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.
American Ice Houses for England: Year-Round Curing
April 1892
Dear Kids,
The Ice houses in Calne constructed by Harris had thatched roofs. This photo is entitled, “Tough Crowd… ‘A Wiltshire Worker,’ from around 1905. This ‘worker’ is kitted out with knee pads and a leather palm guard; a sure sign he is a thatcher. Who, by his apparent age, has climbed many a ladder… The white sign notes that one Tom Popejoy was licensed to sell tobacco. The Popejoys seem to have been based at Burbage; giving a clue to our man’s location…”
When I was not reading history and studying chemistry at Bowood, I was walking through the magnificent gardens with Minette. One sunny mid-morning we bumped into Susan Waite from the village of Calne strolling through the gardens. She was sitting on a bench reading and we introduced ourselves. She was fascinated to meet people from Africa and the conversation soon turned to the Bowood gardens.
She told us how “her grandfather was head game-keeper on the Bowood estate and her dad had a wonderful childhood roaming the woodlands and playing by the lake.” “The gardens were designed by Capability Brown in the 1700s,” she told us. (3) He was lauded as “England’s greatest gardener.” Lancelot Brown, as his parents called him, got the nickname, “Capability,” because he would tell his clients that their property had “capability” for improvement. (McKenna, 2016) We loved the story and made us even more fond of these beautiful place. I love it when interesting tales romance a location or a building.
We remained on at Bowood for a week before Mr Smith arranged with Mr Fife to instruct the servants to prepare the couch and take us to C & T Harris where we were expected. I remained very surprised that the discussion about curing was centred around sweet cured bacon and not mild cured, which was the way it was done in Denmark. I read in local newspapers that C & T Harris were advertising pale dried bacon and wondered what it was. Was it a form of mild cured bacon where the meat juices were used to increase the curing rate? Remember that bacteria in the meat juices and old brine removing an oxygen atom from the nitrate or saltpetre molecule consisting of a nitrogen atom and three oxygen atoms. Two being tightly bound and one sitting rather loosely enable the bacteria to, so to speak, pluck the “loose” oxygen atom off and thus change the nitrate into nitrite which in turn results in a quicker curing time. The short curing time is then, as Jeppe speculated because the old brine will already have nitrites and there is no need to first wait for the bacteria to do their “plucking” job. I however seriously doubt that pale dried bacon has anything to do with mild cured bacon.
These matters were swirling around in my mind when we bid farewell to my host at Bowood. We were to return to Bowood many times at the invitation of Mr. Smith and later Lord Lansdowne himself, but for now, we were on my way to finally visit the legendary C & T Harris Bacon factories in Calne. I could scarcely contain my excitement. It is nothing less than a priest being invited to visit the Vatican! I am allowed into the heart of the most legendary curing operation on earth. Uncle Jacobus Combrink, David de Villiers Graaff, my dad, and countless newspapers proclaimed the absolute superiority of bacon produced in this factory.
We drove through the streets of Calne. I looked at the “pink” houses. Ian Gruncell told me that “pink was once a common colour for many Wiltshire cottages. Achieved by using lime wash and a bucket of blood from the local slaughter house.” One such “pink” house belonged to Dr. Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799). He was a Dutch physiologist, biologist and chemist who discovered photosynthesis in 1779. He died at Bowood and is buried in St. Mary’s church.
The “pink house” of Dr Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799). Photo by Chris Downer and information by Michael and Beverley Painter.
Bowood, which existed initially as a hunting lodge, was acquired by John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne. The 2nd Earl was Prime Minister from 1782 to 1783, and William Pitt, who became prime minister in 1783, made him Marquess of Lansdowne for negotiating peace with America after the War of Independence.
Shelburne was possibly introduced to Dr Jan Ingenhousz by none other than Priestley. In the same laboratory where Priestly discovered oxygen a few years earlier, at Bowood, Jan Ingenhousz discovered photosynthesis. It is fascinating that Calne hosted such magnificent scientists and from Bowood came these volcanic discoveries. Ingenhousz became a regular at Bowood! It is reported that Lord Shelburne used to say that the English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, was the most good-natured man in the world until he had made an acquaintance with Ingenhousz or “until the arrival of the doctor.” He wrote to him that “there is no peace at Bowood for want of your presence”. (Letter to Jan Ingenhousz, 1792)
The relationship between Dr Ingenhousz and the Engish physician and scientist, Edward Jenner now becomes important. This formidable scientist pioneered the concept of vaccination and created the world first vaccine namely against dreaded smallpox and as such any of the many collaborators in this achievement with Jenner deserves a special place in human history. One of these is none other than Dr Ingenhousz. The most important contributions by the Dr was done from Bowood! His contribution was both in the actual scientific work of Jenner and as an evangelist in Europe of this new treatment.
It was from Bowood that he composed his first letter to Edward Jenner. Jenner privately published work he did on cowpox and its apparent power to protect people against smallpox in September 1798. This paper is known as the Inquiry and represents a milestone in the history of medicine. (Beale and Beale, 2005)
Let’s correlate the known movements of Dr Ingenhousz leading up to the September publication by Jenner and the time immediately following. We know that Dr Ingenhousz was in London on Tuesday 24 July 1798, two months prior to this publication. His whereabouts during August are uncertain. He visited William Herschel’s observatory at Slough on 11 September. By early October he was in Wiltshire, welcomed into the Bowood House party hosted by the Marquis of Lansdowne where we know that Jenner’s tract was being debated. The Marquis and his guests could draw on the renowned expertise and opinions of Ingenhousz who found himself in dairy farming country where he had the opportunity to learn more about cowpox. Jenner was initially alerted to the possible link between the development of immunity against smallpox by people who contracted cowpox when as a teen he overheard a dairymaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” (Riedel, 2005) By mid-October, Ingenhousz had first-hand knowledge of what seemed a very relevant case history. This compelled him to write his first letter to Jenner on Friday 12 October 1798 (Beale and Beale, 2005), a month after Jennefers publication.
Ingenhousz developed into an oddity. “The odd personal appearance of the doctor, and the strange tongue which he spoke, gradually caused him to be looked upon as “uncanny” by the country folk who lived around. When late at night the lamp was still seen to be burning in the little room beyond the library overlooking the terrace at Bowood, then the peculiar sanctum of Ingenhousz and still known as “the Laboratory,” the inhabitants of the village which then existed on the opposite hill whispered to one another that the learned doctor was sitting up in the company of the Father of Evil and plotting the destruction of mankind.” (Life of William, Earl of Shelburne) I was fascinated that the very air about Calne was pregnant with creativity and a study of the sciences. No wonder that a firm like Harris flourished and developed into the undisputed world leader in bacon production, nourished in the fertile soils and the ether of Calne!
As for Minette and me, we spend the week at Bowood soaking up the same productive energies that seemed to be magically part of the landscape. Apart from the access to an impressive library, I had copies of newspapers stretching back to at least the last fifty years. I made it my habit to start very early in the morning while most of the Bowood residents were still asleep to very systematically paged through local newspapers where I carefully read any mention of the Harris operation. Besides these, the chambermaids and groundsmen provided me with by far the most vivid descriptions of more ingredients that blended together to form the legendary company.
C & T Harris: George in America
I have, for example, learned much about George Harris’s famous trip to America. In the mid-1800s, catastrophic events unfolded in Ireland that precipitated George’s travel plans. A devastating potato famine occurred between 1845 and 1852. When it was all over, more than a million people died and another million immigrated to flee the devastating conditions in Ireland. It was human suffering on an unprecedented scale.
The mass migration of people from Ireland to places like the USA happened on an unprecedented scale. It was reported in England that the emigration of 1847 would probably end up being as high as between 200,000 or 300,000 people from Ireland alone. An international effort followed and government agents from Europe prepared for the influx of people as the number of Irish heading to the port cities of the continent dramatically increased. Vessels were being hired to ship people to such cities at an ever-increasing rate, and Captains were forced to carry full compliments of passengers on every voyage, sometimes even exceeding the legal limits. (theshipslist)
While ships sailed from Ireland to North America with passengers, they sailed from America and Canada to Ireland with provisions. One such instance happened on 4 March 1847, when the Constitution and Sarah Sands sailed from Boston. The Tartar sailed in April. The destination was in all cases, Ireland! A New York paper reported that in March some $1,250,000 of supplies a week were leaving from that port for Ireland and about $5,000,000 from all parts of the U.S. (theshipslist)
The disaster in Ireland had a severe impact on the Harris brothers, as it did on food production around the world. The pigs stopped arriving in Bristol, threatening the existence of the butchers of Calne. George and his mom, Mary, hatched a plan to rescue the situation.
The plan was ingenious. George would leave for America to set up a pork business with an American farmer. They would slaughter the animals and figure out a way to carry the meat across the Atlantic, packed in boxes, well-salted to prevent spoilage. The plan was that the meat would cure in transit into ham. (Smithsonianmag) The plan was not novel. By 1847 barrel pork had been exported from America to England for years. On Saturday, 4 November 1843, a circular appeared in Boon’s Lick Times (Fayette, Missouri) by George K. Budd, where advice is given to American pork producers on what they can do to ensure that the barrel pork reaches England in an excellent condition in order to fetch the best possible price.
The plan seems to have been for the 23-year-old George to procure the pigs directly from farmers as opposed to buying it from American packing plants. If George could procure the pigs directly from the farmers, pack the pork in America and export it, the Harris brothers would cut out the middlemen and would again regain not only their supply of foreign pork but also affect the imports at the best possible price. The supply of cured meat for bacon from America to England was, however, the poor quality barrel pork. Besides buying the pork directly from the farmers and packing it himself in the USA for export to England, George planned to do it by using their well-known dry cure process. George was the innovator and the driving force behind the Harris brothers. His brothers said about him, “Of all us brothers, George was a long way ahead; he was the smartest businessman of any of us. He was the means of lifting us out of the old rut and laid the foundation of the new system and its prosperous future.” (SB)
One can only imagine what the voyage to America was like. Hundreds of thousands of Irish were fleeing the deadly conditions in their homeland, cramming the ships. “Adding to the misery, the northern U.S. and Canada had a hard winter in 1846-7 and the snow and ice were causing delays for many of the vessels. There are reports of gales and of vessels being stuck in the ice for weeks. The Albion, from Greenock, for example, sailed on March 25, 1847, and on April 10 hit the ice about 40 miles off Cape Ray. The vessel did not arrive in Quebec until June 4, 1847!” (theshipslist)
“Of no little consequence… This image, by a Mr Trotman of Chippenham, shows thatchers in Richard Jefferies area; a couple of decades after his time.”
George arrived in America witnessing the misery of the Irish. He took a year travelling and visiting many bacon-curers. He bought bacon, lard, cheese, and other provisions that he sent home. In the summer of 1848, he briefly visited home and returned to America to open a bacon curing establishment in Schenectady (New York State). The venture failed and the American business was closed. (british-history) In the process, he was exposed to a development in America that would transform the way that bacon is cured and would give rise to the birth of the legend.
Ice houses started to be built in the northern hemisphere, including England, on the property of wealthy owners from the 1700s. These were generally brick-lined pits, built below the ground where ice from surrounding lakes was stored (Dellino, C, 1979: 2) to keep ice-cream, fruit and vegetables from the kitchen garden, but they were not used much in industry at this time in Britain. (SB) This concept of this natural refrigeration was first used as a business venture by the 23-year-old businessman and merchant, Frederic Tudor (1783 – 1864), from Boston. (Kha, AR, 2006: 26) He initiated the international distribution of ice in 1806.
Later in the 1800s, commercial cold storage facilities were being built at harbours in America and Europe, mainly for the storage of carcasses, fruit and dairy products. The ice was cut from frozen ponds, lakes or rivers in the winter and stored in the heavily insulated ice house. (Mfo.me.uk) “In the U.S., this method allowed farmers to slaughter pigs not only in months ending in an ‘r’ (or those cold enough for the meat not to rot before it could be cured and preserved) but during any time of year – even in steamy July or August. Curing was then the only way to preserve pork for periods of time longer than 36 hours. Such horrendously salty meat was eaten out of necessity rather than enjoyment, however, and it often required sitting in a bucket of water for days at a time before it could be rinsed of its saltiness to the point that it would even be palatable.” (smithsonianmag)
The revolutionary idea was the storage of meat on a commercial scale in ice houses for the purpose of slow curing. George did not make the link with the curing of bacon straight away. It was back in Calne where butchers attempted to find a way of curing bacon in hot weather instead of curing it in the winter and keeping it hard salted for summer use. Despite great effort, they were not successful. George made the connection and suggested that they should follow the American method of cooling, and so the prevailing cooling technology was applied to bacon curing for the very first time.
CURING IN ICE HOUSES
George persuaded his brother Charles, who owned the Grocer and Butchers shop on Butchers Row with Thomas and some of his staff, to go back to America with him and look at the process. “As a result, both he and Charles set up ice houses in their separate factories.” (SB) The first ice-house was constructed at the High Street factory in 1856.
After a great deal of experimentation, it was found that charcoal was the best insulating material for use in the walls around the ice-chamber. This fascinated me because it was the exact way that the “cooler” on my grandparents’ farm was built. Laid out with bricks on the outside and filled with charcoal on the inside. Water was trickled down the sides from the roof and the result was cooling inside to, oh, if I must think back and try and gauge the temperature, probably at around 15 deg C. In the very hot African summers, this was already a huge improvement. (2)
The cooler on the farm Stillehoogte. Taken some time before 1977. Oupa Eben can be seen in the photo sitting in front of the cooler.
