of Donald Currie & Company this morning en route to Cape Town. I was very excited to learn about James and Christel getting married. I am glad that you managed to secure the building behind Combrinck & Co. in Newmarket street! I am bringing the plans for the abattoir with me and all the drawings that I sent in my previous letter.
Please see if I have the information about James and Christel correctly. They asked me to give a small speech at their wedding and I want to be sure that I have my facts right.
They have been friends since university. They formally saw each other for 6 months and in accordance with all sense and sensibility, got engaged 2 months ago. James is responsible for the financial affairs of our company. He gambled a lucrative career in the Bank of the Netherlands with his move to Woody’s, which I am confident, will pay off handsomely.
Together, Minette and I have hiked up Table Mountain a few times with him and Christel and I consider it a great privilege to know them. He is an upstanding citizen and Christel is everything a good wife, should be as a friend, confidant, exceedingly able and overall an amazing person.
Her dad knows Livingston, being a seasoned explorer himself. You told me that Christel’s dad is travelling through Kazakhstan. I am looking forward to hearing his many stories at the wedding. Martin Sauer from Denmark’s dad also knows Livingston. He has been in Rhodesia to help farmers set up pork farms. Maybe they know each other.
I am planning my engagement with Minette and want to share some of my plans with you. When I was riding transport between Cape Town and Johannesburg I made many friends from the native communities. One of these groups is the Korana. They are a nomadic Khoe group and got their name from a chief called Kora (or Gora), who was the first leader of the Gorachouqua (`-qua’ meaning ‘people of’). He splintered from this group with a band of followers and became the first great chief of the Korana. Some believe the name means ‘the real thing’.
Most of the Korana ended up living near the Gariep, Vaal and Harts rivers and others moved into the Overberg and the Karoo. I knew that their way of life, like that of the San Bushman, was disappearing fast and I went out of my way to befriend them and always stayed over at their village on the Vaal river whenever I had to camp in the area. The chief gave me great information on how a young man would ask a girl to marry him. I am planning the same ceremony when I ask Minette to marry me.
Table Mountain is Minette and my cathedral. It is not only where we hear the voice of God, but where our souls soar! I am planning to hike up from Hout Bay and across to the front of the mountain. The total hike is around 15km’s and is across the 12 Apostles. Halfway one gets to some very peculiar rocks and a place that is secluded, an ideal place to get engaged. I am planning to ask some of our mountain friends to take Elmar and Juanita and their son, Pieter Willem, Luani, Minette’s twin sister and her oldest son Liam to this spot, but beginning from the front of the mountain. Tristan and Lauren know the area well and they will join the party from the front.
I am timing it such that Minette and I will be there before the rest of the group gets there. While we wait will ask her to marry me. Instead of a ring, I asked a jeweller from Cape Town to make a pendant for her that celebrates our relationship. I chose words from the Korana language that celebrates our relationship. After that, we will hike down with the family who is meeting us at the top and we will have a small function at Klein Constantia where our parents will join us. If you and Trudie will be in time to meet us up on the mountain, that will be exceptional. Alternatively, if you guys arrive too late, you can join us at Klein Constantia with more friends we invited.
So, Mr. Oscar, these are our plans. I am insanely excited!
Wiltshire Cut – Exported to Denmark
While I have the time to write to you, I want to address the matter of what the Wiltshire cut is. It is just as important as the brine. I introduced the Danish curing method to John Harris and I plan to take the Wiltshire cut to Denmark. The basis of working the entire side of the pig together comes from the time before refrigeration where the carcass was cut up while it was still warm. It is not easy to separate the different primals as it’s done today. In Cape Town, most of the butchers cut the carcass up into small blocks of meat for stews and sausages. The larger meat cuts are the joints that are roasted. Someone who has been associated with the Harris operation for many years with a doctorate in veterinary sciences once told me that leaving the bones in the meat during curing gives the meat a firm structure which you lose when you debone the meat completely into primals.
I got the photos which I include here for you from the reading room at the Harris factory. It does not look all that nice in the photo, but it is a brilliantly complete picture of what the bacon looks like, produced according to the Wiltshire cut!
Describing the Wiltshire Cut
The classic Wiltshire Cut is where the side, including the shoulder, middle, and ham are treated as one. The style of trimming originated in Wiltshire. The head is cut off as close to the jaw bone as possible. The sides are taken off the gambrels. It is placed on the tables the inside upwards. Remove all excess fat by scraping them. All the blood meat is cut off from the neck by the sticking hole. The hams and belly are also trimmed; the steaks are cut out; front trotters are removed by cutting or sowing through the knee joint.
The neck and aitchbone are cut loose as close to the bone as possible. The spare rib and breast bone going along with the neck bone and the top of the ribs are sown off. Cut out the big vein in the neck. At the shoulder, make a hole as small as possible through which the blade bone can be drawn.
Before you attempt to draw the blade bone, first loosen it in the side. Do it with a long, narrow chisel that is inserted around the side and on top of and under the blade bone. When the meat has been loosened, a thong is slipped around the head of the blade bone. The thing is attached to a harness worn by the blade bone drawer. Attach the thong and hold the shoulder and pull away from it and the blade bone will fly from its position in the side. You can use a mechanical blade bone catcher. Ensure that you do not tear the blade bone holder. It easily attracts taint during the salting process.
Marriage and Meat Curing in Africa
Oscar, life is interesting. The art of cutting meat and curing developed around the world in the hands of skilled artisans. When I think back over the years as a transport rider, I have seen such artisans among the Khoe, the San and the black native peoples of South Africa. They too developed their own unique way of “curing” and smoking meat. As is the case in Europe and England, traditions developed and have been handed down for millennia through guilds and, as is the case in Africa, through the Medicine men and woman and over our vast continent. I am planning Minette and my engagement to be done in the tradition of these great people and one day, I hope, that we will feature their curing arts in our factory. To produce the best bacon on earth, not by way of copying what is done here in Wiltshire or in Denmark, but by giving the world something very special – cured meats done the way it has been done for many years in Africa. This way we celebrate their culture in the engagement of Minette and me and one day we will showcase their best meat dishes in our factory in Cape Town.
Having said all of that, as far as the having the ability to produce inconceivable amounts of bacon of the highest pallatablity and acceptance, there is no firm on earth that can compete with C & T Harris.
I am looking forward to meeting everybody very soon. I will mail this letter as soon as we dock in Cape Town and await your imminent arrival. What I am talking about in terms of the African tradition of meat curing is small and completely unsuited for producing the vast quantities produced by Harris. We entered one of the most exciting worlds that exists on our planet!
Warm greetings from somewhere in the Atlantic ocean!
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.
Irish Animosity
June 1892
Dear Children,
The Impressive English Culture
The intensity of the English is formidable. There is a collective determination in how they function as a society which is impressive! A structure and a societal organisation that works. Coming from a new world, at least as far as the colonists are concerned, it is easier to observe it and when I speak to them about it, I don’t think they really understand what I am talking about. Our society in the Cape is new and free and less structured. Life in England is completely different. They have a depth in resources and like a machine that works as a uniform whole where the role of each part is precisely defined and never really questioned, they cooperate and the outcome is staggering.
It takes me back to the concept of culture. It is an amazing fact that the structure exists purely in the minds of the members of society. It resides in their collective memory based on conditioning, learning and indoctrination from a very young. Even when I use the word indoctrination, I mean it in a positive sense because we are all indoctrinated from young – in every society. It’s how we transfer technology and culture! In no way do I excuse the havoc that their application of the same structure in locations such as Africa has where they force their culture on others. Colonialism is evil and what they do when throwing a lot of resources to coerce others to think like them, the scars it creates and the havoc on other cultures will take many generations to heal. Still, the fact must be noted that the English culture is formidable. What they are as a collective is impressive and in England, it works extremely well! The existence of C & T Harris is a case in point.
Close to Calne is the ancient university town of Bristol. Calne and Bristol are barely 40 miles apart. Harris draws on every branch of science, from agriculture to engineering and utalise the latest thinking in every aspect of their endeavour to produce bacon and other smallgoods. Every process is carefully scrutanised by a team of scientists and every machine is constructed according to the best and latest engineering requirements. Their artisans with centuries of experience in ship construction and metalwork created support industries right here in Calne to up-close contribute to the mechanisation of the Harris operation in a way that I think very few other nations on earth could have mustered.
What about the Irish?
On my part, I have by now worked on every machine in the bacon plant of C & T Harris and are familiar with them. The one matter that I can not understand is how mild curing or, as they call it here, the Danish method did not come to them earlier.
Remember that it was invented by a chemist, William Oake from Ulster in Northern Ireland in the late 1820s or early 1830s. The Danes learned the system when in 1880 there was a strike among butchers in the Irish town of Waterford. Some shrewd members of the Danish pork processing guild happened to be in Ireland at that time, in Waterford and at the promise of lucrative employment in Denmark managed to persuade a number of the striking men to return with them to Denmark. In Denmark, it was arranged for them to train the Danish butchers and so mild curing came to Denmark.
Calne is situated on the estate of the Marquis of Landsdown. The Marquis was the Governor-General of Canada from 1883 to 1888 and currently serve as Viceroy of India, a post he occupied since 1888. His life is not without pressure, even financial pressure! He was receiving government salary but the upkeep of his large manor house was extremely burdensome on him as it is on many other landowners. It did then, as it does still now, threaten to reduce some of these landowners to bankruptcy.
The Marquis of Landsdown’s estate manor, Bowood, is situated a mile away from his Calne which is located on the estate for which rent is received. The Marquis of Landsdown, like the Marquis of Bath, is also a large landowner in Ireland. The one in Kerry and Kildare and the other in Monaghan. In Ireland, they are referred to as “absent landowners.” A third English nobleman, Lord Digby, from the next county of Dorset owns 31 000 acres in King’s County near Tullamore. It is interesting that all three have the same agent, Mr. Trench.
Irish Animosity
Why did the mild cured system have to come to Calne through Denmark and not through Northern Ireland with such close ties as being part of the United Kingdom or even the Republic of Ireland where many noblemen from Wiltshire own land. It was Michael who told me that these landowners did not have the same reputation in Ireland as in England. He likened it to wealthy slave owners in the South of America who are well-respected churchgoers, despite the completely non-Christian and barbaric management of their workforce. Here at home, they treat the occupants of their land with leniency, but in Ireland, they act differently as I experienced in the Cape Colony also. The disdain for the English absent landlords relates to how they treat their tenants especially in matters related to rent. In England, they are quite forgiving about rental payments and have a high reputation among their tenants but not so in Ireland.
There they instructed their Irish agent, Mr Trench to collect as much rental as he can from the tenants on their Irish estates. There is no regard for a public opinion from their tenants. Mr Trench’s father occupied the same position as the Irish agent to the fathers of the three noblemen.
Despite the fact that Mr. Trench tried to improve the farming by tenants on the Irish property, it seems to have never occurred to him that the occupants can not afford the rent. Nor did he seem to care for the impact on their lives. In 1843 Trench was appointed as the agent over the Monaghan estate of Mr Shirley, the rental of which, along with that of Lord Bath, were more than £40 000 per annum. The initial rental charged to the ancestors of the current occupants was £250 per annum, in 1606, payable in Dublin, since it was not safe to collect rent in Monaghan in the 1600s. In 1729, the rental was £4000 per year; in 1769 it was increased to £8000 and 74 years later, it was an astronomical £40 000.00.
Mr. Trench was newly appointed and met Mr. Shirly, the owner of the new estate under his care, in Carrickmacross. His tenants asked him for abatement of rent and he said he would answer the following Monday. Over 10 000 men came to town on that Monday to hear Mr. Shirley’s answer. His decision was that no reduction in rent would be granted.