Thatching is very popular in Calne and the Harris ice houses have thatched roofs. A steel-plated ceiling was installed to pack the ice on with drainage outlets. They measured the rate of melting and could estimate the stock of ice that was in the ceiling at any point in time. They used the unemployed and people from the workhouse to collect ice from streams and ponds but in warmer winters it was imported from Norway and transported by Canal. The ice preservation process was patented by Thomas Harris in 1864. (SB)
Harris Factory 1930
“Most of the important bacon-curers throughout the country took advantage of the chance to improve their output by constructing such ice-houses under license.” The volume of trade from the two Harris operations continued to increase throughout this time and in 1863 the Harris family joined with other local interests to finance a branch railway line between Calne and Chippenham. Meanwhile, the income from the ice-house patent together with their own expansion enabled the two Calne businesses to increase their rate of mechanization. “At the High Street premises a new ice-house, furnace, and pigsties were built in 1869; and ten years later it was said that at the Church Street factory the pigs were moved almost entirely by machinery after they had been killed.” (british-history) “The first mechanical refrigeration was introduced in 1885. One 6 ton and one 4 ton Pontifex and wood absorption machines” (SB) “There was always close co-operation between the two firms and in July 1888 they were amalgamated as Charles & Thomas Harris & Co. Ltd.” (british-history) The legend of C & T Harris was born!
PIGS TO SUIT INDUSTRIALISATION
While the Harris brothers were working towards greater mechanization, shortly before the installation of brine refrigeration in place of the ice-house method, they set out on a campaign to persuade farmers to breed the type of lean pig best suited to bacon. Pigs were received from 25 counties in England and Wales in 1887, of which Wiltshire, Hampshire, Somerset, Dorset, and Devon were the most important. In the same year, large quantities of pigs were again being received from Ireland. (british-history)
I was well prepared when on Monday morning, 11 April 1892 Minette and I arrived at the offices of C & T Harris. We were warmly received by none other than Mr John Mitchell Harris.
Dear children, the level of excitement off the chart! It has been the most amazing experience imaginable. I wish Oscar and you guys could have been here with us. If my dad could see me on this amazing day, walking through the large imposing and formal doors and meeting John Harris! I am glad that Minette is with me to experience it all and for the time we spend at Bowood, preparing for this monumental day.
(1) Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903 from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham,
“It is likely that there was a mill on this site in the 13th century or earlier. The mill was rebuilt in three stages in c.1800 to incorporate the mill, a mill house, and a detached granary. This mill had a 19 ft. wheel, three pairs of stones, and a loft, which could accommodate 1,000 sacks of wheat. Milling ceased between 1915 and 1920 but then continued until 1982. The mill was restored between 1982 and 1983 and then produced wholewheat flour until 1993. When this photograph was taken the miller was Abraham Lock.”
(2) My grandparents used a similar system on their farm Stillehoogte in Vredefort district. The “cooler” had two layers of bricks. Between the inner and the outer was a layer of insulation of anthracite. The outer layer was “staggered”. Water dripped over the outer part of the wall to affect refrigeration on the inside.
The cooler on the farm Stillehoogte. Taken some time before 1977
They continued using the system well after they got electricity on the farm.
To the right of the cooler, my grandfather, Eben Kok is looking through his binoculars. He was sitting like that many afternoons to see who was driving over his motor-gates (motorhekke). He had signs put op next to the gates “privaat motorhek/ private motor gate”. The idea was that only his family could use these gates. The rest of the people had to use the traditional gates. He passed away when I was either 7 or 8.
(3) Susan Waite moved to Melbourne, Australia when she was 14 but graciously sent me a mail with the recollections of her childhood.
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.
Sweet Cured Harris Bacon
February 1892
Dear Kids,
Last Monday evening we arrived at Bowood!
Bowood Manor House
We were received by Mr Henry Herbert Smith, Esq. the agent of Lord Lansdowne and other wealthy landowners. While we were in Peterborough, Lord Lansdowne was in India. He was informed of our visit to the United Kingdom, my quest to make the best bacon on earth and the subsequent invitation to Bowood. I was told later that he immediately sent word to Mr Smith and Fife that no effort should be spared to assist us.
It was late when the coach arrived at Bowood. Mr Smith and the Bowood staff welcomed us at the door. We were shown to our very impressive rooms in this magnificent mansion and invited to dine with Mr’s Fife and Smith.
The service started and Mr Smith inquired as to the purpose of the visit. I started recounting to him and Mr Fife in order the events that brought us here. I told him how we made our own bacon on the farm. (Dry Cured Bacon) My transport adventures across South Africa and my meeting with Oscar Klynveld. (The Greatest Adventure and Woody’s Bacon) I told them of my arrival in Copenhagen and the hearty welcome by Andreas and Uncle Jeppe and about Kevin and Julie Pickton in Peterborough and how right from the outset of my trip I had a great desire to visit the legendary curing facility of the Harris family in Calne and the serendipitous events that brought us to Bowood! Mr Smith interrupted me. “Yes, it is true that the firm C & T Harris was established on Lord Lansdowne’s property and that he already made arrangements for you to meet with them after you had a few days to recover from your travels.” There was something important that he had to tell me. He is not only the agent for Lord Lansdowne and several local landowners, which means that he is amongst others, responsible for collecting rent from the tenants, but he is also the first chairman of a new firm that was created to provide the Wiltshire farmers with an alternative market for their pigs namely the Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd.. The Harris operation has for years existed as a monopoly in the bacon trade and continued operating for years with no competition. The Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd. was created to challenge that status quo.
After listening in silence, I said, “The privilege is mine, then, that I have the honour of not only learning from one bacon company but two.” “That is true,” he replied, “but I do not want you to divulge everything you learned in Denmark without knowing that you are talking to a competitor of C & T Harris.” He told me that he was amazed that the Danes shared so much with me of a trade that is still very much secretive as it was in the time of the old guilds where every small process and practice was a closely guarded secret, revealed only to members of the society. He told me that in his estimation if Andreas and Uncle Jeppe did not know Kevin, who sold English bacon knives in Denmark, and through Kevin’s wife introduced me to Bowood and its staff, he doubted that I ever would have found my way to Calne, let alone received an audience with two such prominent firms.
Mr Smith continued that the Danish method was not that much of a secret anymore since the firm Oak-Woods Ltd from Gillingham, Dorset was established by the son of the man who invented the mild cured process, William Oake. His son, William Horwood Oake created the firm with partners, and they produced mild cured bacon in Wiltshire. WH Oake created a progression on the mild cured system which he calls auto curing. The factory and offices where they operate from are close to the railway station in Dorset. The firm was established here in 1847. (Steiner) Both systems had as the cornerstone the continued reuse of the old brine. I was a bit surprised because it seemed as if they already knew exactly how Uncle Jeppe produced bacon in Copenhagen.
He noticed my confusion and put my mind at ease. “Eben,” he said, “knowing about a system and understanding its mechanics are two different things. Exactly how do they handle the live brine system? Years ago, when the system was started in the German area of Westphalia, they re-used the brine only twice. First, they would boil it and when it’s cooled down, they would use it again. Both the mild cured system and the auto cured system re-uses the same brine indefinitely. How is this being achieved? Does this not make the meat spoil sooner?”
There is another brine system from the east that use old brine. It is from Russia and is called the Empress of Russia’s Brine. It was prepared as follows.” Boil together over a gentle fire six pounds of common salt (that in most common use in Russia is rock salt), two pounds of powdered loaf sugar, three ounces of saltpetre, and three gallons of pure spring water. Skim it while boiling and when quite cold pour it over the meat, every part of which must be covered with the brine. This pickle may be used again and again if it be fresh boiled up with a small addition of ingredients. Before putting the meat in the brine, wash it in water, pour out the blood and wipe it clean.” (Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Antrim, Northern Ireland), 1841)
This intriguing brine clearly shows that the re-use of the old brine was not only practised in Westphalia in Germany but in Russia also, dating from a time well before the 1840s. The difference with William Oakes system seems to be the complete system that he devised along with the fact that he did not boil the old brine. The time in Denmark prepared me well for England. Not only did I know the individuals they were talking about, but in Denmark, I gained an intimate knowledge of both the theory and the art of these brines.
For the first time ever, I became conscious of the intense international rivalry in the bacon trade and the importance of the English market. I did not feel like a “beggar” for knowledge any more all the way from unsophisticated South Africa, the son of a magistrate and a former transport rider. I was very thankful for Mr Smith’s approach and for the first time became wary of what I was going to tell him. I would guard my words and tell him very little about the actual Danish process and especially about mild-cured bacon and the art of re-using old brine in tanks.
By this time, a small number of staff from the Bowood estate who came to hear me speak about my many experiences started filling up the dining room as word spread of our presence. I was glad for this because the questions they had, had more to do with Africa than Denmark. One of my favourite South African pig stories from my youth is the one about the Kolbroek pigs and how they came to South Africa from England. It’s a story that my Oupa Eben told me many times and I wrote about in a previous mail, the Kolbroek (Chapter 3). I told the story of Kolbroek pigs and the sinking of the Colenbrook at least five times that evening. Every time I would get to the part of the story where the ship hit Anvil Rock at Cape Point, there would be a collective gasp from the audience. When I told them how the Colenbrook limped across False Bay towards Kogel Bay, the two other English ships following closely, some of the female listeners started crying. When I told them of the water started coming through the front hatches as they approached land, the tension was palpable. The small crowd grew as the word spread through the estate and children sat at my feet, hanging on every word.
This was the first time I realised that the story of bacon is powerful and belongs to all of humanity! Mr’s Smith and Fife gave up their seats to allow more people to get close to me and hear me speak. It was a magical evening and took me and Minette completely by surprise.
We spent a full week at Bowood before I eventually made it to C & T Harris. I used most of my time reading books on chemistry. I naturally gravitated to this subject. Minette did a fair bit of reading herself but between books, she strolled through the magnificent gardens and got to know many of the local woman and their children. I enjoyed the formal and predictable structure of chemistry and as in Cape Town, used every opportunity to advance my understanding of it. Besides chemistry, I had an intense interest in the business side of the work of running a large curing operation as managing the business will be just as important as making the bacon. It was great having Minette there to talk through the various business models I came across.
The Bowood Library
Minette and I spend many hours in the library and this requires special mention. The library is the room where Joseph Priestly, on 1 August 1774, acting as a tutor for the children, did his experiments and discovered oxygen. It is a cosy, intimate setting.
The room in Bowood where, on 1 August 1774, Priestly discovered oxygen.
Two of the most important works that I studied during my time at Bowood, apart from the study notes of Priestly and other works on chemistry were “The Economics of the Industrial Revolution,” by Joel Mokyr and “The Foundations of British Maritime Ascendancy – Resources, Logistics and the State, 1755–1815” by Roger Morris. Working in such a historical setting was exactly the kind of thing to inspire me.
Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd
Mr Smith shared what knowledge he had about C & T Harris with me. This iconic firm stood for many years as the benchmark of bacon quality around the world and was appointed official bacon curer to the King of England. Lord Landsdown did not invest in the Harris operation but opted instead to create his own firm in the Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd. in opposition to the Harris Family. By this time, they were so successful and well-funded through capital they build up over many years that when Lord Landsdown approached them to invest in their firm, the Harris family declined his offer. (2)
Minette gave me interesting insights into the predictable patterns of such new firms. She explained to me that all companies start off very opportunistic. In the early days, they exploit all opportunities that come their way. As companies mature, they start dominating their supply line. In the small town situated in places like Calne, this often gives rise to frustration on the side of smaller suppliers who often experience the actions of their large clients as bullying and intimidation. Harris dictated the pork prices and the small-scale farmers did not like it!
The more mature and bigger firm, in this case, Harris, wants stable and low prices from their suppliers and farmers with no shareholding in their client, as is the case with the Danish cooperative model, see little benefit in selling their animals at the low prices demanded by the large client especially if they would have realised far higher prices from selling to small scale butchers in the area. The Danish model ensures that the farmers reap the ultimate benefit through their membership in the cooperative, despite initial low selling prices to the company, but the Calne farmers had no such benefit. They saw the difference between the selling prices to local butcheries and the prices that Harris demanded and felt cheated. They could not sell all their pigs to local small-scale butchers and the biggest volume would be sold to Harris at low prices. From the perspective of Harris, as is normally the case as Minette explained to me, they would require low prices as the total cost of running a large bacon plant as opposed to a small-scale butchery is enormous and they need higher gross profits to enable them to continue to fund their day-to-day operation and expand the business. “The bigger a firm is, the higher the risk and higher the cost of being in business”, Minette explained to me, “and this should be reflected in the profit margins of a firm like Harris.”
That this tension existed in Calne is therefore understandable. Minette told me that David de Villiers Graaff experienced the exact same pressure in his business and for this reason, Combrink and Co. back in Cape Town set up their own cattle farms to supply themselves and, in this way, escape the pressure from many small suppliers. I personally loved these different patterns that emerged, and, in a way, it reminded me of the structure in chemistry.
C & T Harris: The Making of a Legend
Delving into the history of the Harris operation was my number one point of interest and unravelling the creation of this legendary company was of large interest to me. The making of a legend in the bacon world was, as is usual in these cases, the result of several seismic movements of tectonic plates which created the world of C & T Harris and their Wiltshire bacon cure. Several key ingredients were blended to create it. I was there to learn what these ingredients are so that we can duplicate them in South Africa. Instead of sharing what I learned in Denmark, I decided to listen to what Mr Smith could tell me. Let him speak!
C & T Harris: Abundant supply of local and Irish Pigs
Mr Smith shared his views with us one evening before supper. According to him, the first ingredient needed in blending this bacon legend was an abundant supply of pork at decent prices. In Calne, there was a large local supply of pigs. Wiltshire is an area associated with pigs since early. Mr Smith referred me to a book in their library at Bowood by Daniel Defoe, Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1720 about a strong pork industry in Wiltshire on account of the abundance of whey from the local dairy industry. In this work, Defoe makes mention of enormous quantities of bacon sent from, among others, Wiltshire to London. He wrote, “The bacon is raised in such quantities here, by reason of the great dairies. . . the hogs being fed with the vast quantity of whey, and skimmed milk, which so many farmers have to spare, and which must otherwise be thrown away.” (Malcolmson, 1998)
Besides local supply, there was a strong supply of imported pigs from Ireland. Between 1770 and 1800 exports of Irish pork to England increased eight-fold. Over 60% of the Irish imports into England were done to London. (Cullen, 1968) The pigs arrived by ship in Bristol. From here they were walked on the hoof all the way to the Smithfield Market in London. Along the way, it was important to rest the animals and give them a chance to graze to ensure good meat quality when they arrive in London. Calne is a convenient location for such a resting place on the long walk. Mr Smith pointed to several wealthy families in Wiltshire who set up buying operations in Ireland to exploit these imports by facilitating them.
Availability is driven by seasonal domestic and export demand and external influences such as the supply of the army and the navy. With the English fighting several foreign wars and a large navy to supply, the demand for bacon was unusually strong. There are other factors such as pork disease that impacts its availability. Even the time of year plays a role since pork could only be cured in the winter on account of the meat going off in the summer before the cure could diffuse through the entire muscle. Access to pigs from local as well as foreign sources was vital. The demand and supply in the foreign market will inevitably differ from local trends and the producer is able to exploit low price cycles to ensure low input cost and the best possible quality.
The second important ingredient was saltpetre. Mr Smith invited a local historian and author of several historical novels living in Calne to join us for dinner that evening to give me some background on the origins of the Harris operation. Her name is Susan Boddington and she arrived just before 6:30 p.m..
C & T Harris: Saltpeter
The dinner was set for 6:30 p.m.. Minette and I spent most of my day in the library reading. Susan arrived around 5:20. Mr Smith, very punctual as usual, arrived at 6:30 exactly. After introductory pleasantries, we were escorted through to the large dining room. Mr Smith continued the analogy of ingredients required for a masterful brine blend and set the stage for Susan by giving her an overview of what we already discussed of a good local and international supply of pigs. Mr Smith re-announced his point for Susan to take it further. “The other important ingredient is saltpetre.” It was clear that he was unnerved by Susan’s presence.
Susan sat very quietly, listening to his every word. She impressed me as someone who listens quickly and is slow to speak. My dad and grandfather would have liked her with a deep-seated dislike for a “salesman-like” approach to storytelling. When Mr Smith was done with his introduction, she started very quietly. “Well, yes, Mr Smith, “the geology around Calne is excellent for saltpetre. The Calne Guild Stewards’ Book has an entry for 1654 listing payment for the removal of saltpetre tubs. It is mentioned in relation to glassmaking in the 17th Century. A token was found for use at the glasshouse in Calne, suggesting there was glass manufacture going on in the town, although no record has been found of it. Saltpetre is essential for making glass. The antiquarian John Aubrey, in his book ‘Topographical Collections’ 1659-70, says concerning Calne that the ‘Sand on the hills here about is very fit for glass making.’ He described it as being very white and having the largest grains he had ever seen. He also mentions ‘The deep lane from Bowden to Raybridge is very full of nitre, as a warm day will indicate.’ Bowden Hill and Raybridge are only a few miles from Calne.” (SB)
“This means, therefore, gentlemen, that in your analogy you can say that the essential ingredients for good bacon were all present by the late 1700s. An almost unlimited supply of pigs, both local and imported, low prices and a mature local industry for the supply of the principal curing ingredient of saltpetre. The scene was set for an entrepreneur to step forward, mix all these together and create a legend!”
C & T Harris: John Harris and Sons
I interrupted Susan. I read about the next bit of the story. “The first Harris to come to Calne,” I said, “was John Harris in the late 1700s. He moved here with his widowed mom, Sarah Harris, in 1770. They were living in a small market town of Devizes, about ten miles from Calne. When they moved to Calne, John set up in a small property in Butchers Row.”
Susan smiled. “Actually,” she said, “it was his mom, Sarah Harris who set up the butcher’s shop in Calne in 1770. Her son, John was only 10 years old when they moved from Devizes. He of course helped his mother in the shop and took over when she retired. The famous business owes its foundation to a woman!”(SB) Susan smiled and asked me, “You want to continue?”
“No, no, no, please continue” I protested. “What do I know?”
She found it very amusing and continued. “When he died in 1791 the business was carried on by his wife but on a very small scale. (SB) She ‘thought it was a good week if she had killed five or six pigs and sold clear out on a Saturday night’. Two of her sons helped her in the butchery, John, and Henry. When she passed away, she left in her will £60 to each of her three sons, John, Henry, and James. Henry and James were twins, but James had no interest in butchery and became a civil servant.” (SB)
“Her one son, John, married Mary Perkins in 1808, who, in 1805/1806, opened a butcher’s shop and bacon curing business of his own in Calne, High Street. His younger brother, Henry Harris, married Sophia Perkins in 1813. He managed the Perkins Family Grocery and Butchers in Butcher’s Row (later Church Street). He took the business over when his father-in-law passed away.”
Calne High Street. Date unknown. Date supplied by Robin Earle.
“John and Mary had twelve children. Disaster struck the young family when John passed away at a young age in 1837. “His wife, Mary, continued to run the business until eventually handing it over to one of their sons, Thomas. Henry and Sophia were childless and looked after four of John’s children. He left the Church Street business to his nephew George. Charles later joined George as a partner in Church Street. John’s son Thomas took over the High Street business when his father died. George died in 1861, leaving Charles running the Church Street factory. Charles and Thomas amalgamated their businesses in 1888. It is interesting to note that one of Thomas Harris’ sons struck out on his own and founded the Bowyers Bacon factory in Trowbridge.” (SB)
C & T Harris: Sweet cure
“They remained close, and innovations were done together. The first progression that created the legend was a simple one. They created a ‘sweet-cured bacon’.”
Injection line Harris Bacon factory, c. 1960
I excitedly interrupted Susan. I have first-hand knowledge of what sweet cure was. “The process was invented by my father!” Of course, I was saying it as a joke, but the point was well made. I wrote to you about this right at the start of my journey, Dry Cured Bacon. My dad’s legendary sweet cure recipe from the Cape called for the use of molasses resulting in a magnificently sweet bacon taste. My dad never told me where he got the recipe and I always suspected he got it from an American farmer or a British bacon-man visiting Cape Town. He started curing bacon with the new recipe in 1886, which was many years after the Harris brothers introduced their sweet cure and it may very well have been that it was like the old Harris sweet cure which was in use in Wiltshire in the 1840s.
My first thought about “sweet cure” was that it was simply adding sugar or molasses to the brining process. I told Susan that I spent the day in the library looking for the oldest reference where sugar was added to the brine. I found just such a reference to the mix of salt and sugar from 1776, where a liquid curing brine is described for bacon as containing “4 lb. of salt, 2 lb. of brown sugar, and 4 gallons of water with a touch of saltpetre.” (Holland, LZ, 2003: 9, 10) This salt/water mix was used to cure barrel pork.
Susan was impressed. “Yes,” she said. “Barrel pork was a crude process of laying pork joints in a wooden barrel and immersing it in a water brine mix of salt, saltpetre, and sugar. It was food for a poor family, shared by slaves, farmers or wage earners. It was disdained by the elites as “sea-junk,” cured by sopping in brine that imparted a nauseous taste to the meat. (Horowitz, R.; 2006: 45) It is easy to see how adding sugar to barrel-pork was an attempt to improve its taste.” I was fascinated. “Could it be that sugar was not part of the standard dry-cure process employed in Calne and the Harris brothers took this idea of adding sugar to the dry-cure from barrel pork?”
Mr Smith interjected in a way that made me suspect that he is allowing us to run with the possible meanings of “sweet cure” as far as we can go but he knows exactly what it means. “So, you guys say that it probably should be taken, as sweet as opposed to bacon turning putrid due to curing that was not effective.” “Yes!” Susan said. “In this instance!” Susan referenced a quote from Critchell in 1912 where the term “sweet” is used in exactly this context. The statement is made in the context of various attempts to get meat to last during sea voyages and it reads, “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.” (Critchell, JT, 1912: 5)
Susan knew her facts and responded by informing us that “there is a description of the dry-cure process employed in Calne that could have been used by John Harris when he opened his butchery in 1770 and also by his sons in their curing operations. “The description comes to us,” Susan said, “from an 1805 account from right here in Wiltshire. She gave the quote verbatim. “When the hog is killed, the sides are laid in large wooden troughs, and sprinkled over with bay salt, after which they are left for twenty-four hours, in order to drain off the blood and superfluous juices. Next, they are taken out and wiped thoroughly dry, and some fresh bay salt, previously heated in an iron frying pan, is rubbed into the flesh till it has absorbed a sufficient quantity; this rubbing is continued for four successive days, during which the sides, or flitches, as they are usually called, are turned every other day. Where large hogs are killed, it becomes necessary to keep the flitches in brine for three weeks, and in that interval to turn them ten times, after which period they are taken out and dried in the common manner; in fact, unless they are thus treated, they cannot be preserved in the sweet state, nor will they be equal in point of flavour, to bacon that is properly cured.” (Malcolmson,1998)
A feature of this old Wiltshire curing description is the regular turning of the sides of bacon and its re-salting. Another feature of the heating of the salt. The obvious advantage this would have had was to ensure the salt is clear of organic impurities including bacteria.
“In this instance,” said Susan, “I wonder if “in the sweet state” does not simply mean that it was not putrid. There is no mention of sugar. There is another well-known brine recipe for ham dating back to 1781, from Buckinghamshire, that I want to refer you to. The ham and its curing process are reportedly named after the last Lord Bradenham of Buckinghamshire. According to this recipe, the hams are first dry-cured with salt, saltpetre and brown sugar after which it is placed in a liquid cure of molasses, coriander, juniper berries, and other ingredients after which it is aged for another 6 months. Some claim that the ham should not be smoked while others maintain that smoking it was part of the original recipe.” “My point is that bacon “in a sweet state” could refer to simply bacon that is not putrid. Where they referred to sugar, it was included in the recipe and adding sugar to ham, and bacon brines was not uncommon in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Would it really have been so revolutionary if sweet cure referred to simply sugar that was added to the brine?”
At this point, Minette made an extremely valuable contribution to the discussion. She copied a sketch down from a Canadian publication she happened upon in the Calne library. The authors concluded that sweet cure may simply be that less salt is used or that sugar is added, but even where it is added, it may be to reduce the saltiness without there being actual sweet notes detectable in the bacon. A modern bacon curing method exists with the name of “tendersweet” bacon. It is given as a variation on Wiltshire curing and it may harken back to the original sweet cured bacon. Sutherland & Sutherland gave the following diagram to explain the modern process;
Sutherland & Sutherland wrote in 1995 and the steps following tumbling are decidedly modern inventions. Overall modern procedures show up everywhere. Slicing and pre-packing, for example. Still, it sheds light on the meaning of the term.
A key difference between sweet cure and Wiltshire cure is that in sweet cure a fresh batch of brine is made for every batch of bacon to be cured where Wiltshire bacon brine is re-used. The only other obvious difference that I can see between the original sweet cure method and what it is today is the tumbling step and the hot smoking which most certainly was not practised in the 1840s. The importance of the heat in the smoking house is such that I have to discuss it.
Suddenly I realised that Minette has spent far too long with me when she made a conclusion that startled some of us. “Before 1840, what was the major way that meat was smoked,” she asked us. “Cold smoking,” I replied. “Yes, she said. Cold smoking for several days!” “Another question,” she continued. Did refrigeration exist at this time?” Susan answered this question. “George and Charles set up ice houses in their separate factories and the first ice-house was constructed at the High Street factory in 1856 and the ice preservation process was patented by Thomas Harris in 1864.”
I could not see the relevance but Minette continued. “Until that time, what was the practice after the pig was butchered? Did they work the meat immediately, while the carcass was still warm?”
“Yes,” I said. “Obviously!”
She smiled when she noticed the slight irritation in my voice. This is also not entirely true. John Selby, an agriculturist from Tennessee in America wrote an 1841 article in which he advocates that the carcass must be properly cooled down after the hair has been singed off and the entrails removed; before the carcass is cut open any further, no effort should be spared to get the carcass temperature down. Spray a concrete floor with cool water before the carcass is laid on it. If the flesh remains soft, dash cold water on it. The meat must be firm before the process of salting is started. He made bacon once or twice from meat solidly frozen which had to be cut entirely with an axe and it turned out to be some of the best bacon he ever made. (Cheraw Advertiser (Cheraw, South Carolina), 1841)
“After refrigeration was set up by the Harris brothers, it would have been easier to ensure the meat is chilled after the hair has been removed. Was the old process not to kill the animal and immediately burn the entire carcass with straw and using boiling water and scrapers, to remove the hair from the hide before the animal was cut into sides and salted?”