The late land agent, Mr Mitchell dropped dead in the courthouse of Monaghan a short time before. To illustrate how these men were viewed, the tenants, on the same night of his death, lid bonfires on almost every hill on the estate on a district of 20 000 acres in celebration of his death. There was no morning from any of the tenants. (Trench, 1869)
Mr Shirley, not willing to face the crowd himself, asked Mr Trench to convey the message to the men gathered on that Monday. The tenants told him, “We want a reduction of our rent. We are determined to pay the present rents no longer. We are pressed and ground down and we must have a removal of our grievances.” The first act of the newly appointed Mr Trench was therefore to convey Mr Shirly’s message. He went out and stood upon a chair and conveyed the message. A voice called out, “Down on your knees, boys” and the entire crowd dropped to their knees. A voice from the crown sounded, “We ask you upon our knees, for God’s sake, to get us a reduction of our rent.” (Trench, 1869)
The crowd was not pleased with the answer that Trench was only acting at the instruction of the landlord. They beat him up in a clear display of their frustration and desperation. (Trench, 1869)
Michael told me bluntly, “THAT, Eben, is why no butcher had any interest in giving the wealthy landowners in Ireland who lived in Calne, any technology developed in Ireland. The tenants, small farmers, and tradesmen loathed the landowners from Calne.” Many pork traders both in Ireland and in Calne made fortunes on the pork trade, but people trading in pork very seldom ever get involved in the processing of the meat. This was true then and is still true today. Trading in pigs is seen as easy money. Owning or managing a processing facility is complex and is simply too much hard work.
Exporting Mild Cured Bacon to the South West of England
This did not mean that mild cured bacon did not make it to England. In fact, such a trade was established by non-other than the son of William Oak who invented mild curing. He set his company up very close to Calne.
I investigated the matter and found in The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, Western Countries, 18 July 1885, page 8, a notice appeared for the dissolution of a partnership between William Howard (Horwood??) Oake, John Woods, and William Waring trading as Oake, Woods, and Waring, at Gillingham, Dorset. If the address is not a clear link to the son of William Oake from Limerick in Ireland, the commodities they traded in is the final proof and a picture is emerging of an imminent “bacon” family. They were, according to the notice, bacon and provision merchants. The partnership was dissolved due to Waring retiring. What is fascinating is that if (and there is good reason to suspect this), that William Oake from Limerick is the inventor of tank curing, this would indicate that by 1885 the process has not been exported to England and instead his son is selling the bacon which is being imported from Ireland.
The process of mild curing did not make it to England but the actual product did and front and centre in the trade is the son of the man who invented the process. The firm Oake, Woods, and Waring is situated in Gillingham, Dorset which is close to where Lord Digby lives. Remember that Lord Digby also owns land in Ireland, in King’s County near Tullamore. His agent in Ireland is the son of Mr Trench who was involved in the events in Ireland just described and his treatment of the people on his land is by all accounts the same as the other landowners.
Whether this is the full story of why mild cured bacon never crossed from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to Calne in Wiltshire is not certain, but the fact of great animosity that existed between the landlords in Calne and the tenants in Ireland is certainly is a very good possibility. Remember that butcher guilds were closed societies and the secrets of the trade were closely guarded. At the end of the 1800s, it was reported from America that every bacon factory manager had a secret black book that contained his most precious recipes and formulations which he guarded with his life.
The story contributes beautifully to the painting of events in Wiltshire from the time when the first Harris butcher shop was set up until the time when they finally received the coveted mild cure bacon production system. It is a matter that was nagging me and I had to get some kind of closure about the entire question.
I will meet Lord Landsdown before I finally leave Calne and this is a matter that I will definitely bring up with him to get his perspective. I am not here to pass judgment on anybody. All I desire is to understand the progression of events. To understand processes and sequences of events is after all at the heart of my quest to understand how bacon is made and then, to answer the “why?.”
Bacon is not something that was developed by anybody setting out to designs a food formulation – no, it is the result of the interaction of a multitude of scientific discoveries, the requirement of investors and managers of bacon curing operations and the reaction of the public on what is being presented to them. Factors such as nutrition and the practical requirement for meat with a particular longevity drive the process and the progression of the various bacon systems. I have written a description of the progression of these systems from the time of dry-curing in a pamphlet which I call, Bacon Curing Systems: From antiquity till now. Every progression related to quality and proper curing, a better taste and improving on the speed of production. These requirements which do not change gives the direction of the product and its production systems improvements which is, as it were, moved forward by an invisible hand. Woven into the story of bacon are some of the most dramatic tales of our human existence and in this way, bacon itself becomes a metaphor for life. It tells the story of all of us!
I am immensely thankful for the opportunity to discover this story and to share it with those I love most and in a very small way, to be part of this great story of Bacon & the Art of Living!
Minette and I are planning to travel back to Cape Town in August. I plan to spend most of my time in Cape Town before I will leave for a week to Johannesburg and Potchefstroom where I will meet with Oscar, designing our Cape Town plant. Will it be possible for you guys to to join me on the trip to the interior? I will very much like it if it will be possible. I also expect to spend much time with Elmar and Juanita in Hermanus and of course with my mom and dad.
The knowledge that I will very soon see all of you fills me with great excitement. Please send greetings to your grandparents!
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.
John Harris Reciprocates!
May 1892
Dear Oscar,
“I recall Calne being a quiet place, pastoral, country town, with little to do, other than roam the fields and pastures, fish in the streams, and play in the streets,” Michael Caswell, the consultant to John Harris, told me over supper one evening. With a broad smile, he told me about Ellen Viveash who said about life in Calne, that there is a “want of education and refinement.” Mike added that she is not wrong. “Saturday nights, usually involved local lads brawling outside the pubs, and many a tooth was knocked out. They wore their smiles like a badge of honour, to show how ‘tough’ they were. They were an unpleasant lot!” What Mike is saying is that Calne is an industrial town just like Johannesburg or Castelemain in Australia or Chicago in the US.
He told me that “before Calne was turned into a ‘pig’ town by the Harris family, it was an important market town for wool. The local Downs (rolling hills) were perfect for raising sheep, and all the farmers raised thousands of them, going back to neolithic times. Sheep bones were found in many of the local ‘barrows’, Celtic mounds that scatter the hills across Wiltshire. Stonehenge, and in particular, Avebury, go back 5000 years.
His own family, the Caswells, (it means someone who lives by a watercress bed or Cress – well) have farmed the area for over 1000 years. Fortunes were made on sheep. Wiltshire was famous for cloth making. Spinsters (local single women- hence the name) were engaged in the manufacture with spinning wheels. In the 1300s Witney (in Oxford) was a major manufacturer of blankets and his family grew rich supplying wool from Yatesbury, near Calne.
Over the years, the Caswell wealth moved from Yatesbury, Cherhill, Calne, towards Trowbridge, where cloth manufacture was prominent. The Casswells with two SS’s now (posh) owned many properties in this town. In fact, the church bells have RICHARD CASSWELL CHURCHWARDEN cast on them. They all emigrated to Canada and became major pork and cheese exporters. (1)
John Harris did as he promised and made all the factory plans and details of equipment available to me. Mike helped me to start putting a list together of essential equipment for our Cape Town bacon plant. Even though he gave me lots of information about abattoirs, I will give it to you when you visit or when I make it back to Cape Town for my break, whichever happens first. I want to get the information on the equipment for our bacon plant to you to look at it and see what we can make in Cape Town and what we must buy over here or in Europe. I also send you a few plans to start looking at our factory lay-out.
Meat Cutter
Here are three meat cutting machines used to mince the meat for sausages, lunch loaves, salami, and certain hams. The hand-driven system will be sufficient for us to start with, but at some point, we will have to change to the ones driven by electricity. These are the types used in the Harris factory but even they have many hand-driven meat cutting machines which they use whenever the big machines go down.
Bacon Branding
Bacon is branded in the same way as hams.
Bacon and Ham Rolling
The rolling machine rolls and wraps the bacon evenly. The machine below is able to roll and wrap 2500 pieces in one day. To work the machine requires one man and two youths. The one youth makes the first tie and hands it to the man. The man wraps it and hands it to the second youth. The youth makes the second tie.
Factory Plans 50 Pigs per Week
Factory Plans 75 Pigs per Week
Factory Plans 1000 Pigs per Week
Chilling Room
I have written to you much about the design of the chilling room. I will not repeat it in this letter, save to attach a photo of it here.
Interior of the Bacon Factory
Mike made recent photos available to me of the C & T Harris operation.
Curing Cellar
Bacon Truck
Boning Knife
Salinometer
This device measures how salty the solution is. The reason, given to me by butchers, on why they use salt is very interesting. For starters, they say that it makes the meat “last”, but why this is true, nobody was able to tell me. They also tell me that when meat is cooked, one loses up to 70% of the natural salt in the meat and it is, therefore, necessary to replace the lost salt. In order to understand why bacon is made the way we do, it will be very important for me to understand why we use salt. If I understand the “why”, we will be able to manipulate it in order to improve on the way it is being used today.
Steels
Cooking Rack
Cleavers
Cleavers are large size choppers.
Choppers
Spouting
This is an apparatus that is designed to spray fat over meat which does away with any objectionable, old fashioned method of putting the fat into the mouth and spouting it. Spouting by the mouth is not only objectionable but in the highest degree objectionable and disgusting, not only to the operator but also to the consumer, who, in many cases was compelled through the practice to swallow disease germs. The mechanical device is easily operated. The outer cylinder is filled with warm water, and the melted fat poured into the centre of the apparatus through a strainer. The operator then blows through the pipe and the fine spray of fat falls evenly on the meat.
The reason for spraying the meat with fat is to keep flies and other insects off the meat.
Pepper Grinder
Meat Pounder
Meat Mixer
Meat Cutter
Cleaning Brushes
Revolving Bone Washer
A Ham and Bacon Pump
Hand Hoof /Trotter Puller
In a way, this letter is a remarkable progression in our quest. This is what we need to set up our bacon factory in Kraaifontein. This is the highest point we have reached over the last two years and still, we are only beginning. There are more matters to understand before we can design a curing system that is not on par with C & T Harris or Jeppe’s bacon plant in Denmark but better. Nothing less than creating the best bacon on earth will do.
Please ask James to send me the date for their wedding so that I can start planning my vacation. Remember that I am bringing back many more plans and drawings! I intend to spend most of my time with the children in Cape Town. Will it be possible for you and Trudie to visit us? I am planning to ask Minette to marry me and it would be great if you could attend the function.
Please keep this very quiet as we can not let this get to her. Don’t tell anyone my plans, but please give them a credible excuse for your visit to Cape Town.
(1) Edwin Casswell had several farms in Trowbridge, which he sold. His business was responsible for Maple Leaf Foods, a major pork producer in Canada. He exported much cheese to England and was involved with Black Diamond brand cheeses.
The three last photos from Wilder, F. W.. Second edition revised and amplified by Davis, D. I.. 1921. The Modern Packing House. Nickerson & Collins Co, Chicago.
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.
Harris Bacon – from Pale Dried to Tank Curing!
14 April 1892
Dear Lauren, Tristan and Oscar,
We are finally where we wanted to be, just over a year after I left the Cape of Good Hope. The vision is to not only produce bacon but the best bacon on earth. Last week was maybe the most monumental week for our venture. Here is how the week unfolded.
Harris Bacon – Best on Earth
Harris bacon is being hailed as the best bacon on earth, a designation that I aspire to for our bacon in Cape Town. It was the combination of stitch pumping and hot smoking that enabled the Harris brothers to reduce the brining and equalising steps that created sweet cured bacon. The net effect of stitch pumping and hot smoking made it possible to effectively cure meat with far less salt. This happened in the early 1840s. When refrigeration was set up through ice houses in the mid-1850s, it rounded off the system by allowing even less salt and saltpetre to be used and it stabilised the overall new system of mild curing.