An old postcard was sent to me by Michael Caswell who grew up in the town of Calne in Wiltshire. He writes about the postcard, “this historic postcard shows what most local people did with their backyard pigs shortly after slaughter. The pigs were laid on a bed of straw and then the straw was set alight to burn off all the hair! Pretty simple really.” It is an excellent example of how Harris must have de-haired their pigs in the very early days.
“Yes!” I replied again. This time with admiration.
Minette continued. “At this point, the meat would be warm. Well, it would have been warm, to begin with, because moments earlier the animal was still alive. De-hairing it would raise the temperature even further from the process used. Just think about it! The clock would be ticking to cut the carcass up as quickly as possible and heavy salt the meat so that the nighttime air which is around 2o C in Calne, could take over the work of restricting the microbial activity. It could be the middle of the day by now with the sun out and even in the winter, the temperature would have reached at least 10o C. Sometimes higher. So, by having an ice house the carcass can be left to hang first and cool down since the micro-control is achieved through the effect of the winter temperature in the ice house and not solely on the salt. In this way, through the application of the ice house, even in the winter, the level of salt could be reduced.”
Another book that Minette discovered in the Calne library was the 1888publicationWyman’s commercial encyclopedia of leading manufacturers of Great Britain. She brought it with her to the dinner table and quoted us a few interesting sections from his work, relevant to our discussion. Wyman writes, “The essential difference between the old system and the new consists in the adoption, in the new system, of artificial means for reducing the temperature of the curing – rooms when the natural heat of the atmosphere is too great.” He further writes, “Immediately after slaughter each carcass is passed, by a machine invented for the purpose, into a furnace to be singed; the moment this is accomplished the machine is turned round, the carcass deposited on a block ready to receive it, and a fresh one placed by the same machine in the furnace. When the singeing process is over, the carcasses are removed to another part of the premises, and there cleaned and dressed. After hanging for a day, the sides are taken to the curing-rooms, each carcass, however, being inspected by a member of the Firm, only the very finest sides being branded with their name.”
Minette produced a copy of the magazine and showed us what such a side looked like after it was stamped;
From Wyman’s commercial encyclopædia of leading manufacturers of Great Britain.
“So,” Minette concluded, “the fact that less salt was used was ultimately made possible because of refrigeration and not the addition of sugar!” Was this not the essence of the “sweet cure?”
“The process you just described, Minette,” said Susan, was invented by Henry Denny, another legendary Irish curer. He automated the singeing process he too achieved a mild cured bacon due to the simultaneous use of less salt along with refrigeration (The Jewish Master Curer and the Prince of Ireland), but this was done years after sweet cured bacon was pioneered by Harris in the 1840s.
Smoking and the Invention of a Dedicated Smokehouse by Robert Henderson
Mr Smith was listening in silence. I could see he was ready to reveal the hand he was playing close to his chest up to this point. “Let’s define one term before we continue,” he started. “After brining, the bacon is referred to as green bacon. Remember that the main purpose of curing has always been preservation. What was the purpose of smoking, Eben?”
I hesitated. “To coat the meat with protective properties inherent in the smoke?”
“No, Sir!” Mr Smith responded emphatically with a smile on his face! “We may be discovering this benefit today. There are components of the smoke that on their own and in combination have a material impact on prolonging the shelf life of the bacon but the main reason for smoking dry-cured bacon was to keep insects away. An unintended consequence of smoking it was to dry it out. Dry bacon lasts longer but care must be taken that it is not too dry. This was established through simple observation, trial, and error. Smoking was done to keep insects at bay, but an unintended consequence was drying.”
“In the sweet cure system, long-process cold smoking is not done. The meat is cured and smoked immediately thereafter which had a huge impact on the time required to make bacon. We must make a distinction here between hot and cold smoking. Initially, all attempts were made to remove heat from the smokehouse, but in later years, people experimented with warmer smokehouses. It complicates our quest a bit because the question is if Harris in the 1840s cold-smoked their bacon or used a warmer smokehouse.
Let’s assume for a moment that hot smoking was used. The total time of hot smoking can be as little as 2 hours as opposed to the week that can be used to cold smoke bacon (8 hours smoking and resting overnight for 7 days) but the biggest benefit of the system is that far less salt and saltpetre are used! Now, presumably hot smoking was not used, but, as you will shortly see, developments in that time meant that they in all likelihood started using a built-for-purpose smokehouse which had the benefit of restricting the weight loss during smoking and this, by itself would have resulted in a less salty bacon.”
“A downside of hot smoking will be dry meat – a lot more than cold smoking. Today this is offset by the injection of around 10% of moisture into the bacon during the curing stage. For sure, hot smoking does not achieve the amazing flavour changes which are associated with the action of enzymes in the dry curing system.”
“It has recently been shown that hot-smoking has another very important function namely the diffusing of the brine throughout the meat which means that not only is the drying stage omitted, but there is no need for a resting phase after brining. The heat softens the internal structure of the meat to such an extent that diffusing takes place much quicker than if it’s done at cool temperatures. The temperature that hot smoking is done at is often as high as 65o C.”
“The reason for cold-smoking dry-cured bacon is then in the first place to prevent flies infesting the bacon and consequences of this action was the drying of the meat and imparting a smoky taste. (Sutherland and Sutherland). Refrigeration takes care of a lot of the spoilage problem. Add to this the fact that we hot smoke, not to dry the bacon anymore, but to develop the flavour and diffuse the brine and get rid of some of the surface bacteria. The invention of sweet cured bacon involves infinitely more than just adding sugar to the bacon! Likely, it involved cold smoking, but much faster and better controled smoking! The result is that the ingoing salt levels can now be reduced dramatically. Back in the 1840s the boys at Harris still used cold smoking.
The Scottish farmer and pork trader, Robert Henderson is the earliest record I could find of the construction of a fit-for-purpose smokehouse in Britain when he designed such a smokehouse in 1791. A noticeable feature of his smokehouses was that they resulted in less weight loss which by itself would have resulted in less salty bacon. (Robert Henderson and the Invention of the Smokehouse)
The practice up until the late 1700s and early 1800s was that bacon flitches would be hung in the kitchen on the farms above the fireplace. Robert Henderson was a Scottish farmer at Broomhill, near Annan. He distributed the flitches to farmers to hang in their kitchens to dry and smoke. They not only hung it in the kitchen but throughout the farmhouse to dry. Henderson reports several difficulties with this approach. He had to take pieces of wood along to hang the flitches. For several days after they have been hung to dry, from the flitches would pour down salt and brine upon the farm woman’s “caps.” From time to time a ham would, for example, fall down and break something like the spinning wheel or knock down some of the children. The result was that he had to buy ribbons or tobacco to compensate for the inconveniences or the damage caused. (Henderson, 1811)
The biggest disadvantage was that the bacon or hams would only be taken down if Henderson received an order for it which sometimes took three months. By this time, the bacon would be overly dry and have lost a great deal of weight. Henderson reported that this method was still in use by 1811 in Dumfriesshire and he laments the fact that people are very slow to change to a better system. (Henderson, 1811)
Robert Henderson claims that twenty years earlier, in 1791, he designed a simple, dedicated smokehouse for smoking hams and bacon. He describes it as being twenty feet square (1.8m2) with the walls about seven feet high (2.1m high). Each wall allowed for 6 joints. Twenty four flitches can be hung together in a row without them touching. Each one of the flitches was resting on a beam. There are five rows, allowing for a total of 120 flitches in the smokehouse. The flitches were hung between 21/2 to 3 feet (900mm) from the floor which is covered with sawdust of five or six inches (100 to 150mm), kindled at two different sides. (Henderson, 1811)
The door is kept closed with a small hole in the roof for ventilation. Bacon and hams smoked in this smokehouse were ready for dispatch within eight to ten days. An advantage of this system is that there is only a little loss in weight. (Henderson, 1811)
So, the system was that the bacon was kept in the salt-house till an order is received. At this point, it was moved to the smokehouse for drying and smoking before it was dispatched to the client. Henderson no longer needed to employ people to cart his bacon around the country for drying, but the biggest benefit was that less weight was lost. (Henderson, 1811)
It is clear that during this time, the invention of the smokehouse by Robert Henderson, and, I am sure by others, had a dramatic impact on the quality of the bacon. One of the consequences of too much drying is very salty meat since water escapes, but salt is left in the meat.
This invention was “in the air” already since Henderson’s 1791 invention of the smokehouse and if Harris started to employ these better designed smokehouses, it would certainly have resulted in a sweeter cure. Mr Smith took a sip from his tea and added one more point. “There is, of course, one progression on sweet cured bacon that John Harris launched over the last few years namely pale dried bacon, but I will leave it to him to explain to you how that is produced. He is very protective over it, and I am careful not to discuss something which he feels very protective about!” I sat back in my chair and folded my hands behind my head. “My goodness! I exclaimed! Absolutely riveting!”
I was keen to summarise. “Sweet cured bacon is, therefore,” I said slowly to myself, “bacon that is cured with less salt and saltpetre, with or without the addition of sugar and smoked immediately after curing in a specially designed smokehouse.”
On Sugar
Mr Smith invited us to the library where tea and coffee will be served. I could tell that Susan was equally energised from the discussion. When we all seemed to have regained our composure and settled in our new chairs in the library all made small talk. There was an unexpected silence and suddenly everybody got busy with their tea or coffee and their own thoughts. When the silence continued long enough to be uncomfortable, Susan spoke softly. “Mr Smith, can I for a moment return to a statement that you made that sweet cured bacon could possibly have involved the use of sugar in the cure? Please allow me to say something about how widespread the use of sugar was during this time.”
Mr Smith looked very excited with her suggestion and prompted her to continue. “For sugar to have been used, it had to be a common ingredient not just in the houses of aristocrats, such as in the kitchen of Lord Bradenham but in large scale factories such as Harris. I mean, “Susan explained, “was it sufficiently common to also be affordable? The use of sugar in brines, even though there are examples of such brines from this time and even earlier, may still have been limited. Harris may still have been one of the first to use sugar on a large scale in their bacon brines and not only in their premium offerings and, of course,” she added, “later as part of the overall system which you so well explained during dinner which in its totality is called sweet cured bacon.”
We were all immediately fascinated, and we prompted her to tell us more. While Minette was carefully returning the books, she took from the library from which she shared some passages with us, Susan gave us a brief review of the development of the use of sugar in Europe and England. “One thing we know for certain is that they would have used cane sugar.” “The use of sugar in Europe was greatly expanded in the 13th century when the Crusaders brought a new “spice” from North Africa. There are records of sugarcane being produced in Spain as far back as 600 A. D.. Sugarcane was industrialized in Europe during the 1600s as can be seen from records that show it was imported regularly and being processed locally. The Portuguese colonized West Africa from the 1600s and started growing sugarcane on the back of good climate conditions and cheap labour. The profits from these ventures were substantial. So much so that they were able to finance their expansion into the new world, at least partially from it. Columbus, for example, brought sugarcane to the Americas in 1493 and the Portuguese used the newfound land to expand the lucrative sugar cane trade.”
“The term used in Britain in the early 1700s to refer to their colonies which produced sugar was “sugar colonies.” In Barbados, the British established a sugar cane industry in the 1800s and managed to retain a monopoly of its supply into Europe for well over a century. The Napoleonic wars of 1803 to 1815 temporarily put an end to the English sugarcane trade with Europe, as was the case with all merchandise. This created a shortage of sugarcane in Europe which led to the search for alternative sources of sugar. It contributed to the discovery of beet sugar. The first sugar factory for beet sugar was opened in France in 1812. In the 1820s, farmers started growing beet sugar on an even larger scale than ever before.” (Clemens et al., 2016)
Mr Smith confirmed that in their factory they use what they call Egyptian sugar. “The point, Mr Smith said, “is not that it is produced in Egypt, but that it is pure cane sugar. I know about beetroot sugar but according to the most experienced butchers, it is a dangerous product to use for curing. I am not sure why, but it is a matter that you, Eben and Minette would like to investigate further. Harris may have used it initially to reduce the saltiness of their bacon, but it is added today more for flavour than anything else.” Mr Smith said that they add it in his plant to sweet pickles, pumping pickles, pickles for curing tongues – they use it in about everything on account of the enhancement to the taste. “There are reports that it is slightly antiseptic, but that is not why we use it.” “We generally use it at a rate of 2 ½%.” (William Douglas & Sons Limited, 1901) Mr Smith was certain that Harris used sugar in the same way.
The diversion into a brief history of sugar was fascinating and I had a nagging thought that it would become more important later. The fact that I now know about two types of sugar means that there is more I will discover. Different sugars will likely have different reactions in meat. I was glad that I continued Uncle Jeppe’s extensive use of notebooks and took careful notes while Susan was talking with a note to myself to return to the subject of sugar.
Sweet Cured Bacon before Refrigeration
Something was not sitting right with me. I got up and started to pace the library while Minette, Mr Smith, his wife and Susan made small talk about the incredible history of the library. “Surely,” I said to Susan, “various kinds of sugars have been widely available in Britain for long enough to be used commonly in brines by the 1840s. The various reports of the invention of sweet cured bacon are so specific that it was in the 1840s, we are missing something! Refrigeration followed in the mid to late 1850s. Minette is spot on there. It would have made it so much easier to shorten the process and reduce the reliance on salt for micro control through drying. We are missing something!” “What step do you know was invented in the 1840s which we have not discussed yet?”
Stitch Pumping and the Reduction of Salt
Suddenly our small party of friends has gone quiet again. All eyes were riveted on Susan. Susan answered almost immediately. “Stitch pumping!” she replied in a contemplative tone. “It is reported that Harris has used stitch pumping with their dry-curing process as early as 1843.” (SB) “The major development took place when the dry cure was replaced with a wet cure, late in the 1800s.” (SB) “This change was however gradual. Stitch pumping was first invented and used in combination with dry-curing before the dry curing step was completely replaced by wet curing in the late 1800s. Stitch pumping was invented in the early 1840s.”
Mr Smith interrupted our discussion. “For the sake of my wife and Minette, please allow me to explain stitch pumping. It involved pumping brine through a single needle brine injector directly into the meat, thus speeding up the process of diffusing the brine throughout the muscle.”
I fell into my chair. “Well, my good friends, there you have it then! The last piece of the puzzle has revealed itself. Even before refrigeration was incorporated with all the benefits so well elucidated by Minette and Mr Smith, stitch pumping solved the time constraining step of allowing the dry salt and saltpetre rubbed onto the meat to diffuse into the bacon flitches. By injecting the brine into the meat with a needle, it shortened the time for the brine to be distributed through the flitches considerably. Refrigeration is not necessary to achieve this.”
“Stitch pumping and quick-smoke-smokehouses would have worked very well together! Even though I find no historical reason to assume this, over the following few years as the smokehouse temperature was increased, it was easy to see how warmer smoking of the meat would have facilitated better diffusing of the brine ingredients.
Even without hot or warm smoking, the brine diffused better through the meat. The salts that were injected no longer exist in their crystal form when a liquid brine is introduced to the meat. They exist in their much smaller and more mobile forms of sodium and chloride in the case of salt and potassium and nitrate, or calcium and nitrate or sodium and nitrate in the case of saltpetre. For the salt to diffuse throughout the meat, the crystal first dissolves into two chemical ionic forms and then diffusion takes place. The mechanism of diffusion for ionic compounds is different and more effective than that of large, charge-neutral molecules! Stitch pumping was done before refrigeration was invented. It was injected into the sides before the onset of Rigour Mortis or the stiffness of death which means that it was done while the meat was still warm or, put in another way before carcass cooling took place which was practised only after the application of refrigeration.”
“I was complete besides myself! The prevailing levels of technology in the 1840s, without refrigeration, allowed Harris to reduce the salt levels! This is when sweet cured bacon was born! In the 1840s! The entire process was far better controlled, and it was quick! The brining step was reduced to a fraction of what it was when dry curing with dry ingredients only was used. This fits the timeline absolutely 100%, Susan! Henderson’s smokehouse, invented in the 1790s was brilliant! The introduction of cold through the ice houses complimented the system in so many ways by removing the need for an early heavy salting step but it was not what made it possible in the first place! This honour goes to the invention of the smokehouse and stitch pumping!”
When I looked around to see where Minette is, she was paging through another publication from the library. “So,” she asked Mr Smith, “this is what you guys are talking about?” pointing to a diagram indicating the position where brine was injected with the stitch-pumping method. (4)
I again summarised what we’ve learned for myself. “Sweet cured bacon was cured with less salt and saltpetre, with or without the addition of sugar and smoked immediately after curing in a built-for-purpose smokehouse which resulted in less moisture loss (and therefore tasted less salty); liquid brine was injected with a single needle injector into the meat which further allowed for reduced salt levels and cover brine may or may not have been used.” This then, sweet cured bacon from the 1840s!
Minette had an old newspaper report from 1840 where curing in three counties is listed. One of these counties is Wiltshire.
Was this customary in Wiltshire in the 1840s?
In asking this question, we look one more time at the possible nature of sweet cured bacon invented by Harris in the 1840s. An article from the Yorkshire Herald and the York Herald (1840) reports on the following method of curing used in Hants, Wilts, and Somerset.
The pork is singed by packing straw around the carcass and burning the bristles and hair off. Scalding tends to soften the meat and this method ensures the meat is left firm. The carcass is left to cool after which it is cut into flitches and salted and treated with saltpetre. The flitches are left for two to three weeks and turned three to four times. They are then wiped dry and suspended over a chimney over a wood or turf fire to dry out. A note is made that coarse sugar is used in Hampshire bacon but not in Wilts and Somerset. Hampshire bacon is imported with its particular flavour by the wood and turf smoke. During smoking, the flitches must be taken down and inspected for bacon-fly.
The 1840 newspaper report does not claim to be exhaustive, but it nevertheless creates the picture of a simple non-industrialised process and most certainly there is no mention of a dedicated smokehouse or salt house. There is most certainly no reference to stitch pumping! This leaves the possibility wide open that the sweet cured bacon of Harris did indeed make use of a fit-for-purpose built smokehouse and stitch pumping. For that matter, they may even have added sugar since it was not widely used in Wiltshire at the time.
I realised that a major difference between the mild cure system and what I learned in Denmark is that in the sweetcure system a new batch of brine is made for every curing cycle. In the system that Uncle Jeppe uses, the brine is re-used. I intend to keep this to myself for the time being. Lord Lansdown would have been proud of the way we were received at Bowood. More than this, I think he would have enjoyed the entire experience of working through the nature of the invention of sweet cured bacon.
The story is epic and more is to come! For now, it’s long past midnight and I wonder if the villagers who see the light in my room still burning think that I too am maybe conspiring with the prince of darkness against humanity as they thought when they saw Dr Jan Ingenhousz working till very late in his room in Bawood. It all makes me smile! Please show my dad and mom this letter also and keep it safe.
Kids, so ended the most volcanic bacon evening, not just of my trip, but one of the most important ones of my life. It forged a friendship bond between all who were there that will last the rest of our lives!
Lloyd’s building Adam Room
I realised that one cannot predict when such volcanic moments will occur but when it happens, one must be ready with a notebook with lots of blank pages and a good pen! I am thrilled that I can share all this with you!
(1) Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903 from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham,
“It is likely that there was a mill on this site in the 13th century or earlier. The mill was rebuilt in three stages in c.1800 to incorporate the mill, a mill house, and a detached granary. This mill had a 19 ft. wheel, three pairs of stones, and a loft, which could accommodate 1,000 sacks of wheat. Milling ceased between 1915 and 1920 but then continued until 1982. The mill was restored between 1982 and 1983 and then produced wholewheat flour until 1993. When this photograph was taken the miller was Abraham Lock.”
(2) The notion that Lord Lansdowne approached the Harris Family to invest in their company is entirely fictional. The existence of the Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd. and the fact that Mr Smith was in fact the agent for Lord Lansdowne and a number of local landowners, that he was as an agent for the landowners responsible for collecting rent from the tenants, and was also the first chairman of a new firm that was created to provide the Wiltshire farmers with an alternative market for their pigs namely the Wiltshire Bacon Curing Co. Ltd. is of course of great interest. Without knowing what the actual share structure of this company looked like, based on the fact that he was so closely associated with the administration of the Landowners, I surmise that this company was possibly funded by some of these landowners amongst whom could have been Lord Landsdown himself. He would have had his ear to the ground and would have picked up that some pig farmers were indeed looking for an alternative to sell their pigs to as one of the natural progressions of any business is that they start to dominate the supply chain as they mature. My inference is therefore based on conjecture, but I will be surprised if my deductions are wrong.
Special thanks:
Special thanks to Susan Boddington (SB), curator of the Calne Heritage Centre, for the liberal supply of information, insights, advice and photos.
Cheraw Advertiser (Cheraw, South Carolina), 21 Jul 1841
Cullen, L. M.. 1968. Anglo-Irish Trade, 1660-1800. The University Press, Manchester.
Clemens, R. A., Jones, J. M., Kern, M., Lee, S-Y., Mayhew, E. J., Slavin, J. L., and Zivanovic, S.. 2016. Functionality of Sugars in Foods and Health. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety Vol.15, 2016
Critchell, J. T., Raymond, J.. 1912. A History of the Frozen Meat Trade. Constable & Company, Ltd. London.
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.
Lord Lansdowne
January 1892
Dear Kids,
All the Danish excitement and then off to Calne. Travelling on the Great Western Railway from London to Calne, the excitement in our cabin could be felt in the air. At the insistence of our new host, we got off at Bath. Bath is a postcard-perfect town. The experience of seeing town is surreal as you walk back in time with where Roman baths from the 3rd century are still in use today! A newspaper I picked up on the train says about Bath that “nowhere in England have so many great men and women come and for a time lived and left behind them such clear and charming chronicles of their tarrying as in the interesting old Somersetshire city of Bath.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1892) Bath has a known antiquity of almost 2000 years and a claimed antiquity of at least another 1000 years beyond that.” The hot baths possess a luxury not rivalled anywhere in Europe. Another journalist wrote that “As one is enjoying the thermal waters, it is striking that these, Roman Emperors and Generals of 1400 to 1800 years ago shared. These waters banished the ills of St David, King Arthur, and a vast line of old British princes and potentates for half a thousand years beyond.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1892)
Postcard dated 1917: Calne railway station
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
After a pleasant day at Bath, we returned East along the ancient Roman road linking Bristol and London by train to arrive in Calne in the late afternoon. As the train slowly made its way into a newly built station, two large and impressive buildings of the Harris Bacon operation flank the station. It signals clearly to anyone arriving on the Great Western Express that this is bacon country!
Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham (1)
Calne has a sleepy character, except, I am told, on market days. Houses are built with a coarser kind of Bath stone or Sarson stone. It very quickly ages. After only one year it looks older than a limestone house looks after five. It has a creamish, grey tint which resembles the look of the stones that form the footpaths, built from broken Sarson stone.
It is very interesting what one learns on a train. A gentleman sitting next to me saw that I was reading a copy of an American newspaper. Intrigued he asked if I am from that country. When I told him that I am from South Africa, he was very much amazed and started to give me a rundown of the local politics.
Market day Calne. The Landsdowne Hotel, visible on this drawing is still there. Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
The town is situated on the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne. The Marquis was the Governor-General of Canada from 1883 to 1888 and currently serves as Viceroy of India, a post he occupied since 1888. His estate manor, Bowood, is situated a mile away from Calne which is located on his estate for which he receives rental income. The small farms and houses are mostly held in tenantry and some have been on the estate for ages. The cottages of the labourers are said to be the best in Wiltshire (and the cheapest). Most of these are three-bedrooms with a small garden. In England, the Marquis is known as a reasonable gentleman of high intelligence and a keen sportsman.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
The Marquis of Lansdowne, like the Marquis of Bath, is also a large landowner in Ireland. The former in Kerry and Kildare and the latter 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. These men, although they are quite forgiving about rental payments in England, instructed their Irish agent to collect as much rent as he can from the tenants on their Irish estates. We have then three neighbours, all three owning large lands in Ireland with the same agent. This seemingly trivial fact, I quickly discovered, is very important in trying to understand why the Irish invention of Mild Cured bacon of William Oake did not cross over into England, but instead, through the power of being at the right place, at the right time, the importance of which Oscar’s Dad reminded us of at the founding meeting of Woodys, was adopted in Denmark as the way they now produce all their bacon.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Something else is of interest. The stranger on the train told me that Mr Trent’s father occupied the same position as the Irish agent to the fathers of the three noblemen. Mr Trent, Senior even wrote a book about his experiences, The Realities of Irish Life. I understand that a copy of this work is in the library and Bowood!
Map of the three manor houses of the wealthy landowners introduced to me on the train from Bath to Calne
The manor houses of the Marquis of Bath, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and Lord Digby are Longleat, Bowood next to Calne, and Minterne House respectively. I did not tell the stranger on the train that our guest in Calne was none other than Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne! Our ultimate destination for that evening was Bowood!
I was almost just as excited to see Bowood as I was to see the Harris Bacon operation in Calne. It was in this famous house where, on 1 August 1774, Joseph Priestley, acting as a tutor for the children, did his experiments and discovered oxygen. When Kevin Pickton introduced me in Peterborough to an agent for Lord Lansdown I never dreamt that we would receive an invitation to stay over at Bowood!
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Kevin is Welsh. What more can I say! We had many nights in the pub in Peterborough where we had intense conversations and on our third and fourth beer, I was no longer certain that we were conversing about the same subject on account of his strong Welsh accent. Who cared! It was, in any event great evenings! We were having the time of our lives!
Kevin is a unique, intelligent, perceptive man and as tough as nails! He is clear about his goal and he pursues them with a single-mindedness that I have seldom come across in my many travels. Kevin, his dad, and his son all three played rugby for the same team, at the same time! This sums up the kind of family they are. I very soon learned that Kevin conducted his business, which was in making knives, precisely to slice bacon, as he played his rugby and trained his body – with single-minded dedication and courage! In my life, I have met some of the toughest men on earth in the bush in Africa, on the goldfields in Johannesburg, and the diamond fields in Kimberly; but I will venture to say that amongst them, there is no man as tough as Kevin! I only recently met him by the introduction of Andreas, and I already see that I will learn from him and that the proverb is true with Kevin and me that as iron sharpens iron, so two friends sharpen each other.