The mildly salted, sweet-cured bacon was a huge success. The 1888 publication of Wyman’s commercial encyclopedia of leading manufacturers of Great Britain, by Wyman and sons, says that the Great Western Railway Company’s mainline was opened, passing through Chippenham [and saw that railway facilities were brought] within six miles of the town; this, however, was not near enough, as the requirements of the bacon trade, for carriage of both pigs and bacon, rendered it most important that the town should be placed in direct railway communication with all parts of the country. The demands of the bacon industry led to the building of a branch line from Chippenham to Calne, in 1863; and at the present time, many tons of goods are despatched by rail daily from Messrs. Harris & Sons’ factory alone. The bacon manufactured by this Firm is supplied, through their agents, to the households of Her Majesty and H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, the Houses of Parliament, &c., and is not only sent throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, but finds its way to the continent of Europe, India, China, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New Zealand, America, and numerous other distant places. For keeping in hot climates, the bacon is extra-cured and smoked.
By the end of the century, the Calne factories supplied the principal Transatlantic, Pacific, and Far Eastern steamship lines. There is a lot of competition from the colonies, especially cheap American bacon but nobody was able to compete with Harris on quality. The British Journal of Commerce wrote in January 1889 that Calne was “the chief seat of the bacon-curing industry of England.” It was said that Harris produces more bacon than any other four or five curers in England together. Between 2,000 and 3,000 pigs are slaughtered each week and over 200 workmen and 30 clerks are employed. (british-history)
Pale Dried Bacon
The principal bacon produced by Harris at this point is no longer sweet cured bacon. Under John harris, a new progression was made from the sweet cure system to what they call pale dried bacon. Let me recap what Mr Smith told me a few weeks ago at Bowood which I reported to you in my previous letter when he defined sweet cured bacon, pioneered by Harris in the 1840s. It is bacon that is cured with less salt and saltpetre, with or without the addition of sugar and hot smoked immediately after curing without a drying or equalising step.” Pale dried bacon is produced in exactly the same way as sweet cured bacon. The difference is that after brining when sweet cured bacon is hot smoked, pale dried bacon is not smoked at all. Instead it is only dried or heat set.
Below are two pieces of equipment from Germany that illustrates the difference between sweet cure and pale dried bacon. On the first machine, the stove and the smoking chambers are separated so that the meat can either be heated on one side or hot smoked on the other. To produce sweet cured bacon, the meat will be placed on the hot smoking side and if you want to produce pale dried bacon, it would be hung in the chamber where only heat is applied and no smoking. Notice piping from the oven at the bottom where the smoke and heat is generated bypass the chamber that is open in the illustration – the chamber on the right in the picture below. Only heat will reach this section as there is a separation between the two chambers to shield the smoke from the pale dried variety.
By contrast, the illustration below is only intended for sweet cured bacon since no option exists in its design for the smoke to bypass the meat. Smoke and heat will pass through the chamber and hot smoke the meat, resulting in mild cured bacon only.
The “pale” in the naming of the bacon, therefore, refers to the fact that instead of a golden brown colour of the bacon after hot smoking, the bacon will be pale since it is only heat dried as opposed to smoked. From there the term pale dried bacon. It may look as if Harris did not understand the benefits of smoking other than drying it. This will however be a wrong assumption. They recognised that smoking was in the first place done for drying the meat which they now achieved without smoking. The smoke itself contributed nothing to the drying. This was all done by the application of heat! It was customary for bacon to be shipped “green” to clients and once it arrives at its final destination, to be smoked there before it was sold. Instead of selling it green, hot drying would be better since the all-important drying is achieved and smoking was in any case done on the other end, why not omit the smoking in the initial production completely.
Harris constructed large, specially designed drying rooms for this and the German machine’s featured above are later small-scale designs to achieve effectively the same thing. Harris who invented this processes, however, build specially designed rooms. This room is equipped with a line of pipes on which are cast gills for radiating the heat. These pipes are laid around the room and are connected with a supply of steam. They radiate four times more heat than can be derived from plain steam pipes. The heat required in the drying room is from 80 deg F (27 deg C) to 95 deg F (35 deg C) at which temperature most goods will dry economically. The bacon is kept in the drying room for around 18 hours with a weight loss of only about 6% to 8% which is remarkable! Some of the bacon is smoked afterwards before it was sold but this leads to unacceptable weight loss. (Sutherland and Sutherland)
John Harris has been involved in several court cases this year where imitation pale dried bacon was being sold as Wiltshire bacon. I paste a clipping from Wrexham Advertiser (3 March 1894) that reports on John’s appearance in court to defend their invension.
Wrexham Advertiser, 3 March 1894.
Mild cured bacon, which I already wrote to you about in the greatest detail (Chapter 09.01 – Mild Cured Bacon) is specifically the Irish system, invented by Willian Oake from northern Ireland, adopted in Denmark and practised there almost exclusively. The key distinguishing feature of this system that sets it apart from sweet cured Harris bacon is the re-use of the old brine or the application of a live brine system as it would later be referred to. Harris made fresh brine for every production cycle and Oake’s system did not. The old brine contained the nitrates which were reduced through bacterial action into nitrite. Jeppe speculated, based on the observations of Dr Polenski, that it was the nitrite that is responsible for the quick curing of the meat. This gave another improvement in both the speed of curing as well as its consistency which Harris, at this time, has not happened upon.
Other features in producing sweet cured Harris bacon which is similar to the mild cured system of the William Oake include the initial extraction of meat juices after the bacon sides have been cut, the light salting of the flitches when they are stacked in the curing tubs, the emersion in cover brine and the second stage drying of the sides and light re-salting after pickling following the same method of re-packing or re-stacking the sides in the drying room as is done in the curing baths or tanks. Components of the total system have been in use by many and Harris already had most of the features included in their production of sweet cured bacon. William Oake’s mild curing system brought all the different aspects together in one industrialised unit along with his very specific requirement for using only top quality saltpetre and the one distinguishing feature of re-using the old brine.
The Deal – Trade the Danish Secret for Machines and Factory Plans from Harris (5)
Yesterday, 13 April 1892 was my birthday. John Harris invited Minette and me to his home for supper. His wife baked me a beautiful cake with candles that don’t go out when you blow them. We had great fun, singing and laughing. I enjoy their company! After supper, we went to his reading room where we had a nightcap when he asked me directly about the Danish system. We came to respect each other and he had a proposition for me. They will show me their complete system of mechanisation and exactly how pale dried bacon is made if I am willing to teach them the Danish system, as he calls it. Instead of moving from department to department and spending time with the different supervisors, he will assign me to work directly with his plant manager and chief engineer.
I was thrilled! It will allow me unprecedented access to their plant. He is even willing to share engineering drawings of machines with me so that we can either have the machines built in Cape Town or if it can not be done there, commission the machines to be built in England. They immediately started to take me through their plant in a very methodical way. The first order of business was to show me how they produce pale dried bacon. Whenever all the technicalities got too much for Minette, she would excuse herself and retreat to “an excellent [new] institution in the Harris factory [namely a] reading-room, which is well supplied with books and daily papers for the benefit of the employees. (Wymans)
Upon my return from the first factory tour, Minette and I joined John Harris for lunch in his office where I gave him a brief outline of the Danish system. John listened attentively as I explained the time benefit of mild curing and from what he already started to show me in exchange for this information, I can tell that he really wants the information.
It is amazing to think, Oscar, that our quest will improve the way that the best bacon in the world is produced when we combine the sweet curing and pale dried systems of Harris with mild cured bacon of William Oake. Could you ever imagine that we, all the way from Africa would play such a pivotal role in the global bacon trade! It was Friday and John asked me, starting on Monday, to work with his team of engineers and take them step by step through the complete Danish system.
Wiltshire Bacon Cure – Tank Curing
When I arrived at work on Monday, a small army of scientists was awaiting me and we started working on the transfer of information and incorporating the Danish system immediately. It was clear that the English were not interested in simply copying the system, but to integrate it into their existing system and improving on it. By the end of the week, this has been achieved.
Schematic Representation
Let me begin by giving you a schematic representation of the system.
Diagram from Sutherland & Sutherland (1995). Hot smoking was also used. Most bacon flitches were wholesaled and sliced by the clients as vacuum packing was not invented yet. Smoking continued to be done mainly by the clients.
Meat Selection
The first thing they showed me was the importance of the right meat selection. This lesson I first learned on Stillehoogte from Oupa Eben. Happy pigs make for good bacon! The thing is that if the carcass is going to be chilled immediately after slaughter, it is important to drop the temperature of the warm carcass as quickly as possible to prevent damage to the meat from lactic acid. It normally results from pigs that are stressed before they are killed. It is therefore important to rest the animals before slaughter. This condition that mostly afflicts pork is called PSSE which stands for pale, soft and exudative meat. The meat becomes soft, pale and mushy and it can not hold the brine. It is completely unsuited for curing. The other condition that can arise is dark, firm and dry meat (DFD) which normally afflicts beef, but also occurs in pork. This is characterised by meat with an ultimate pH of above 6.2 and even though it is not as ineffective for curing, is still undesirable. The meat fibres in this instance are enlarged. It holds the brine very well, the brine can not permeate the meat thoroughly resulting in uncured patches in the meat which is then the places where spoilage sets in. It occurs because glycogen is exhausted before slaughter and to prevent it the pigs must be well-rested before slaughter. In Northern Ireland, they feed the pigs 1kg of sugar about 16 hours before slaughter which seems to prevent this. One downside to this is that it affects the quality of the liver which is a sought after by-product. (Sutherland and Sutherlans, 1985)
Remember that in my previous mail, I told you that in the sweet curing system of Harris, the meat is injected before rigour mortis set in? It became customary at the Harris factory to hang the sides till the next morning in the cold rooms before further processing started. This meant that brine was not injected into warm meat, but after rigour set in. Because the problem of both PSSE and DFD only started becoming a big headache for Harris after the cold-rooms were installed and when further processing only started a day later, post-rigour, we can conclude that an application of injection brine pre-rigour prevents the onset of these conditions. In an industrial setup such as Harris, the benefit of not having the pressure to work the meat on the day of slaughter outstripped the advantages of managing DFD and PSE through the application of pre-rigour brining. (Sutherland and Sutherlans, 1985) I will return to this when I discuss brining because, in Denmark, they are experimenting with exactly such a step which they re-introduced based on the advantages of injecting the meat before rigour sets in.
Preparation
The pig sides are cooled after the backbone is removed, either at ambient temperature or in a chiller. “After cooling, the sides are trimmed.” Trimming involved removing the fillet (the psoas major muscle along the central spine portion), the shoulder blade bone (the scapula), and the pelvic bone (the aitch bone). The sides are now placed in a curing cellar (room temp of between 3 deg C to 7 deg C). (1) (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985)
Curing
– The Brine Makeup
Curing takes place in four stages. First, the brine is pumped into the sides, using stitch pumping or a single needle hand injector. The salt concentration in the brine must be between 25% and 30%, 2.5% to 4% potassium or sodium nitrate (saltpeter) and 0.5% to 1% sugar. Between 18 and 25 injections are required, most in the gammon region. The total weight of brine injected is about 5% of the weight of the side. 1kg then became 1.05kg injected. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985) The overall injection across the side can actually be as high as between 8% and 10%. The loin is injected less and the belly, not at all. The pressure of the injector is set at no higher than 60lb/in2 or 4 bar. In other words, inject the brine very gently!
– Dry Salting with liquid Brine Imersion
The sides are either sprinkled lightly with dry salt and placed in a tank of brine, stacked about 12 deep and tied down. If a wet cure is used, the sides are covered with a mix of salt and potassium nitrate in a ratio of 10:1. Liquid brine solution is run into the tank and the sides remained submerged for between 4 and 5 days. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985)
Composition of injection and immersion brine in Wiltshire curing brines (%, w/v) From Sutherland & Sutherland, 1995.
– The Reuse of Old Brine
A distinct feature of the system is that old brine are re-used. John Harris already understood this. The live brine system meant that nitrates have been reduced to nitrites already in the old brine where bacteria removes one oxygen atom from the saltpetre molecule. The makeup of the tank pickle is between 20% and 28% salt (sodium chloride) and 3% – 4% saltpetre (sodium nitrate) when it was first prepared. In order to effect the reduction of the nitrates to nitrites, the brine is seeded with the specific microorganisms (6) that are responsible for the reduction. The “seeding” is done from microorganisms in the old brine. Such seeding has therefore the dual function therefore of introducing reduced nitrites to the new brine and microflora responsible for the reduction. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985)
– Its Roots
The earliest mention I could find of the re-use of old brine comes from the 1830 edition of The Complete Grazier. The report says that wet cure is more expensive then dry cure unless the brine is re-used. First the meat is well rubbed with fine salt. A liquor is then poured over the meat and “though the preparation of such brine may, at first sight appear more expensive than that prepared in the common way, yet we think it deserves a preference, as it may be used a second time with advantage if it be boiled, and a proportionate addition be made of water, and the other ingredients above mentioned.” (The Complete Grazier, 1830: 304)
The concept of reusing the power of old brine is something that has been known in England from at least the 1820s. The earliest mention I could find about the re-use of old brine comes from the 1830 edition of The Complete Grazier It says that liquid brine may appear to be more expensive than if it is done “in the common way” which in the context should refer to dry curing or rubbing a mixture of dry ingredients onto the meat. The edition of the Complete Grazier referred to is from the 5th edition which means that by this time, the description may already be 5 years old if it appeared in the 1st edition. Notice the comment that the brine can be used “a second time.” It seems that the practice of reusing old brine in England of 1820 and 30 was a far cry from the complete system of William Oake from the same time in Ireland where the multiple (continues) re-use of old brines was part of Oakes complete mild cured system.
The reuse of the brine is a concept that possibly has its roots in Westphalia in Germany. William Youatt who compiled the Complete Grazier repeats this process in his 1852 work, Pigs: A Treatise on the Breeds, Management, Feeding and Medical Treatment of Swine; with directions for salting pork, and curing bacon and Hams. He says that “the annexed system is the one usually pursued in Westphalia : — ” Six pounds of rock salt, two pounds of powdered loaf sugar, three ounces of saltpetre, and three gallons of spring or pure water, are boiled together. This should be skimmed when boiling, and when quite cold poured over the meat, every part of which must be covered with this brine. Small pork will be sufficiently cured in four or five days; hams, intended for drying, will be cured in four or five weeks, unless they are very large. This pickle may be used again and again, if it is fresh boiled up each time with a small addition to the ingredients. Before, however, putting the meat into the brine, it must be washed in water, the blood pressed out, and the whole wiped clean.”
Youatt repeats the re-use of the brine in the publication just mentioned. He writes, “In three weeks, jowls, &c, may be hung up. Taking out, of pickle, and preparation for hanging up to smoke, is thus performed: — Scrape off the undissolved salt (and if you had put on as much as directed, there will be a considerable quantity on all the pieces not immersed in the brine; this salt and the brine is all saved; the brine boiled down [for re use].” Notice that his 1852 description is far more “matter of fact” and he does not go into all the explanations and caveats he did in the 1830 description.
The incorporation of this facet of curing brines was undoubtedly not as developed as it was in Ireland in the 1820s and 30s. John Harris did not elaborate exactly on when he became aware of the system. I stumbled upon information a day or two later which made it clear to me that by 1861 the concept was thoroughly entrenched in the English brining establishment. This fact came to me through the curing method of Auto Curing Bacon.
– Auto Curing
I learned that reusing old brine was part and parcel of the auto curing system of bacon production which, by 1861was already in use in England, Sweden, Denmark, and Canada. The process is described as follows. The pig is slaughtered in the usual way and the sides trimmed and chilled. After chilling, it is laid out in rows on a sort of truck that exactly fits into a large cylinder of steel 32 feet long, 6 feet in diameter and which will hold altogether 210 sides. When the cylinder is filled, the lid, weighing 3 ½ tons (7000lb. Danish) is closed and hermetically sealed by means of hydraulic pumps at a pressure of 3 tons to the square inch.
A vacuum pump now pumps all the air out which creates a vacuum of 28 inches. It takes about an hour to pump all the air out. The brine channel which leads to the brine reservoir, holding around 6000 gallons of brine is now opened. The brine rush into the chamber and as soon as the bit of air that also entered has been extracted again, the curing starts. It happens as follows.
The brine enters the cylinder at a pressure of 120 lbs. per square inch. It now takes between 4 and 5 hours for the brine to enter the meat completely through the pores which have been opened under an immense vacuum. When it’s done, the brine runs back into the reservoir. It is filtered and strengthened and used again.
A feature of the system is that it allows the bacon to be shipped overseas immediately, assuming that maturation would happen en route as was usual. The time for the total process is around three days. On day 1 the pig can be killed, salted on day 2 and packed and shipped on day 3.
There are two brine reservoirs. The one is used with a stitch pump to inject brine into the sides as usual before they are placed in the cylinder and the second tank is used. The largest benefit of this system is the speed of curing and many people report that the keeping quality of the bacon and the taste is not the same as bacon cured in the traditional way.
There is a fascinating point to be made here. The system cured the meat in a short time, not because of the vacuum or the penetration of the brine into the muscle, but because it too used the power of the old brine which is based on the reduction of nitrate to nitrite. The vacuum had an impact in rather keeping the brine inside the meat and sealing the meat fibres over the areas where holes were created during injection and brine normally leached out again.
It clearly is a progression of the mild cured system. The brine is distributed into the meat through step one and not primarily by what they call the “opening of the meat pores.” The fact that a vacuum is created without question adds to the uptake of the brine in the meat, but far less than what was ascribed to it. (11)
– Maintaining Adequite Levels of Nitrites and “Cleaning” the Brine
Let us return again to the concept of the reuse of the brine. The meat juices (protein) that leached from meat that was previously immersed in brine are used with the new brine. This that tank curing is, in effect the Danish system which they got from the Irish.” The amount of nitrite in the brine is managed by adjusting the salt (sodium chloride) concentration in the brine. (2) (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985) The basis of this approach is the fact that the nitrite level in the brine remains at the same level provided that the salt concentration is maintained at approximately 22%. If the salt concentration increases, the nitrite level tends to decrease. At lower salt levels, the nitrite level may increase. No studies have unfortunately been done to date on the bacterial levels in these brines. It will then seem as if salt concentration levels impact the nitrite level in the brine. Other factors are the proportions of saltpetre and nitrate-reducing bacteria in the flora as well as the enzyme activity of these organisms, the amount of nitrite taken up by the meat and the amount destroyed through chemical means. (Mrak,1953)
The most effective method to clean the used brine at the end of the production day is filtration. The NaCl levels as well and saltpetre levels are adjusted back to the required levels. Temperature of a maximum of 4 deg C must be maintained. Keep in mind that the salt (NaCl) levels will fall by around 2.5% and the volume by around 7% due to leakage of the brine from the meat. New, fresh brines can be added or HCl can be used to stabilise the brine at the end of the day even though this is not always effective. Also, remember that circulating the brine continually during injection is not always practised for a good reason. (Sutherland & Sutherland, 1995)
Ingram (1951) made the following comments about ham and gammon taint. “A ham properly cured without injection, and internally ‘sterile,’ can be made to keep almost indefinitely. The bacteria injected into gammons slowly cause internal off-flavours even in cool storage. For long storage, it would seem wise to sterilize brine used for injection, and the addition of acid might be beneficial.”
– Acidifying Bacon?
Lactic acid in the muscle is beneficial for curing as well as for micro-control and many brines are slightly acidic in any event. The question then comes up why don’t we acidify the brine. It is a logical question and one that I asked right at the start of working in Uncle Jeppes factory in Denmark. (10) What we discovered was that when we used a weak acid, in our case acetic acid, the buffering capacity of the brine increased. We very soon had to use a large amount of acetic acid to adjust the pH. Thinking about it now, I realise that it would have been far better to use hydrochloric acid since excess chloride ions have no buffering action. The pH we aimed for was 4.5 and Jeppe doubted if it was typical of curing brines and the project was never completed. I heard subsequently that work was done where brine was buffered to a pH of 3.4 using a combination of citric acid and disodium phosphate. Meat itself is a powerful buffer. Adjusting the pH of the meat by preslaughter treatment as we already referred to in feeding the pigs sugar may yield better results than trying to do this post slaughtering with acid brines. (Mrak,1953) It still remains somewhat of a question in my mind. I am a great fan of acidification and will continue to return to the topic.
Alternative to Curing Option
Remember the comments I made in my previous mail where I stated that the existence of refrigeration brought about changes in the meat if the animal is worked cold compared to when the meat is still warm? In general, diffusion of the brine through the meat happens a lot faster if the meat is warm compared to when it’s cold. This why hot smoking contributes materially to this process. The downside is that there is a greater risk for microbial spoilage when the meat is warm. The way to overcome this is through very strict procedures. One way to still make use of the advantage of the warm meat is to inject brine using stitch pumping before rigour mortis sets in, while the meat is still warm. The result will be that the cure will spread rapidly through the meat and colour development will be faster. In addition, the overall yield will be better and cooking loss will be less. It is possible to now replace the emersion brine with dry salting only and sides can be hung quickly and individually which allows the side to be chilled quickly after this operation. It has been shown in some factories in Denmark where this has been tested that good bacon can be made in this way in as little as 5 days. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985)
Maturing
The sides are placed in a maturing cellar for 6 to 7 days. Maturing days for as low as 2 days have been used in Denmark, but the curing was not as good. Many processors there report good curing in between 4 to 5 days. This was another major progression of the sweet-cure process used in the Harris factories since the 1840s. The temperature was kept at between 3 deg C and 4 deg C as was the case in the brine cellar. The goal of this step was to diffuse the brine of sodium chloride, nitrate, and nitrite throughout the meat. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985) It took me some time to properly describe this step to the Harris engineers since the maturing step as I learned in Denmark should not be confused with the maturing step in a dry-cured system as it is not expected to yield any chemical changes in the meat.
It is important to construct the pallets used for stacking the bacon during this stage from steel. (7) Wood should be avoided due to the likelihood of contaminating the meat again. The relative humidity should be kept at between 82% to 85%. One way that the relative humidity can be achieved is to keep the floor of the maturing room wet with brine. Since extensive microbial growth can occur during this step, they may want to reduce the time the bacon spends maturing to as low as 2 days.
There is a school of thought that during maturing bacon flavours are produced through the action of bacteria. This may or may not be the case and if bacon flavours develop as a result of long maturing times, the question still remains if the public will notice these changes. Many people swear by it and others can not detect any difference between bacon where long maturing times were used and those where it was not used. This will remain a subject to be studied in the future. Where long transport times are envisaged, maturing can be done en-route. (Mrak,1953) As I already mentioned, it’s best not to expect any positive flavour development in the meat quality to take place during this step.