In Peterborough where Kevin lives, the local pub is the Bull. I can honestly say that Minette and I spend some of our most enjoyable evenings there with Kevin.
Above: The Pub in Peterborough where Kevin and I spend many enjoyable hours, talking bacon! Later, Oscar accompanied me to England and again, the Bull was our home away from home!
Kevin’s wife, Julie, met the agent of Lord Lansdowne, a certain Mr Fife, on account of the work she does for their local government. Mr Fife inquired of a good pub to have a drink after work and she suggested that he visit the Bull. It was quite serendipitous that on that precise evening, Kevin, Minette and I were at the pub for a few beers before we intended to head home for supper.
Kevin, propelled by his Welsh nature, told Mr Fife about my quest to discover how to produce the best bacon on earth, and knowing that he is from Calne, he correctly surmised that I would probably need a place to stay while I visit the Harris bacon plants. It is widely known around the world that Harris produces the best bacon on earth.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Mr Fife was very much intrigued by my story and invited Minette and me to stay at Bowood. He told me that Calne is situated on the lands of which Bowood is the manor house and the Harris bacon was, as it were, established right in front of their eyes. He extended his right hand to me. As I shook his hand he formally invited us to stay over at Bowood and said that Lord Lansdowne would not want it any other way. He told me about the room where Priestly did his experiments and how Lord Lansdowne welcomed anybody to his house who has any interest in the sciences. The Marquis was to remain in India for a few more months, but he said that his master would not forgive him if, upon his return, he would learn that we met and that he did not invite us to stay at his official residence so close to Calne. With that, it was set – we would reside at Bowood!
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
I have been preoccupied with bacon for so long that an altogether different matter started to occupy my mind. During my visit to Peterborough, Julie took me aside one day and spoke to me about Minette. I am not the most perceptive person on earth, and it never occurred to me that there may be more to Minette joining me in Europe than a friend supporting another friend. My first wife, also named Julie, and I had a brilliant relationship, but we had completely different interests. I think I am a nomad and a wanderer; an explorer and an adventurer, and my Julie (as opposed to Kevin’s Julie) is someone who is looking for white picket fences. She wants to grow old with a man, a small house, a quint garden and a cat! I, on the other hand, want to die as a man who lived a full life and explored everything! From there the love for mountaineering and bacon!
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
I told her how I started to see Minette in a new light when we camped out at Penny’s cave the night before I left for Denmark. Kevin’s Julie was quite intrigued about what I meant. “You know,” I stuttered, “I saw that she was beautiful. It is as if she belongs here on the mountain and not in a city. There is a connection that I cannot explain. As if something is drawing her to me.” Julie laughed! “And you think that when she came all the way to Denmark, she only came over to have a holiday?!” She shook her head. She then turned to Kevin and said, “I did not think I will meet another man as ignorant as you when it comes to matters of the heart!”
Kevin’s Julie made me think differently about Minette, our friendship and her visit. Suddenly I felt very silly for not seeing this. I knew Minette had to return home soon but I already started planning to establish myself at Bowood join her on the voyage to Cape Town for a short visit. I am telling you about this so that can be encouraged that I will be home very soon.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
There was something else that I learned in Peterborough, which Kevin and Mr Fife explained to me. The landowner was often very involved in the affairs of the villagers who resided on their land. Lord Lansdowne, for example, supplies 30 Highland Bulls for use by the tenants on the estate. They explained to me that the same was true of pigs. That the landowner would secure the best boars from China and make them available for the tenants on his farm to impregnate their sows which meant that the pigs raised in such a village all have similar characteristics.
I immediately thought of the Kolbroek pigs of Oupa Eben. Uncle Timo and Oupa Eben told me about the pigs that came to Cape Town with the Colebrook ship (Kolbroek). I did not understand the importance of the boar in transmitting its characteristics to his offspring, and how, if the pigs are bred in a closed unit like on the land of a landowner, that the kind of pigs raised will become typical of that village. In this way, they explained to me, breeds started forming, typical to specific towns and counties across England. I know that the origin of the Kolbroek breed is debated in South Africa, but sitting in the Bull in Peterborough, and listening to these men, I have a feeling that they know a thing or two about pigs, and that unless slaves or farmers kept the pigs that swam from the Colebrook together and farmed with them, that they would not have developed as a “breed” in the Cape Colony. It all started to make sense to me.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
I was on my plenty-ith beer. Still, I could think straight enough to wonder about C & T Harris. Back home, Oscar and I did the calculations of how much it will cost to set up a commercial curing operation. It requires an enormous amount of money and I wondered if Lord Lansdowne and his ancestors somehow supported or funded the establishment of such a large business as C & T Harris. On the other hand, did it organically grow over many years into the lucrative business it is today without any investment from a wealthy landowner?
These matters will be investigated carefully over the next few months. That night, I must confess, as I fell asleep in Kevin’s son’s bed who very graciously agreed to sleep in the living room for me to have the use of his room. Minette slept in their daughter’s room. My thoughts were more with you and Minette than with the enigmas of pork farming and bacon curing. To be honest, more with Minette! 🙂
Supplied by Ian Gruncell.
Tomorrow we leave with Mr Fife for Bowood and Calne! I can hardly wait!
(1) Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903 from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham,
“It is likely that there was a mill on this site in the 13th century or earlier. The mill was rebuilt in three stages in c.1800 to incorporate the mill, a mill house, and a detached granary. This mill had a 19 ft. wheel, three pairs of stones, and a loft, which could accommodate 1,000 sacks of wheat. Milling ceased between 1915 and 1920 but then continued until 1982. The mill was restored between 1982 and 1983 and then produced wholewheat flour until 1993. When this photograph was taken the miller was Abraham Lock.”
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 UK Letters
River Thames, 1895
My Danish experience came to an end when I boarded a steamer en route for London. Minette had left for South Africa a month earlier. Andreas, his mom and dad, and Uncle Jeppe all joined us at the harbour in Copenhagen for an emotional farewell. In the year I have been in Demark I made giant leaps towards understanding the art of curing the best bacon on earth.
It was my first experience living in a completely different culture for such a long time. Well, it’s of course not a completely different culture, but it’s different enough from the Cape culture for me to notice a few interesting things. The concepts that our culture exists only in our mind was expanded when I realized that our entire experience of reality is a product of our brains. Denmark exposed me to two sets of systems. The one set is that which we design in our minds. Oake’s mild curing process and Phil Amour’s disassembly lines are brilliant modern examples of this where work is a metaphysical concept where processes are designed to maximise an outcome. In this way, we are able to say that one process is better than the other if we judge it based on the energy input and the sum of the output.
On the other hand, there is the construction of macromolecules like proteins which was achieved through forces of nature. There is the nitrogen cycle that governs the way that plant nutrients are extracted from the air, into the soil, through plants into animals, contributing to what we call nutrition. Judged in this way, we can say that chemical reactions, bacteria and our digestive system transforms chemical compounds into simple new compounds (or more complex compounds in the case of oxidation reactions), forms that are useful for further processes. Like the concept of work that we toy within our minds, a basic premise of all-natural processes is that very complex structures and systems exist, predicated upon many very small and simple processes. The most complex system of nature is the sum total of many simple systems in such a way that the complete process becomes bigger than the sum of all the small reactions.
A new concept started forming in my mind. Vey tentatively so that I will have to give this a lot more thought before I can say too much about it, but it seems as if we become more productive as we more closely mimics nature. As if the concept of work in nature, which exists not in our minds, but as a fundamental principle of life itself, is the blueprint for the most productive system and the closer we mimics how work is organized in nature, the more productive we become. What is interesting to me is that mentally, we build concepts which exist in nature already. So, to improve on a system, break it down into the smallest possible parts is step one. To understand bacon curing, understand all the small reactions that make it possible.
Now we are off to England where an entirely different adventure awaited us. If Denmark was the lesson of nitrogen and protein, England would be the revelation of salt, sugar, and refrigeration. Minette and I arrived in London in January 1892. (1) A friend of Andreas, Kevin Picton, met me at the harbour. Excitement about being in London flooded my mind. Romantic images from my mental world as a child, growing up in Cape Town now takes on real-life shape right in front of my eyes.
An overload of visual images; sights, sounds, and smells rush through millions of neural pathways. Climaxing in a feeling of excitement in my stomach caused by the sudden release of the enormous quantity of endorphins. In the deep recesses of my mind, a faint plan still resided to make it to Calne as soon as possible. Calne was one of the centres of the bacon universe where the official bacon curers to the King of England were located. My hoast, Kevin, had other plans. I got to know him as someone who knows the art of living life and he freely shares this aptitude with every person who has the pleasure of acquainting him. It was lunchtime and the first order of business was the local pub.
That day I fell in love with Britain’s pub culture. Like the church back home, the English pub is central to life. It is where you go after work to unwind and play pool with other locals. The rugby and cricket teams meet there before a match and afterwards, this is where triumphs are celebrated and defeats forgotten. It is the thread that keeps communities close and neighbours familiar with the comings and goings of all.
Over the next few months, my education in Bacon curing and in living life took on an entirely new dynamic! What follows is a series of letters I wrote from Calne, Peterborough, and Liverpool between 1892 and 1893. The revelations through these letters are explosive and offer a unique and intimate view of the development of the pork industry and curing bacon in particular. Bit by bit we start to unravel the multiple small and facinating parts of what makes up the sum total of the art of bacon curing.
Back home in South Africa, Willem and James, Oscar’s brothers joined our bacon curing venture. Will and James moved to Cape Town first to oversee the purchase of a small plot of land (2) in Woodstock where our bacon curing plant would be erected.
Will met with David Graaff and arranged for the purchase of the land directly behind Combrinck & Co.’s New Market Street site, bought to erect refrigeration works in case they are forced to move from their site at the Shambles. James is our financial manager. He worked for the Bank of the Netherlands in Johannesburg when Oscar convinced him to join our small band of fools.
While I was learning the art of curing the best bacon on earth, together they would nit the commercial fabric of the company. Soon Minette and I found ourselves on a train from Peterborough where Kevin and his beautiful wife, Julie live with their two kids, on our way back to London to board the Great Western Railway to Calne. It is the next major stop in my quest to discover how to cure the best bacon on earth. It is the single most exciting story on earth!
1. We arrived in London on Saturday, 22 October 2011. We spend a day in London with Ivan Procter from Marel before we took a train to Peterborough where we met Kevin Picton.
2. The first Woodys site was at 7 Assegaai Road, Kraaifontein.
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.
David Graaff’s Armour – A Tale of Two Legends
November 1891
Dear Tristan and Lauren,
Copenhagen continues to enchant us! Long afternoon walks. The many coffee shops. The friendly people. Denmark is turning into quite an education! Minette and I had the most unexpected surprise. A completely unexpected visit from our friend, David de Villiers-Graaff. It is a sad reunion as we still mourn the passing of Uncle Jacobus Combrinck last year. David is on his way to the United States and decided to look in on us to see my progress.
He was regal in his appearance from the moment he stepped ashore off the streamliner. It is only fitting since he is not only in his second term as honourable mayor of Cape Town, but is now also a member of the Cape Colony’s legislative council in the place of Jacobus after his sad passing. (The Colonies and Indian, 10 October 1891, p11) David managed to accommodate a short visit to Denmark en route to Chicago for the World Exposition. (1) (2)
David Graaff in his mayoral robes. The drawing appeared in a newspaper in Chicago on 11 April 1892 when he was interviewed at the World Exposition.
Our friend changed. He has always been serious and driven. There is, however, presently a confidence and focus in him – an intensity than I have never seen before. We are honoured for the few days we have in Copenhagen. (2)
The most fascinating tale is told by David about how it happened in the mid-1880s that he visited Chicago for the first time. On that trip, he met Phil (Philip) Armour. It had a profound impact on him. In many respects, I can see it working out in his ambitions. Drive is something we are born with. David always had a will to do things and energy. Mentors give direction to our drive. Phil Armour gave David a purpose and ambitions for Combrinck & Co. and for the City of Cape Town alike.
The Legendary Phil Armour
Phil is a self-made millionaire who is credited for pioneering the production-line processing by setting up a disassembly line in his enormous meatpacking plant in Chicago. He is the actual inventor of the production line and not Henry Ford as is widely reported. (9) David tells me that last year (1890) Phil slaughtered more pigs than the combined total of all Cincinnati packers. (Horowitz, R., 2006: 50)
This is interesting because Phil (an experienced commodity trader) and his business partner, John Plankinton (an experienced butcher), created the Armour Packing plant in Chicago in the tradition of the Cincinnati packing houses which dominated the pork packing industry until Chicago became the centre of pork processing universe in the USA and wash correctly described as “the hog butcher for the world.” (Horowitz, R., 2006: 49, 50) It occurred to me that this was a special and important development. Phil, like many of the great packers in Cincinnati (Horowitz, R., 2006: 49, 50) was not a butcher but a trader and a businessman. This seemed to have afforded him the benefit of viewing the pork trade not as an art to be mastered by himself, but as a platform to trade in. Here he is able to anticipate supply and demand, price fluctuations, business structure, and processes in contrast with the German Master Butcher who is a tradesman, narrowly focused on his trade.