Smoking
Most of the cured meat was un-smoked (green) but some would be smoked for between 2 and 3 days, normally for local sales. The traditional Wiltshire process yielded well-cured bacon in anything between 10 and 21 days. (Lawrie, R. A.; 1985) (8)
It has been shown that smoking reduces the number of bacteria present on bacon considerably. It is estimated that it is able to double the storage life of bacon. On the other hand, smoking seems to increase mould formation of bacon. (9) As storage temperatures decrease and salt levels increase, the time is increased before slime formation on the surface of bacon can be noticed. If the final pH of bacon is reduced from 6 to 5.6 the microbial flora in bacon drops significantly. (Mrak,1953)
Packing and Shipping
Bacon is baled for shipping. Cloth that is wrung out of hot water or dry sterile cloth is used to wipe dirt, salt, bits of fat and bone dust from the sides. During sea voyages, the bacon is packed under refrigeration and if the sides have been wiped well, this also removes a lot of the bacteria and the onset of slime is retarded. (Mrak, 1953) When slime formation occurred, one can normally just wipe this off unless the flavours have been affected. Normally this does not happen unless yeast developed and leaves a yeast flavour on the bacon. In this case, smoking should mask any off flavours. For this reason, most Wiltshire sides are packed unsmoked and smoked at the final destination. (Mrak,1953)
Mould is a different story and the taste can normally not be disguised or removed by washing. This is why borax was originally used on Wiltshire sides as a preventative measure and when shipping times were delayed and long term storage was required. Borax prevents mould formation but it may encourage bacteria growth. Boric acid has the opposite effect namely removing bacteria but encouraging mould formation. The reason for this is probably the change in the surface pH. (Mrak,1953)
Storing temperature at -15 deg C prevents large ice crystals from forming and at this temperature it can be kept in a good state for 3 1/2 months. Eventually, all bacon will spoil if stored for too long. The fat of bacon turns yellow as it becomes rancid. This happens even under frozen storage. (Mrak,1953)
Smoked bacon keeps longer in both the frozen and the unfrozen state due to the well known anti-oxidant effect of smoke. The deeper layers of fat where the smoke did not rich, remain unprotected and is prone to spoilage. (Mrak,1953)
It is done! The Irish invention of mild curing was acquired by the Danes and now finally made its way to England and the operations of C & T Harris where they started to refer to it as tank curing. Tank curing is then the English modification of the mild curing system of William Oake. A question immediately came up as to why they did not get this from Ireland directly much sooner, especially in light of the fact that many wealthy families from Cale were involved in the pork trade from Ireland. Lord Lansdown was a landowner in Ireland, as were many of his neighbours. It was a question that I have to find answers to, but for now, my focus is completely on the task at hand at Harris. The meat is prepared for pickling and cured in a new way. This week, for the first time ever, it was done in this way at the world-famous operation of C & T Harris. Harris adopted the Danish system and tank curing was born!
It is Sunday now and the most momentous week of my life came to an end. I am both exhilarated and exhausted. Despite the quality of the Danish bacon, it is, in my opinion, the British bacon of C & T Harris that we have to imitate and similar to how they improved on the Irish and Danish method, in the same way, we have to use their bacon as the starting point and seek to improve on it.
Oscar, I can report that I have found what we are looking for and that it will not be of little benefit if you could join me in the United Kingdom for a time. My interest is in chemistry and meat science, and you are far better at machines and understanding engineering drawings. I am doing my best to learn as much as I can, but I am convinced that if you spend the same time with the engineers, that the benefit to us will be greatly enhanced by your ability to grasp it better.
Children, I am seeing our plan coming together in a way that I could not have imagined. Please take the letter to my dad also and to Elmar and Juanita in Hermanus. I also sent a mail to Dawie Hyman and invited him to visit me in Calne. He is an engineer and I am convinced he will not only find it immensely interesting but will be able to offer insights and help with our Cape improvements.
I am planning to return to Cape Town with Minette for a short break. She is needed at her job in the bank and I will enjoy travelling back with her. Oscar, maybe you can visit us and we can all return to the Cape together. Returning will also give me the opportunity to see you guys again and I have to attend to important matters. Here in Calne, we stay in an Inn and it will be great to have a bit of a break from this. It is different from Denmark where we could stay with Andreas and his family. I will keep you all abreast of my plans.
(1) Callow gave us a description of Wiltshire cure in 1934.
(2) Ingram, Hawthorne and Gatherum described this process in 1947 of how it was possible to manage the amount of nitrite in the brine by adjusting the salt (sodium chloride) concentration of the brine.
(3) A 1958 publication gives this description of a typical Wiltshire pork cut (Warde, F. and Wilson, T.; 2013: 55).
(5) I estimate that the transfer of technology must have happened either right at the close of the 1800s or right at the beginning of the 1900s. The person who brought the technology to England is not known by name, but casting myself in this role makes it realistic since the transfer, in all likelihood, involved a scenario similar to what I am describing. I have written extensively about it in Bacon Curing – a historical review.
(6) Ch Hansen sells the following starter packs for such applications using:
S. carnosus subsp. utilis
S. carnosus
S. xylosus
(7) Plastic pallets are used today in the place of steel or stainless steel pallets. Wood is completely forbidden is modern factories.
(8) Tumbling is incorporated in the maturing step by modern producers. They then place the bacon for between 1 and 2 days in Wiltshire cover brine followed by 2 – 3 day maturing.
(9) Storage time of bacon is discussed here if it’s stored without proper packaging. For a detailed discussion on the subject, see The Freezing and Storage of Meat
(10) I asked the question at the start of my processing career at Woodys. I used the exact method described here.
(11) When I returned to Calne many years later, Michael was still working with them and we conducted an experiment where we added colour to the brine and used one of the smaller autoclaves to evaluate the rate of diffusion. We did not use the injector needle to inject brine as is done in step one. This way we could see the effect of the vacuum on its own. At the end of the 5-hour curing process, we cut the muscle in two and saw that brine entered the meat, but it was not well diffused through the muscle.
We repeated the experiment but this time we injected the meat first as per the prescribed method. When we cut that meat open at the end of the process, we saw that small brine pockets formed in the meat, but not even this distributed the brine evenly. It explains to me on the one hand why there are many problems with bacon cured in this way and on the second hand, it shows the superiority of the tank curing or mild bacon system where brine is allowed to enter the meat over several days. Tank curing, therefore, removes the expensive cylinder and vacuum and it achieves much better brine distribution using time. It can be shown that the distribution of brine through the meat happens through diffusion which is simply the movement of the brine from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.
The most important contributor of diffusing the brine through the meat quickly and evenly still remains hot smoking. We concluded our experiment by hot smoking and heating some of the bacon in a pale dry chamber after we injected the meat with colour. The results were exactly as we expected. Proper diffusion of the brine took place during smoking. My guess is that it takes place as the meat heats up. This concept of autoclaving the bacon would later be combined with the concept of tumbling or massaging the bacon to create vacuum tumblers.
References
Ingram, M.. 1951. Internal Bacteria Taints (‘Bone Taint” or ‘Souring’) of Cured Pork Legs.
Mrak, E. M., Stewart, G. F. (Editors). 1953. Advances in Food Research, Volume IV. Academic Press.
Lawrie, R. A., Ledward, D. A.. 1985. Lawrie’s Meat Science. Woodhead Publishing.
Sutherland, J. M., Sutherland, J. P.. 1995. Meat and Meat Products: Technology, Chemistry and Microbiology. Springer Science & Business Media.
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.
Ice Cold Revolution
April 1892
Dear Children,
It is the third day in a row that I am writing to you about ice. I can not get it out of my mind. For refrigeration to work, we need electricity. In Cape Town, David de Villiers Graaff has a vision for Cape Town to turn it into a world-class city and I heard that he is planning to bring electricity to our city. The plan is to construct the first power station at the Molteno dam. The dam is named after the country’s first Prime Minister, John Molteno. (1)
The Graaff Electrical lighting works at the Molteno Dam.
Electricity from Platteklip Stream
There is a river from Platteklip Gorge on Table Mountain, that used to flow above ground, all the way to the sea. Jan van Riebeek built the VOC Castle right next to the mountain river due to the strategic importance of the water. The reason for the creation of the VOC post at the Cape of Good Hope was to sell water and food to passing ships.
I remember that construction started on the dam in 1877 since the city fathers saw the water running into the sea from the mountain as a waste. It was completed in 1881 which is ten years ago. (1) Both Minette and I have always disagreed with our city fathers on how they altered the landscape. We would prefer for things to have staid natural and wild. Recently they forced the glorious river underground. It would have been a much better plan to keep the river intact and undisturbed. I fear we have lost an important feature of the land forever. Then again, how is that different from losing countless wild animals to mindless hunting.
I will bring up the matter of conserving our land for future generations with David when we meet again. I sent a letter to Oscar yesterday asking him to go out of his way to meet with David to discuss refrigeration for our bacon plant in Cape Town.
Waterfall became the mountain stream that ran from Platteklip Gorge to the sea. Now, into the Molteno Dam.
I am glad that they will be discussing refrigeration since this single invention has the most profound impact on curing bacon as it has on all meat production, processing and trade. In southern Africa, we don’t have the climate of other nations that makes ice from frozen rivers and lakes available for the kind of refrigeration they use in Calne and the distance to countries that could supply us is so great that it will make such an endeavour very expensive.
The fact remains that the ability to freeze or chill meat is of crucial importance to the curing of bacon. That we presently do not have electricity in Cape Town and therefore do not have refrigeration plants explains to me, on the one hand, the heavy salting that David has practised at Combrink & Co and gives a time frame for the start of our own curing plant. We can not do it before David has constructed the electricity plant at the Molteno dam. That is, of course, if we can use some of its electricity. I heard that he intends to use it exclusively to power streetlights for Cape Town which I assume is only the first step of a much wider drive for electrification.
Refrigeration, as Oscar and I discovered, will allow us to cure bacon in warm climates such as we have at home of the same quality as it is done here in England, Denmark, Germany, and Holland. The colder the meat and the brine, the better we will be able to control the growth of bacteria and the meat will not spoil before it has cured through.
The reason why I am writing to you about this is that I have always thought of Cape Town as probably lagging far behind the rest of the world in terms of development. Despite the major scientific discoveries that came from Bowood and Calne and the fact that Harris is the centre of the bacon universe, they also do not have electricity. It seems to me that Cape Town can be ahead in its material development when compared with many other parts of the world. I observe that men like David are key in bringing about leadership in the world. I am humbled by the hope that Oscar and I will be able to at least be in the same league as many of the leading bacon producers in the world through diligence and vision.
On the one hand, I am proud of our friend and the monumental impact he is making in our city back home. On the other hand, I am disappointed that what we are doing as Europeans in Africa is to be evangelists of the West instead of, as Alexander von Humboldt taught us to learn from the native peoples in the new world how to live in harmony with the natural world and to embrace the best in their culture. The matter of meat curing is a very good example. There are traditions among the Khoe and the San of meat curing and fermentation. I believe that discoveries of ancient civilizations along the southern coast of Africa shows that people lived in these regions almost 200 000 years ago. These people possessed a remarkable ability to invent very complex processes in terms of the production of arrowheads and tools. Even as a child I heard the legends of San nomads of the earliest forms of fermentation of honey into mead. It is possible that it was this technology that spread north by the trade routes into what is today known as Arab lands and into Mesopotamia where mead production was first described in written form at least 2000 years before the Christian era. The plain fact is that based on the sophistication of the southern African societies of 100 000 years ago, these technologies may very well have originated in our land.
The same is true of the drying of meat. I find the technology of hanging meat out in the sun to dry after it has been salted by rolling it in ash to protect it from insects such as flies to be universally applied. American traders told me that the exact same is done by the American Indians. Merchants from Nepal informed me that it is practised in communities across India and Nepal – up into the high Himalayan mountains. These communities did not all cover the meat in ash before they hang them out in the sun and wind to dry, but what all of them have in common is that they would pulverise the dry meat when its time to consume it and they would re-hydrate it in water, creating a meat soup to enjoy. In Africa, it is customary to add ground nuts and other plant-based extenders to such a soup. I have myself investigated this matter in great detail when I was travelling across southern Africa as a transport rider and found the technology to be pervasive across the sub-continent.
An Australian boat captain told me that tribes in Papua New Guinea would create ash from trees that were known to soak up lots of salt from the earth and the ash, therefore, contained high salt levels. I have seen the exact same thing across southern Africa, that in regions where there are not many salt pans or natural salt fountains, locals would use plants which they refer to as salt bushes for exactly the same reason. Even though some think that salt was a scarce commodity in Africa, in reality, this was not the case and by rolling the meat in the ash, they not only protected it from insects, but they also salted it. In this way, salt-cured meat technology in Africa is probably as old as human existence there itself.
Similar to the technology of fermented honey, it would not surprise me if the technology of the drying and salting of meat was invented in Africa from where it was spread across the globe. In this way, Africa dealt with the matter of meat spoilage millennia before Europe identified this as a problem. There are countless examples of technology where the European is wrong to think that Africa is primitive and its people less developed. Instead of collaborating with the African, the European thinks that culture only evolved in this part of the globe.
There is of course the very real possibilities that many of these technologies were discovered independently by several societies across the globe but similarities between what is practiced in the Cape and across Africa with practices in India, Nepal, Russia and North America are so specific that it would seem to be technology that originated at one location and spread across the globe over many thousands of years.
David is, in this regard, a captive of the European mindset, something that I hope I will have more opportunities to discuss with him. If we look at science as a more recent cultural development and if we accept the fact that all of humanity has the same right to contribute to the scientific progress of all of humanity, irrespective of the cultural setting where it takes place, in this regard, I am happy to be here. When I say that science is a more recent development, what I should rather say is that the current of scientific inquiry and the development of a formal system of evidence-based, observation derived thinking, I should rather say that it was a trickle right from the earliest existence of humanity, but in our time has become a raging river. It may even have been that the process of observation and resultant deductive reasoning was more prominent many tens of thousands of years ago and the dominance of religion for a time derailed the best development of human culture. My belief is that the native African has a far better understanding of the application of these principles in a way that is not destroying the earth, but this is a matter for another day.
Recent Scientific Discoveries
Scientists are having a major impact on elusidating the different and hitherto hidden forces behind meat processing and preservation. It is showing us the effect of bacteria, not just temperature. These discoveries will impact on how meat is packaged and sold in the future.
It has been known since time immemorial that meat in a frozen state lasts a long time just as it has been known that dry meat lasts a long time. We now understand that one of the reasons for this is that at low temperatures, there is little bacterial growth, just as we now understand that in order for bacteria to function, there must be a certain amount of water present in the meat. Scientists have identified three distinct phases in bacterial growth generally speaking. Slow acceleration, maximum acceleration, and reduced acceleration. (Winslow, CEA and Walker, HH. 1939) (2)
The fact that there is a lag time in bacterial action (slow acceleration) has by itself an important lesson for bacon processing apart from the consideration of temperature on bacterial activity. It means that meat must be progressed through the various stages of production at a well-controlled and pre-defined pace which will ensure that no stage takes any longer than it should in order to prevent bacteria from “settling in.” Any step must utilize the “lag time” fully and be progressed before maximum acceleration takes over again.
From The Times (London), Thursday, 20 May 1920
The Harris family’s bacon empire from Great Britain saw the benefits of refrigeration even before refrigeration plants existed. They applied the principles and benefits of cold to bacon production since the time when ice houses existed and in this way laid the foundation for the existence of large bacon plants.
From Cook County Herald, Friday, 29 Nov 1907.
The development of refrigeration and the subsequent revolution it brought about in the meat industry was in the air well before the end of the 1880s. In fact, so many experiments were being done in the 1870s and early ‘80s (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) that it will take a long and cumbersome book to try and chronicle any more than what I gave you in my previous letter.
How to Transport Meat from the New World to the Old
What is of interest is that the supply of meat in England and on the continent has been overtaking supply during the mid-1800s that made the development of refrigeration a national priority for the English and for European countries. Not even refrigeration in particular, but the need for preservation that would allow meat to be transported over long distances has become a major priority. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) Among the many suggested ways to achieve this, refrigeration was only one of many options. Another option was, of course, curing and changing the meat into bacon, but this did not allow meat in its unprocessed form to be moved in large volumes between countries.
If a way could not be found, through whatever means, to economically supply England and Europe with meat from the new world of the Southern Hemisphere, the people of England and Europe either had to learn to be content with less meat or pay much higher prices for it. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) Losing frequent meals that included meat was not just the loss of desirable food, but would seriously hamper the efforts to combat starvation, hunger and poor nutrition. Remember that I have detailed at great lengths the recognition of the link between nutrition and the protein of meat which contain nitrogen. Refrigeration was by no means the obvious solution.
In around 1860, the Privy Council, also known as His (or Her) Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, a body of advisers to the sovereign of the Kingdom of England, started to discuss the matter of food supply to England. (3) Many societies and institutions followed their lead. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) This was undoubtedly the most important matter in Europe and England.
In 1863 the Privy Council laid down a rule “that, to avoid starvation diseases, the weekly food of an average adult must contain 28,600 grains of carbon and 1,300 grains of nitrogen.” Dr Brown, in ” The Food of the People,” published in 1865, wrote that “the plague-spot, the skeleton in the closet of England, is that her people are underfed.”” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) A committee of the Society of Arts was established which first met on 21 December 1866 to give direction to the charge to find a way to increase the food supply to England. (3) (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4)
Hunger and starvation were a major threat to the population and nutritional values were tested to find food that will best prevent starvation. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4) In 1876, Edward Smith writes about the value of bacon to the poor: “Dried bacon divides itself during the process of cooking into two parts, of which the labourer and his wife may have the solid and the children the liquid part, and thus both be in a degree pleased, if not satisfied.” (Smith, E, 1873: 65)
Smith continued that “so far, it may be said, that bacon is the poor man’s food, having a value to the masses which is appreciated in proportion to their poverty, and it is a duty to offer every facility for its production in the homes of the poor.” (Smith, E, 1873: 65) Many patents and methods were proposed to the committee of the Society of Arts. Each thoroughly investigated. Canned meat was just invented and on trial as well as pemmican (4), and a certain Mr Alexander’s powdered beef. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4, 5)
Interestingly enough, the committee found that “weight for weight, the dried beef was four times more nutritious than ordinary beef.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 4, 5) Remember that I showed above how drying of meat was a priority in all ancient civilizations. Is this something that they already knew through simple observation and personal experience? I have no question about this as anybody who has ever been on a long hike will attest when they have even a small bit of biltong with them. In total, 200 patients were registered for the preservation of meat. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5) I list some of the important ones here.
“Medlock and Bailey claimed that by dipping meat in their bisulphide of lime solution “anything of animal origin, from a beefsteak to a bullock, from a whitebait to a whale, can be preserved sweet for months. C. Nielson proposed to fix blood in the form of sausages, puddings, cakes, and so on. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley delivered a stirring address on fungi, but somehow the mushroom palliative failed to impress the committee as a substitute for the roast beef of Old England.” (5) “De la Peyrouse’s idea was to pack meat in barrels, and to pour in fat at a temperature of 300 F. all round the stored viands.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5)
“Professor Gamgee loomed large, and his method, though revealing a touch of Max Adeler, certainly possessed genius. He suggested that cattle should be happily dispatched by being made to inhale carbonic oxide gas, at a cost of 2s. to 3s. per animal. The flesh of oxen so slain was declared to retain its fresh and bright appearance, and the committee reluctantly and warily tasted chops from a sheep killed in this way, reporting, doubtless to the chagrin of the Professor, that the meat was “slightly flat.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5) (6) “A tin of meat forty-one years old, from the stores of H.M.S. Blonde, was tested and found sound. Professor Redwood advocated raw meat preserved in paraffin.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5)
“Scores of different processes for tinning meat were tested. Dr Hassalts ” Flour of Meat,” Australian “mutton hams,” meat dried by sulphurous acid, and many other inventions, were put before this committee, evidence which contained the germs of many of the modern methods of preserving and handling animal substances for food. The work of the committee came to a sudden stop in 1881. After 15 years of focused and hard work, it has failed to produce a way to export meat successfully.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5, 6)
“In 1881 the committee delivered a gloomy report, and found itself unable to award the £100 prize which Sir Walter Trevelyan had presented for the best means of preserving fresh meat. This £100 was disposed of by being divided into five sums of £20 and granted to food and cooking exhibits at the 1884 Health Exhibition.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 6) “Without doubt, the introduction of frozen meat in 1880 settled the whole difficulty which the Society of Arts’ committee had spent so many years in trying to solve” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 6)
It was the United States of America who first exported meat in artificially cooled storage units when in 1874, beef was exported to Great Britain. “Undoubtedly, the real genesis of the meat export trade under conditions of refrigeration is to be found in the shipments of chilled beef from the United States of America in the seventies. By the end of 1880, when only 400 carcasses of mutton had reached home from Australia, Great Britain had imported from North America 120,000 tons of fresh beef.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 19)
Solving the refrigeration riddle
The photo on the right by Colin BeazleyHy wife works in the building previously occupied by Goldsborough, Mort & Co. on the Ultimo side of Darling Harbour.
Thomas Sutcliffe Mort from Australia is probably the most important name in the story of the frozen meat trade. (Critchell, JT, 1912: 19) Mr Mort was born at Bolton, Lancashire, on December 23, 1816, and emigrating to Australia in 1838. He founded the great financial and wool-broking firm of Mort and Co.. His company amalgamated with that of R. Goldsbrough and Co., Ltd., under the name of Goldsbrough, Mort and Co., Ltd. In 1843 he turned his attention to meat matters and was introduced by Mr Augustus Morris to the French engineer Nicolle. Together they took up the subject of freezing meat for export and started experimenting with it. Mort supplying the capital and Nicolle the engineering skill.
Partial freezing or “chilling,” which was Telh’er’s plan, was tried and rejected, as they realized that thorough congealing was required for the preservation of meat. Mr Mort in 1861 established at Darling Harbour, Sydney, the first freezing works in the world. Thirteen years later Mr Mort’s company became the New South Wales Fresh Food and Ice Co.. The original freezing process at these works was applied in two large apartments, each about 75 feet square and 9 feet 9 inches high, and enclosed by brick walls 4 feet 6 inches thick. The freezing room below was used for the treatment of meat for export. In 1875 the collateral enterprise, the slaughtering works at Lithgow Valley, Blue Mountains, was completed. The two establishments were intended to supply the Sydney market. Ammonia compression refrigerating machinery was used at these works.
At an inaugural lunch on September 2, 1875, at which 300 persons attended, Mr Mort made his famous speech, the concluding part of which remains a jewel in the annals of the Australian meat trade. It portrays him as a man of imagination, noble aims, and high character. Mr Mort in this speech said that Mr. Morris first suggested the “diabolical idea” of freezing meat to send to England. “I can tell you that not once but a thousand times have I wished that Mr. Morris, Mr Nicolle, and myself had never been born.” Mr Mort mentioned that the Sydney Chamber of Commerce about 1867 had put up a sum of money for him to provide meat for distribution in England, and to overcome the English prejudice against “frozen” meat. This is an interesting comment since, in 1867, not a single morsel of (mechanically) frozen meat had reached England! The that Mr. Mort served for his 300 guests was, of course, all frozen. He claimed that some of it had been kept since June 1874. In his speech, he said that Australia was to become “the great feeder of Europe.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 19) With great pride, I give you the concluding remarks of Mr. Mort.
“I feel, as I have always felt, that there is no work on the world’s carpet greater than this in which I have been engaged. Yes, gentlemen, I now say that the time has arrived at all events, is not far distant when the various portions of the earth will each give forth their products for the use of each and of all; that the over-abundance of one country will make up for the deficiency of another; the superabundance of the year of plenty serving for the scant harvest of its successor; for cold arrests all change. Science has drawn aside the veil, and the plan stands revealed. Faraday’s magic hand gave the keynote, and invention has done the rest. Climate, seasons, plenty, scarcity, distance, will all shake hands, and out of the commingling will come enough for all, for ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof,’ and it certainly lies within the compass of man to ensure that all His people shall be partakers of that fulness. God provides enough and to spare for every creature He sends into the world, but the conditions are often not in accord. Where the food is, the people are not; and where the people are, the food is not. It is, however, as I have just stated, within the power of man to adjust these things, and I hope you will all join with me in believing that the first grand step towards the accomplishment of this great deed is in that of which you yourselves have this day been partakers and witnesses.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 20)
These monumental developments would mark, not only the start of the frozen meat trade but would continue to impact the way bacon is being made and priced. Frozen meat will at some point be used as raw material. Freezing will alter the characteristics of bacon and add to the complexity of how bacon is created.