The structure of Jeppe’s bacon plant in Denmark is styled after the innovation of Phillip Armour. Phil is called the Napoleon of the Chicago capitalists, the baron of butchers, the king of pork packing and grain-shipping leader of the United States. It is reported that he has an establishment in every city in the USA and his agents are at work for him in every part of the globe. His daily updates come through telegraphs, telex, and telegram. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10 May 1896, p2) His reach is global. Stretching from the “wheat fields of Russia to the grain bearing plains of North India and the markets of Australia and Europe.” Every morning he looks at the globe. Where his products will be in demand and where prices will rise and fall. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10 May 1896, p2) It was no doubt this global view that brought his agents to South Africa where they met David de Villiers-Graaff. (2) (5)
Armour – the Applied of Refrigeration to Meatpacking
By now you should have a firm grasp of the role of nitrates and nitrites in meat curing. I suspect that Phil was involved in testing nitrites in meat curing long before it was legal to do so in the USA. This is, however, not his biggest contribution to the trade. Apart from pioneering the production line, Phil’s greatest contribution to meatpacking and processing is the incorporation of refrigeration into the meatpacking plant which allows for curing and packing of meat all year round.
In Britain, the Harris family was responsible for the construction of the first ice house for bacon curing in their High Street factory in Calne in 1856. Jeppe reckons that this is the first time in the world when ice was used to make year-round curing possible. It may or may not be true since ice houses or cellars were used in Cincinnati long before 1856. It is entirely possible that George Harris, who brought the idea back from the USA to England, may have seen ice-cooling in use precisely for bacon curing in the USA. It probably developed very informally as private landowners created ice houses to keep perishables from going bad. Phil may have had just such an ice house on his own property. However the inspiration came to him, he is credited for the incorporation of large scale refrigeration into meatpacking. (Encyclopedia. Chicago history and British History)
During the time when Phil brought refrigeration to meatpacking, Gustavus Swift came to Chicago to ship cattle and developed a way to send fresh-chilled beef in ice-cooled railroad cars all the way to the East Coast. The railroads could not keep up with the supply of refrigerated cars and Phil and other large packers build their own cars and leased them to the railroads. (Louise Carroll Wade. Encyclopedia Chicago History. Meat Packing)
Armour refrigeration car. Armour had at one point 12 000 refrigerated cars in use across the USA (americanurbex.com)
Three big meatpackers would become legendary. They were Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris. (3) David was inspired by this and did exactly the same in South Africa when he built his own refrigerated cars.
Armour’s Agents in South Africa
It was an agent of Phil Armour who visited Cape Town in the mid-1880s and called on the largest butchery in town, Combrinck & Co. This visit to South Africa was in response to the discovery of diamond in Kimberly and the goldfields in Johannesburg. (5) Diamonds were discovered in 1867 by a 15-year-old boy, Erasmus Jacobs, near Hopetown on the Orange River. (6)
Gold was discovered in South Africa in 1884 by Jan Gerrit Bantjies on the farm Vogelstruisfontein. The main gold reef was discovered by George Harrison on the farm Langlaagte in July 1886. (5) (SA History. Discovery Gold)
Phil Armour knew exactly what would follow these discoveries. He made his money in the Californian gold rush as a young man, not from mining claims but by capitalizing on peripheral industries that developed. He started a business in California, employing out-of-work miners to construct sluices, which controlled the waters that flowed through the mined rivers. By the time he turned 24, he had a successful business that earned him enough money to move away from California and start his next venture.
Phil saw what opportunity would follow the discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa and true to his nature, he investigated the opportunity. He knew that as the states in South Africa develop, so would our importance as a grain and maize producer. He had many reasons to be very interested in the mid-1880s in developments in the sub-continent.
Whatever the exact reason was behind the visit of Armour’s agents to the Cape Colony, at Combrinck & Co they met the man who has been in charge since 1881 (Dommisse, E, 2011: 31), the young David de Villiers-Graaff. A bright-eyed young man with black hair and a distinct black moustache.
David was born with a drive and loads of passion. He had the resources of a successful business behind him which gave him the means. What he now had was an opportunity to be exposed to the world and take Combrick & Co. further and create his own legacy. This was provided by Phil Armour and started with an invitation to Chicago! (2) (4)
David spoke at great lengths about this first trip to Chicago and the meeting with Mr. Armour in his cage-like office from where he manages his considerable international interests. (the cage-like office is described in The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10 May 1896, p2) Phil invests in young minds and even though David did not explicitly state this, I can glean from what he tells me that Phil was impressed with the young leader from Cape Town. Phil showed his packing plant to David and especially the refrigeration and refrigeration cars for the railroads. (2)
Phil employes young people of character and seldom fires them. He regularly re-deploys them in other departments in the business as young people often need some time to find their feet and where their true talents lay. He would most certainly have been impressed by David.
David implemented the concept of own refrigeration cars as soon as he got back to Cape Town. He had refrigeration chambers erected for Combrinck & Co. and soon invested in his own fleet of refrigerated cars for the railways.
In a quint coffee shop close to the Abattoir in Copenhagen, I pressed David to list the characteristics of Phil Armour that inspired him most. I was interested, not only in the mechanics of his business model but also in the qualities that the man cultivated.
David was thinking intently, stroking his moustache. “Phil is an optimist who believes in his country and in the future. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10 May 1896, p2) He saw the end of the civil war, despite the many negative voices to the contrary. He capitalized on low pork prices brought about by speculation that the war would continue, bought up every pig he could get hold of and made a fortune when prices rose on the realization that peace would prevail. (7)” “He is not scared to take on large challenges. His plans are big and bold and global. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10 May 1896, p2)” “He invests frugally in education. Mr. Armour donated funds to establish the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago to give technical training for underprivileged boys. (8)” (Ansci. PD Armour)
A lesson that inspired David and that I take from Phil is that he believes in obtaining a thorough knowledge of any industry he gets involved in. This is why I am in Denmark and why I study as much as I can about bacon curing.
David then made an interesting observation. After supper, David started telling me about the start of Phil’s illustrious career.
Phil was brought up in Stockbridge, Madison County, in the state of New York with six brothers and two sisters. His formal schooling was not the best, but he learned far greater lessons from his family. His mother taught him thrift, energy, the economy of time and speech, the benevolence of heart and a strong common sense. (The Inter Ocean, 7 January 1901, Page 2).
Gold was discovered in California in the spring of 1849. Phil had fallen in love with a girl and became obsessed with the idea of making a fortune on the newly discovered goldfields quickly so that he could return and claim his bride. Having secured the permission of his parents, he joined a small party and set off to the goldfields. None of the party had the means for a sea voyage and they set out on foot. A journey that lasted over six months and took them through rivers and deserts and over mountains with the usual dangers associated with such a long journey. (The Inter Ocean, 7 January 1901, Page 2) An amazing lesson I take personally from this bit of David’s story is that Phil had the respect and relationship with his parents to ask them and secondly, that his parents had the courage to allow him to go! It seems that bold parenting creates bold men!
In the goldfields, he made enough money to form the basis of his wealth. He moved away at age 24 from California to buy a grocery store and later got involved in a meatpacking venture which set him on the course of his life as we know it.
David commented that much in the life of Phil Armour resonated with him. He has never really spoken about his time as a boy on the farm in Villiersdorp to me. Last week in Denmark, he did. David’s dad, who was a blacksmith on Villiersdorp, was not a wealthy man. There were no good roads to Villiersdorp which contributed to the general impoverished condition in the area. People were poor in possessions, but wealthy in children and in spirit. Kids were put to work from an early age on the farm. Every day’s work was undertaken with a cape made of grain bags to serve as protection against rain and cold. (Dommisse, E, 2011: 21)
As in the case of Phil’s school years, school education was not the best. What they lacked in formal education, they made up in life education. Respect was of great importance. People stood together and supported each other in times of tribulation. When an animal was butchered, people from the entire neighbourhood got a meat packet. Trustworthiness in word and deed, industriousness and honesty were instilled from an early age. (Dommisse, E. 2011: 21, 22)
One afternoon Jacobus Combrinck, a respected family member and successful butcher from Cape Town, arrived on their farm Wolfhuiskloof. The custom was for the boys to help with the farm work after school and that afternoon was the 11-year old David’s turn to look after the pigs and stop them from going into the garden. “However, during the hot afternoon, he had fallen asleep under the fig tree. Next thing he knew he was being shaken awake violently while his father was shouting, “Dawie, Dawie, here you are sleeping and the pigs are in the garden!” Combrinck who had seen the whole commotion took pity on the young farm lad, … and immediately asked if he could take him to Cape Town to have him educated properly.” So it happened that the young David Graaff left their farm and moved to Cape Town where he would work during the day in Jacobus’ butchery and study at night. (Dommisse, E. 2011: 24)
David commented that Jacobus himself started to work in a butchery when he was only a teen to help his mom financially after the death of his father. David knew how to set the stage for a point he was about to make, the trait of a good communicator. He leaned back in his chair while all of us were on the edge of our seats. I have never heard him speak so candidly about his past.
“It occurred to me,” he started out, “that the best education revolves around values.” “I found great value in learning, but the values that my parents taught me have always stood me in good stead. It seems to have done the same in the life of Mr Armour and Uncle Jacobus.”
He was ready to make his second point. He spoke thoughtfully. “A little bit of struggle never hurt anyone! Look at the journey of Mr Armour. Jacobus and I working full days as children in butcheries. What some people see as a curse can be a blessing for others. It all depends on how you see it.” He then looked at me and said, “The fact that your dreams of a bacon factory are a difficult journey is a blessing!”
I will never forget that night. His point so eloquently made. As I have said, our friend has become a man!
Back to Chicago
David is on his way to Chicago again to meet with Phil Armour, but his focus will be on city business as he is travelling as mayor of Cape Town. He outlined what he intends to achieve at the World Fair. After hearing him talk, I can not wait to get back to see how his many plans unfold. (10)
Use Every Bit Except the Squeal
When I took David on a tour of Jeppes pork slaughtering house and abattoir the next day, David could not stop talking about the impact of Phil Armour and Gustavus Swift on pork slaughtering and how the animal is taken apart for use as primals or sides and the primals turned into bacon.
Mr Armour insisted that every part of the animal be used, contrary to the practice in many parts of the world, including in Cape Town, to dump so-called “undesirable parts of the carcass” in bodies of water, or as we do it in Cape Town, leave it on the beach in the hope that the tide will wash it away. “They devised better methods to cure pork and used lard components to make soap and candles.” (Encyclopedia Chicagohistory) Armour famously said that it is only the squeal of the pig that he does not use. Jeppe asked me not to show Dawid the curing baths or to discuss mild cured bacon with him. I could see how he was concerned not to give this information to a personal close friend of Philip Armour. On the other hand, I could see that there is a whole lot to be learned from Dawid in terms of his production line concepts, pioneered by Phil Armour.
Armour’s Great Invention – the Production Line
Swift & Co. Packing House, Chicago, 1905. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
It was the consolidation of the ideas around the re-organization of workers that was the true genius of Phil Armour. (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research) In a break from the concept of the German fleishmaster who process all meat, Mr Armour’s ideas originated in a “crude form in the packinghouses of Cincinnati (when that city was known as “Porkopolis”).” “Mr. Armour organized his workers on a scale and in ways the world had never seen before. He “de-skilled” the work by dividing the processing of meat into steps that any unskilled labourer could follow.” (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research) This approach allowed “an animal to be killed, dismembered, cleaned and dressed at extraordinary speed. Tourists came from around the world to see Midwestern packinghouses in action.” (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research) “The pivotal concepts of production: division of labour, mass production, standardized units of production, continuous flow, and efficiency were pioneered in these packinghouses.” (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research) (9)
The idea originated in the packing houses in Cincinnati where it was not new technology, but this greater division of labour that allowed greater output. The task of dismembering the pig’s carcass was divided into small tasks, performed by different men. (Horowitz, R., 2006: 50) When the American landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted visited Cincinnati in the 1850s, “he observed in a cutting plant “a human cutting machine” consisting of no more than a “plank table, two men to lift and turn, and two to wield the cleavers.” The efficiency of these men was such that “no iron cog-wheels could work with more regular motion.” As butchers separated the pig carcass into parts “attendants, aided by trucks and dumbwaiters, dispatch each to its separate destiny,” the curing cellars below where the pork was preserved before shipment.” (Horowitz, R., 2006: 51) Olmsted timed the men dismembering the pig. One carcass every 35 seconds with several parallel stations in operation, packing 15 to 20 000 hogs during the winter. (Horowitz, R., 2006: 51)
Phil achieved his output through year-round packing made possible by refrigeration, incremental technology innovation and the consolidation of the continuous process production. His engineers improve the “disassembly” line by eliminating bottlenecks. Fragmenting the butcher’s tasks and introducing rotating wheels or conveyor tracks to bring the animal to workers performing specific cuts. This alone improved efficiency by 25%. (Horowitz, R., 2006: 52) (4)
These are concepts that must become part of the life of our proposed Woody’s factory in Cape Town. Each departments’ tasks must be broken up into its smallest components. It must be logically grouped. Self-regulatory systems theory that I have been learning from Andreas dictates that a continually improving, self-organising system must contain in its operation feedback loops for the system to respond to as well as “pressure release” or self-regulatory mechanisms. I will have to focus on conditions at home and the Woodys team must create its own production systems and not try and copy what is done in Denmark, England and in Chicago where different scale exist. The approach must be the same, but the application of the principles will differ.