Freezing solved the matter of the long term preservation of meat but proved another point. In our effort to preserve meat we have developed products of such supreme quality and taste that they will be part of human culture for as long as humanity will prevail. Bacon, with its reddish/ pinkish fresh meat colour and distinct taste; its subtle saltiness in the case of mild cured and sweet cured bacon and smokiness in the case of smoked bacon; its inherent ability to withstand bacterial spoilage, its meatiness, all work together as characteristics of one of the greatest products on earth.
There is one statement that I am not sure if I am in full agreement with Mr Mort. It relates to his comment that “cold arrests all change.” This is a matter that “feels right”, but animal and human remains that have been discovered in places of extreme cold have been preserved remarkably well and seems to support his point, but in no way can it be said that the flesh is complete without any change in its frozen state. What exactly the changes are and how they will impact bacon taste is something that must be investigated very carefully.
I keep his speech in front of the notebook I currently use and I refer to it often. It is Biblical in its tone. In the midst of all these matters that continue to flood my mind, I think of you, my dear children. Can I ask that you share this letter with your grandparents also? Oupa wrote me and pleaded with me to share more technical details with him about what I am learning and I fear that I have neglected him in this regard.
In other matters, how is the rugby going Mr T? I hear from Minette that you intend to go to Rondebosch boys high for high school. Lauren wrote to her and told her about your plans. It is an excellent suggestion even though I would have chosen Wynberg Boys High. The decision is, however, yours my son!
I miss you, Lauren! You’re infectious laugh! Please remember that someone who laughs as effortlessly as you also feel sorrow in equal strong and unexpected measures! I miss you so much that it physically hurts and it helps to keep my mind occupied with quotes from old Australians about refrigeration. 🙂
(1) The Graaff Electrical Lighting Works, constructed at the Molteno Dam was commissioned in 1895. It was Cape Town Municipality’s first power station. It was able to run on steam (the chimney stack has since been removed) as well as water. It was the first hydro electric station in South Africa.
Graaff electrical station. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben
Graaff electrical station. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben.
Graaff electrical station. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben
Graaff electrical station. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben
Graaff electrical station. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben
Graaff electrical station at the Molteno dam. The photo was taken in 2014 by Eben
(2) Ward wrote a ground-breaking paper in 1895, Bacillus Ramosus on the topic. (WINSLOW, CEA and WALKER, HH. 1939)
(3) Its members were often senior members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, together with leading churchmen, judges, diplomats and military leaders (Wikipedia. Privy Council of England)
(4) “Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food.” (Wikipedia. Pemmican)
(5) This method of creating “meat replacements” has gained wide popularity in the early 2000’s. So much so that the Woodys Team has put it on their list of long term trends to watch.
(6) “CO2 stunning will reduce bloodsplash,” thus improving quality of meat. The disadvantage is that it is considerably more expensive and difficult to maintain. (Temple Grandin, 2000) Pigs killed with CO2 show a reduced occurrence of PSE meat, less petechiae (red or purple spot on the skin, caused by a minor hemorrhage ) and ecchymoses (larger than 1 centimeter or a hematoma). It appears however that animals who carry the halothane gene are more sensitive to CO2 gas so that the meat quality advantages may be dependant to some extent on the genotype of the pigs. (Warriss, PD. 2010: 54, 55)
References:
Critchell, JT and Raymond, J. 1912. A history of the frozen meat trade. An account of the development and present day methods of preparation, transport, and marketing of frozen and chilled meats. Constable & Company LTD
Hui, YH, et al. 2004. Handbook of Frozen Foods. Marcel Dekker Inc.
Smith, Edward. 1873. Foods. Henry S King and Co.
Temple Grandin. 2000. Methods to reduce PSE and bloodsplash. Veterinary Outreach Programs, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
*Warriss, PD. 2010. Meat Science: An Introductory Text
Winslow, CEA and Walker, HH. 1939. The earlier phases of the bacterial culture cycle
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.
Ice Cold in Africa (1)
April 1892
Dear Children,
I continue to miss you and mom and dad very much! I try and write to them whenever I write to you, but I don’t share the same detail with them. I received mail from dad and it broke my heart with pride to read how proud he is of what I am doing here in England. They sent us a parcel with his sweet cured bacon, beskuit and biltong. I gave John Harris some of the bacon and he was very much impressed with it. This gave me the opportunity to tell him the story of the Kolbroek pigs which he enjoyed very much! Besides family, I miss table mountain the most. There are no high mountains here in Wiltshire. The fact that Minette is here with me makes it very much bearable. While I work in the factory, she spends her days hiking through the hills and spending much time with Susan.
Cape Town, 1877
The excitement of meeting John Harris is something that is hard to explain. The first week at C & T Harris has been one of the most exhilarating weeks of my life. John is one of the most impressive people I have ever met! His no-nonsense approach to life reminds me of Dawid! He introduced me to one of their consultants, Mike Caswell. (2) The other person who made a huge impression on me right off the bat is the lady in charge of the spice rooms, Anita Waite (nee Holman) (3).
Anita’s Recollections of Calne
As at Jeppe’s factory in Denmark, John assigned me to spend a few weeks in every department C & T Harris. The factory is as impressive as one can imagine and even though they do not use the mild cure system of the Irish or the Danes, the level of mechanisation is something that I have never seen before! They are without any doubt ahead in this field of the Danes.
Just as impressive as the mechanization in the factory is the great heart of the people of England. It struck me that they are people just like us who have hopes and dreams and who desire nothing more than to live a quiet life, providing for themselves and their families by working hard and minding their own business. It occurred to me that blind ambition in Africa of individuals has much to do with forming a very negative view of the English. That and the “small” matter of the war we fought with the English. Anita helped me to see the English as ordinary people. I would often spend lunchtime with her and Mike in the cafeteria where they would tell me stories of Calne.
She attended Calne Junior School with Micke Caswell. The school is known as the School on the Green. The classes were in a few different locations. Class one was held in a church hall up by the Recreation Ground. On the way, they crossed Doctor’s Pond and admired the ducks. Most of them were brown and speckled, a few were white, but their favourites were the drakes with their iridescent green feathers. A large plaque at the side of the pond stated that Dr. Joseph Priestley had discovered oxygen at Calne. They are rightfully very proud of that fact.
Lingering too long at the pond made them late. They would run up the Anchor Road hill, to arrive puffing at Mrs. Lucas’ class-room. Hanging their bags on stands at the back of the hall, they waited for roll-call. The class was divided into three long rows of desks. If you had learnt your ” tables” well, you sat up the back and the less fortunate sat right under Mrs. Lucas’ watchful eye. She tells me that they spent a lot of time chanting our “tables”. The reward for reciting all twelve “tables” to Mrs. Lucas was to have a paper snowflake pasted in their arithmetic book. They all coveted that snow-flake.
After the monotony of playing outside the small Church hall, they enjoyed playtimes on the Green. The quiet boys played marbles and the others simply ran wild. The girls had skipping ropes and she tells me that they never tired of chanting,
“Little black doctor, how’s your wife? Very well thank you, that’s all right. She won’t eat a bit of fish, or any licorice, O-U-T spells out!”
I love these simple, innocent stories. It reminds me of my own childhood. She told me, “The rhyme didn’t make sense, but we turned the rope and jumped until our feet felt fuzzy. We worked out our destinies with the skipping rope and rhymes. When we returned to the classroom, we knew who we were going to marry, what type of home we would live in and how our husbands would earn a living.”
Every lunch I would prompt her to tell me more. “The only thing I can remember,” she told me yesterday after Mike joined us, “is that I had to sit next to “a boy.” In the schoolroom, we were to sit according to age, with the oldest in the back seats. Being the youngest girl, I waited patiently to discover who I would be sitting next to. Oh no! It was Michael Caswell! As he was left-handed, his elbows were always going over my work and if I said anything, he scowled at me. He had straight sandy hair and lots of light coloured freckles. Some children had little dark dots of freckles over their noses. Michael Caswell had spectacles sitting on his nose. I felt sad for him when he smashed his glasses or wore them with cracks across them. All the other boys wore hand-knitted school jumpers, but he always wore a little grey serge jacket with cuffs. I really liked it. After a while, I enjoyed sitting there. He drew wonderful pictures of boats in a grey-lead pencil.” I can not tell you how much I enjoyed these tales.
She shared much more with me. “In the late Summer, we attended the Harvest Festival at Calne Parish Church. Everybody arrived at school laden with carrots, parsnips, cabbages potatoes, in fact, every vegetable you could think of. It was more like a competition as to who had grown the biggest of each variety. My Dad said that Harvest festival should be to thank God for His bounty, not a time to gloat about who had grown the biggest marrow. I guess he was right. However, I was quite intrigued about going inside a Church. We met, every Sunday with other Christadelphians in our plain brick Meeting-hall in Swindon and I had never been in a church with a spire or tower. It was very cold and musty inside, the seat was hard and the floor was littered with cushions. I guess they were for kneeling on. The stained glass windows were very impressive but it was all a bit too ornate for me.”
She told me one day that as she thinks back at all those good friends, she feels glad that she spent her childhood in Wiltshire and attended the Calne Junior school, the school on the Green. (3)
Anita’s stories not only took me back to my own childhood in the Cape but also to you. Like her, I am glad that I went to school there and for the many friends I made. I miss Cape Town terribly. It’s autumn back home and you have the most beautiful days of the year. Very soon large storms from the south will arrive and winter will set in over the Cape. Despite the amazing excitement of being at the Harris bacon operation, tonight I think back about all that I have learned. Curing bacon, like living life, is indeed an art worth cultivating. I enjoy how Mike and Anita embraced Minette and me and how life has become ordinary for us. It feels as if we are home – that’s how welcome they made us feel!
Last night over supper with John Harris and Mike Caswell, it was again my chance to tell a few stories. The discussion around the table turned to the matter of using ice to preserve food and why we have difficulty curing bacon in South Africa.
Notes from Denmark on Refrigeration
In Denmark at the Østergaard household, we read the 1876 book by Edward Smith, Foods, that you are familiar with by now. He lists refrigeration as a major way to preserve food. For him, refrigeration was mainly the supply of ice. Remember that the challenge in the 1800s was to supply enough food for the old world and a solution was to import food from the new. Apart from the long voyage from the new world to the old, the fact is that new worlds have warm climates.
Smith says that the “real difficulty is to provide a sufficient quantity of ice at the ports of South America and Australia.” (Smith, Edwards, 1873: 25) Of course, one solution was to load a ship with enough ice to make the journey to the new world, pack the meat in the iceboxes and transport it back to the old world, still under refrigeration of the ice. This would have been very costly. Smith stays “so long as our supplies of meat are from hot climates the expense will be a serious impediment to such a commercial enterprise.” He suggested that countries with cold climates must start producing meat for the old world and large quantities of ice should be stored in “an economical manner at the ports of meat-producing countries” (Smith, Edwards, 1873: 25, 26) Every effort should be undertaken to make such transport of meat possible.
He refers to the work of Messrs. Nasmyth of Manchester who “produced machines on the patent of M Mignot, by which 50 lbs. of ice may be made per hour at the cost of condensing and then rerafying air. ” (Smith, Edwards, 1873: 26) Apparently, ice houses started to be built in the northern hemisphere on the property of wealthy owners from the 1700s. These were generally brick-lined pits, build below the ground where ice from surrounding lakes was stored. (Dellino, C, 1979: 2)
Reviewing some of my notes from Denmark, Andreas told me, it is clear that the seeds for solving the refrigeration problem were planted and in the 1600s when the Englishman Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691) showed that water under pressure has a reduced boiling temperature. (3) (Kha, AR, 2006: 26) The mathematics Professor, Sir John Leslie (1766 – 1832) at Edinburgh University in Scotland created ice in his laboratory by absorbing water from a water container with sulfuric acid, thereby producing a vacuum in the closed container. The vacuum, in turn, caused the saturation temperature of the water producing the vapour, to be low enough to form ice.
Dr William Cullen at Glasgow University observed in 1755 that an isolated container where water is being evaporated from will drop in temperature. In 1871 Thomas Masters in England demonstrated an ice cream maker where a temperature of close to freezing point can be obtained if a brine mix of salt and ice is used. (Kha, AR, 2006: 26) The American Charles E. Monroe of Cambridge, Massachusetts, demonstrated a food cooler that affected cooling through the evaporation of water through the porous lining of the refrigerator. (2) (Kha, AR, 2006: 26)
M. Howell observed in 1755 that air leaving a pressurized airline, cooled when it escaped. A patent, based on this observation, was granted to Dr. John Gorrie (1803 – 1855) for the first machine to work successfully on the air refrigeration cycle. (Kha, AR, 2006: 26) In 1824 Ferdinand P E Carre showed that ammonia could reach much lower temperatures than water when boiled at the same pressure. (4) (Kha, AR, 2006: 26)
Refrigeration was “in the air” in the 1800s. It was just a matter of time before this was being done successfully in our homes, at harbours, meat markets and on ships.
My Mind Wanders back to Africa
It is doubtful that David de Villiers Graaff kept abreast of all the particular developments in refrigeration that Andreas told me about. The practically minded man that I know, and without having talked to him about this, my guess is that he paid close attention to the development of freezing technology. This was, I am sure, by the inspiration of Philip Armour! In particular, the race to apply it to ships in order to transport frozen meat successfully from Australia to England and the creation of refrigerated railway carts must have been of huge interest to him. This affected him directly, after all, and I am sure he noticed the commercial opportunity immediately.
He no doubt took careful notice of the development in England where the railways were using refrigerated cars for transporting perishable goods. Cold storage works were springing up in docklands and markets from Auckland and Buenos Aries, London, Antwerp, and Chicago. (Brooke Simons, P, 2000: 22) One year after he was appointed manager of Combrinck & Co, he noticed the docking of the Dunedin in Cape Town harbour. This was the first successful shipment of meat between Australia and England. David was consumed by the quest to make Cape Town a world-class city and by making Combrink & Co a world leader in the supply of meat. (Brown, R.) It is only to be expected that David must have identified the creation of large storage works in Cape Town and across Southern Africa and linking these by the equipping of railway cars with refrigeration as a priority. He had the background and the means to effect this.
I would expect that one of the things that were on his mind as the Dunedin docked was the question: why is the beef not being transported from South Africa? A much closer source than Australia and why are we not setting up a network to support similar distribution across Africa? Refrigeration became his business! Where our current quest is discovering the art of preserving pork through the curing process and creating the world’s best bacon, David was looking at solving the problem of preserving meat for later use by the application of refrigeration.
He set out in the 1880s on a world journey to investigate refrigeration and to familiarise himself with every aspect of the meat trade in England and in the USA. In Chicago, he looked at the most modern systems of meatpacking. As soon as he returned to Cape Town, he set out to apply refrigeration to Combrink & Co. (Brooke Simons, P, 2000: 22, 23)
Great business leaders often capitalist in areas where they already have a presence. Combrink & Co was best positioned to take advantage of refrigerated railway cars and cold storage works. A Scotsman, Sir Donald Currie, the owner of the Castle Line of mail ships, servicing the line between South Africa and Great Britain, was in an ideal position to exploit the need to transport meat between South Africa and England. (5) Currie’s first ship with a refrigeration facility was Grantully Castle which set sail from Cape Town on 13 February 1889 with 15 tons of grapes. The experiment with grapes was a disaster, but David was ready with a supply of a far more durable product to ship under refrigeration. Meat! (Brooke Simons, P, 2000: 23)
Bacon and Refrigeration
There is a very specific application of refrigeration to the production of bacon. Remember that I told you how Oscar and I tried to cure our own bacon on his farm in the Potchefstroom district and how, when we ate it, the meat was off? The reason was that we had an unexpectedly warm snap which caused the meat to go off. The Harris invention of their ice houses was the answer to effect year-round curing!
We will need refrigeration at our Cape Town bacon plant! Our investment is in the process of curing and not in large scale storage or transportation. Donald Currie and David Graaff have already staked their claims in these areas of business. We have neither the money, not the time to compete against them. Since they are not experts in the curing and processing of pork, this is an area where we can steak our own claim with a great likelihood of success for our venture.
The fact that David is about to build a new, much bigger storage works in Cape Town will be to our advantage since we can use this as refrigerated storage for our carcasses as well as for our bacon before it is sold to ships and clients throughout South Africa. Initially, I would not ever worry about setting up our own refrigerated chambers. I will ask Oscar to discuss these matters with David so long so that we can have a plan by the time I finally return home.
East London’s harbour at the mouth of the Buffalo River. In the absence of facilities ashore, the vessel SV Timaru, fitted with cold chambers, was moored here by the East London Cold Storage Company for an extensive period early in the 20th century. (From Ice Cold in Africa). The businesses of David de Villiers Graaff and Moor were intertwined and mutually dependant.
Minette put a stop to my talk about refrigeration if Africa when John’s wife joined us for supper. The rest of the evening we spend telling stories of our many adventures. Of runaway slaves and hidden caves; of the Witels River and how we almost got stuck; of what life is like in Africa and the some of the many adventures I had while riding transport between the Cape and Johannesburg.
I’m homesick and still, I can’t stop thinking and planning what our next step should be. I will get some sleep. Let’s see if I can get refrigeration out of my head!
(1) Ice Cold in Africa is the title of a book by Phillida Brooke Simons, on “The history of the Imperial Cold Storage & Supply Company Limited” which was taken over by Tiger Brands in October 1989. ICS dates its official foundation to Wednesday, 19 February 1902 when it was legally registered in Pretoria. The company’s origins were much older. It was in 1868 when a Swiss-born butcher names Othmar Bernard Scheitlin handed the over his business which he owned since 1849 to his foreman Jacobus Combrinck. The business became Combrinck & Co and dominated the meat trade in Cape Town Peninsula. When Jacobus retired, he handed over the reins to David Graaff who was his foreman, just as he has been to Mr. Scheitlin.
During the 1880’s David Graaff traveled extensively throughout Europe and the USA to familiarise himself with among other, developments in refrigeration. Upon his return refrigeration chambers were constructed on the premises of Combrink & Co., thus bringing refrigeration to Southern Africa. Combrink and Co was transformed into the Imperial Cold Storage & Supply Company Limited who later changed its name to ICS.
By the time that ICS lost its independance, ICS had over 100 subsidiaries as well as branches all over South Africa. (Brooke Simons, P, 2000: 7, 22, 27)
Phillida Brooke Simons
This chapter is named in honour of the work of Phillida Brooke Simons who has been responsible for many other books, including ones on South African architecture. She was the editor responsible for retelling the story “Jock of the Bushveld” by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick.
One obituary reads: “A distinguished Honorary Life member of the Historical Society of Cape Town, Phillida Audrey Fairbridge Brooke-Simons died on 29 July 2013 and we remember her with deep affection in this memorial to her life and work. Her contribution to historical literature was considerable, particularly in recording the history of the old buildings in the Cape and the lives of those who have contributed to progress in South Africa.” (Sabinet.co.za)
(2) Mike Caswell lived in Calne and is my most important reference to what it was like growing up in Calne. His family farmed sheep in the area for over 1000 years. Mike worked for Harris in their offices, Bowyers of Trowbridge as a relief van salesman, Millers as a junior salesman, Pork Farms (Slades of Christchurch) as a van salesman. He sold more pork products than most people have ever seen.
He was on the Weymouth round for Millers. Weymouth was a summer seaside resort and was packed with people. If it was sunny, they sold out of pork pies, if it was raining/dull, they sold steak and kidney pies. They never had enough hams in the summer. Michael jokes that they were trying to breed pigs with 4 hind legs, but their customers weren’t amused. This was a huge truck and was so overloaded, the springs bottomed out. Mike had to sit on boxes because there was no other room. This was the biggest round that Millers had. It was the biggest round of any meat company in England at that time. They started work at 6am and finished at 9pm. Saturday was a half-day and they finished at 5pm. For a teenager, the pay was fabulous, but like a teenager, it was frittered away.
His interest in Calne and Wiltshire is wast. He has a blog https://moonrakers.createaforum.com/casswell/ where you can find full biographical information and many fascinating related articles. I include Mike as a consultant to C & T Harris so that I can use his many stories and recollections.
Mike still remembers the list of Millers products he sold. He remembers the invoice blank.
Pork Sausage 8s 1lb
Pork Chipolatas 1lb
Pork Skinless Sausages 3/4lb
Pork Sausage Meat 1lb
Beef Sausage 8s 1lb
Beef Chipolatas 1lb
Beef Skinless Sausages 3/4lb
Beef Sausage Meat 1lb
Pork Pie Individual 1 doz
Pork Pie Cocktail 1 doz
Steak & Kidney Pie Individual 1 doz
Sausage Roll 1 doz
Cornish pasty 1 doz
Chicken & bacon pie 1 doz
Pork Pie 1lb 2lb 3lb
Steak & Kidney Pie Major family
Veal Ham and Egg Pie 1lb 2lb 3lb
Veal Ham & Egg Pie Magnum (loaf 4lb)
Polony Sausage Individual 1 doz
Liver Sausage Individual 1 doz
Black pudding Individual 1 doz
Beef Luncheon Meat 4lb
Spiced Pork Roll 4lb
Liver Sausage 3lb
Ham mild cure 10lb
Black Pudding Rings 1lb
Fresh Shoulder of Pork 5lb
Fresh Loin of Pork 10lb Bone in
Fresh Plucks
Mike writes that Millers was “a GREAT company. We owned ALL the business on the south coast of England. Harris just picked up the scraps! :-)” Below are two photos he sent me.
(3) Anita Waite (nee Holman) is an old school friend of Mike Caswell and wrote a beautiful essay on life in Calne. It is superbly done. I include her in the narrative as the “lady in charge of the spice room” so that I can use her own words to describe life in Calne. I quote verbatim from her essay. Memories of Calne by Anita Holman.
(4) The French meat processing equipment producer Lutetia used the same basic principle discovered by Robert Boyle in their thawing massager/tumbler (patent 92-07091).
Under pressure, the temperature of steam injected into a chamber drops and thawing of meat is effected without cooking and therefore denaturing the meat proteins.
Lutetia describes their invention as follows: “Defrosting is obtained by injecting expanded steam into the massager previously put under vacuum. At low pressure, the steam condenses on the surface of the food at low temperatures. So, at 50mbar, the steam condenses at 33°C which is insufficient to lead to coagulation on the surface of the meat. The steam can come from a LUTETIA steam generator or from the factory boiler via the LUTETIA client kit. In order to reduce the humidity level, the massager drum may be fitted with a double envelope fed with a tepid mixture of mono-propyl glycol and water. In order to accelerate the heat transfer and to homogenise the defrosting, the blocks of meat may be passed through the block breaker before defrosting.” (http://de.lutetia.fr/equipement.php?id=7)
(5) In 1930 the Crosley system of refrigeration, based on Carre’s cycle was widely sold in the US. (Kha, AR, 2006: 26)
(6) In 1891 the Lions (the British Isles) became the first team to tour South Africa. The team was entertained on the voyage to South Africa by Donald Currie himself. It was the maiden voyage of his most recent steamboat. In Currie’s luggage was a golden cup which he planned to present to the team who performed best against the touring Lions. The tourists were too strong for the locals and the trophy went to Griqualand West who lost by the smallest margin, 0-3. (Joffe, E, 2013: 99)
In 1892 the cup became known as the Currie Cup, presented to the winner of a fiercely contested local tournament. The inaugural Currie Cup tournament was held in 1892 with Western Province earning the honour of holding it aloft as the official first winners. (Wikipedia. Currie Cup)
References
Brooke Simons, P, 2000, Ice Cold in Africa, Fernwood Press.
Figure 3: Ralp Hoagland: Popular Science Month, March 1912; 481 Fourth Avenue, New York. Popular Science Month, March 1912; 481 Fourth Avenue, New York, page 40, page 1.