Building a City Based on Civic Duty
Armour Institute of Technology, 1914
Armours’ work inspired David in many ways. It set a course for his life where he translated his success into transforming his environment. David would be key in transforming Cape Town just as Phil was in transforming Chicago. The “business practices that Phil pioneered had a direct impact on the skylines, not just in Chicago, but in the USA. Besides the army of workers in the packinghouses, men like Armour needed armies of clerks and managers to run their business. These employees needed office space and many of the Chicago skyscrapers were developed to house these newly created “office workers”.
It was Armour’s disdain toward needless ornamentation in the workplace that led to the development of the “First Chicago School of Architecture”, and a style of building that made structure and function its primary goal. Members of the first Chicago School included Louis Sullivan, Daniel H. Burnham, John W. Root, Dankmar Adler, and William Le Baron Jenney, the “father of the American skyscraper”. (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research)
This is a great example of the character and the spirit of Armour and Swift. The exact same direction that was given to the enthusiasm and drive of David de Villiers-Graaff. It will be wrong to credit Phil Armour entirely for David’s drive for urban development and beautifying his city. These are, after all, global movements – an almost universal drive to beautify the living environments in cities and the realisation of our collective civic responsibilities as fellow citizens on this great earth. What is certain is that David associates himself with people with this spirit and that these concepts were part of the ether that David breathed.
He no doubt was inspired by the work of the great industrialists in Chicago. This is clear from the fact that he now returns to Chicago, not as a butcher or a businessman, but as the leader of a city with grand plans to dramatically overhaul the face of Cape Town. (The Inter Ocean, Monday, 11 April 1892. Page 9 – 12) This is the protegee returning to his mentor to show him how he has grown.
Jeppe and Eben at the Meat Excellence awards in London. 3/6/2012
David’s visit was concluded by a great banquette in the state hall in Denmark. Christian IX of Denmark was in attendance as were our Danish friends, Jeppe, Andreas, and Martin. I had a suit made by a tailor in the city that Jeppe manage to arrange for me. The dinner was a grand occasion. Minette looked absolutely gorgeous. Andreas’ mom helped her to select a blue dress that suited her perfectly.
We had an amazing evening. I could feel that my time in Denmark was coming to an end and as I started thinking back over everything that I learned it is interesting that the major theme was nitrogen. Your December holidays are drawing to a close. Please remember to give my Oupa and Ouma all our love when you see them! I wich I can say that I am counting the days to my return, but there is still much more to learn and new countries to visit. Of all these adventures, be assured that I will write to you often!
(1) David Graaff was 32 years old in 1892. He was interviewed at the World Exposition by a journalist standing at the foot of one of the main trusses of the Liberal Arts and Manufacturers building, featured in the picture below. (The Inter Ocean, Monday, 11 April 1892, p12)
The Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building seen from the South West.
(2) This visit and meeting are purely fictional. There are no records that I am aware of that Sir David Graaff ever visited Denmark. The content of the discourse between Eben, Oscar, and David relates to David Graaff’s visit to Phillip D Armour’s company in Chicago. The visit to Armour’s company took place in the mid-1880s and was one of the first locations visited by David Graaff. This is a historical fact. (Dommisse, E, 2011: 32) Everything else is likely, but at best, informed speculation. There is no evidence at my disposal indicating that agents from Philip Armour ever visited Combrinck & Co or invited David to Chicago. It is of course completely possible that a visitor or a business associate told him about Philip Armours’ packing plant.
Option 1 is then that an agent from Philip Armour visited the Cape Colony and met David Graaff. Option 2 is that one of the many people who visited the pork packing plant of Armour reported it to David who then decided to visit it. A 3rd option is that David read about it in the newspapers. In June 1882 David Graaff took out membership to the reading room of the Cape Chamber of Commerce. The reading room gave him access to a variety of publications on financial and economic issues (Dommisse, E, 2011: 38)
(3) Morris & Company and Armour & Company merged in 1925. The grandson of Morris, also named Nelson, famously survived the final flight of the Hindenburg and the fire that destroyed the airship. (Faces of the Hindenburg. Nelson Morris)
(4) The labour economist John R Commons observed, related to the disassembly line in the pork packing houses of the late 1800’s that “skill has become specialized to fit the anatomy.” (Horowitz, R., 2006: 53)
(5) The discovery of diamonds would have been of great interest to Phillip Armour. Of even greater importance would have been the discovery of gold on the Rand and the subsequent creation of Johannesburg. I have no records of Armour sending agents to Cape Town, but from everything we know about Armour and the fact that David Graaff visited Armour in the mid-’80s to investigate refrigeration and meat processing technology the tantalizing possibility exists that my theory is at least plausible.
(6) The Eureka Diamond, the first diamond to be discovered in South Africa was found near Hopetown on the Orange river in 1867. Its weight was 21.25 carats (4.250g). (Wikipedia. Eureka Diamond)
(7) David Graaff would make his fortune in part on the realization that war with England was imminent and securing supply contracts for the British army during the second Anglo-Boer war. Both Graaff and Armour were optimists, even in the midst of dark days.
(8) The institute became the Illinois Institute of Technology. (Ansci. PD Armour)
(9) “Philip Armour and his colleague Gustavus Swift were true founders of some of the great modern business practices that remain in use today around the globe. (Henry Ford later used these same principles to develop an automobile industry “assembly” line and is wrongly credited for many of Armour’s ideas.)” (Thomas Petraitis. Preservation research)
(10) This trip to Chicago actually took place and was widely reported in newspapers in the USA. The Inter Ocean ran a detailed article on this visit on Monday, 11 April 1892. Page 9 – 12.
References
Dommisse, E. 2011. First baronet of De Grendel. Tafelberg.
The Colonies and Indian, 10 October 1891, under the heading “Colonial, Indian and American News Items,” p 11.
Horowitz, R. 2006. Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation. The John Hopkins University Press
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.
Von Liebig and the Theory of Proteins of Gerard Mulder
Copenhagen, September 1891
Dear kids,
It is the first day of autumn. Denmark is not home, but there is a beauty to this world. Copenhagen is an amazingly beautiful city. It is much smaller than I thought it would be, but it is very organised. The buildings are old and beautiful!
Andreas became a brother. He is an amazing soccer player. I can’t keep up with him, either when I play with or against him. I try to teach them to play cricket and rugby, but it is difficult. I have given up, to the great amusement of his dad (and the relief of Andreas).
Even autumn is colder than the coldest winters we have in Cape Town. As the cold sets in I miss you guys more every day. My only consolation is that Minette is here! Every week we make time to go on a long hike. I miss Table Mountain! I miss my mom and sitting by the kitchen table as she cooks one of her legendary lunches! I miss my dad. I miss Oscar and our crazy late-night dreaming. The fact that I learn on the one hand and do when I work in the bacon factory makes the learning more effective.
The Copenhagen harbour. The new Frihavns’ most impressive building was the Silo warehouse on Midtermolen, built in 1892-94 by William Dahlerup.
Copenhagen is not Africa! It seems to me that all great dreams begin on horseback, on a farm, looking for stray cattle. The vlaktes of the Wes Transvaal seem so far. Like a dream. I remember the day after we tasted the pork that we tried to cure on Oscar’s farm with the saltpetre that we bought from the Danish spice trader in Johannesburg and discovered that the pork was off. We tried to do it according to the Danish curing system as it was explained to us. We were so disappointed! Trudie told us that we must have done something wrong. We were sure that we did everything that the Danish guy told us.
The next day Ou Jantjie came to the house and told us that he saw some of Oscar’s cattle on Atties farm, close to the dam, nearest to Atties house. The off-tasting pork was out of our minds and we were on Poon and Lady, riding to look for the cattle.
Oscar said that Trudie is right, that we must have done something wrong and that we must learn much more. I think he knew from the beginning how difficult it would be to take David de Villiers Graaff on when it comes to curing bacon. Oscar’s mind is fast.
I reminded him that the spice trader said that if we really want to learn how it’s done, we must get on the next steamer leaving the Cape for Copenhagen. We decided to get everybody who will support the dream together for a meeting at his house one evening. Then we will decide.
The wind was in our faces and we had great dreams. I am learning how important those initial dreams are. It is like building up steam pressure before the engine starts to turn the big pistons on a steamship. If the pressure is not build up first, it will never be enough for the first “turn”. As soon as it’s turning, momentum takes over and the engine takes on a life of its own. The initial dreams are the building up of pressure.
This art of curing meat has been developing over thousands of years. On the one hand, people wanted to prevent meat from spoiling and on the other hand, cured meat developed into a culinary delicacy. The key ingredient is saltpetre (1).
Jeppe and I have the best of times during lunchtime. Since Minette arrived, it gave our lunchtime lessons a dynamic character. He would go through the relevant scientific discoveries of the previous few years, pointing out the direct application of science to the art of curing bacon. His lessons give both Minette and me enjoyment that is hard to communicate. The Wednesday, following our visit to the University, one of the Chemistry Professors decided to visit us at the bacon factory. It set the stage for another volcanic afternoon!
Justus von Liebig
He heard about our visit to the University and was eager to assist in our education. We were ready with notebooks, pens, and inquiring minds! He overviewed what we learned at the University and promptly changed the focus from the French to the German schools, in particular the formidable scientist in the person of Justus von Liebig.
His father was a chemical manufacturer and had a small laboratory attached to his shop. Here Justus loved performing experiments and an exceptional life was inspired. After studying pharmacy, he received a doctorate from the University of Erlangen in Bavaria in 1822. The Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt and his ministers noticed him and funded his further studies in chemistry under Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac in Paris between 1822 and 1824. Gay-Lussac himself found all plant seeds “contain a principle abounding in azote.” It was, in Paris when a meeting with Alexander von Humboldt, according to Von Liebig, set his career on the path it took. Up to that point, it was the French chemists who were responsible for the progression of a field of study we touched on at the University namely protein metabolism, but with Von Liebig, this was about to change.
Humboldt is one of my heroes and as a child, I practically committed his books to memory. Humboldt arranged an appointment for Von Liebig at the small University of Giessen in May 1824. Liebig wrote about this meeting that “at a larger university, or in a larger place, my energies would have been divided and dissipated, and it would have been much more difficult, perhaps impossible, to reach the goal at which I aimed.” Applying the techniques that he learned under Gay-Lussac he changed the face of organic chemistry and became the father of agricultural chemistry. The study of protein metabolism was now firmly in the hands of the Germans.
At the University of Giessen, Liebig created the most productive school of organic chemistry in existence at the time. He perceived that his work could be logically extended to the chemistry of the living body. In 1840 his book, “Thierchemie in Ihrer Aufwendung auf Physio logie” appeared, and an English translation of the work entitled “Animal Chemistry, or Organic Chemistry in its Applications to Physiology and Pathology” appeared 1842. Liebig believed that the basis of protein metabolism was chemical. Some believe this is his most important contribution to the subject.
Von Liebig was well prepared to make such a contribution on account of his training in France and his own studies in organic chemistry. The Danish Chemistry professor brought Von Liebig’s work, Animal Chemistry (1842) along and quoted liberally from us to show the various aspects of Liebigs views on protein metabolism. He quotes (p. 40): “… If we hold that increase of mass in the animal body, that development of its organs, and the supply of waste,—that all this is dependent on the blood, that is, on the ingredients of the blood, then only those substances can properly be called nutritious and considered as food which is capable of conversion into blood. To determine, therefore, what substances are capable of affording nourishment, it is only necessary to ascertain the composition of the food, and to compare it with that of the ingredients of the blood. Two substances require special consideration as the chief ingredients of the blood: . . . fibrine, which is identical in all its properties with muscular fibre, when the latter is purified from all foreign matters. The second principal ingredient of the blood is contained in the serum and gives to this liquid all the properties of the white of eggs, with which it is identical. When heated, it coagulates into a white elastic mass, and the coagulating substance is called albumen. Fibrine and albumen, the chief ingredients of blood, contain, in all, seven chemical constituents, among which nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur are found. . . . Chemical analysis has led to the remarkable result that fibrine and albumen contain the same organic elements united in the same proportion…. In these two ingredients of blood the particles are arranged in a different order, as shown by the difference of their external properties; but in chemical composition in the ultimate proportion of the organic elements, they are identical. . . . Both albumen and fibrine, in the process of nutrition, are capable of being converted into muscular fibre, and muscular fibre is capable of being reconverted into blood. . . . All part of the animal body which have a decided shape, which forms parts of organs, contain nitrogen; all of them likewise contain carbon and the elements of water. . . The chief ingredients of the blood contain nearly 17% of nitrogen and no part of an organ contains less than 17% nitrogen.”
The importance of nitrogen in all muscles and in blood in this way became known to humanity. It is therefore nothing strange to find nitrogen and its conversion into ammonia, ammonium and nitrate and nitrite as fundamental to the building blocks of animal life. Just as the same compounds play an essential role in plant nutrition and in all processes of the soil and water in our world.
The chemistry professor paused for a second to look up and see if we are following. He saw us hanging on his every word and he continued reading. “The most convincing experiments and observations have proved that the animal body is absolutely incapable of producing an elementary body, such as carbon or nitrogen, out of substances which do not contain it; it obviously follows, that all kinds of food fit for the production either of blood, or of cellular tissue, membranes, skin, hair, muscular fibre, etc. must contain a certain amount of nitrogen, because that element is essential to the composition of the above-named organs; because the organs cannot create it from the other elements presented to them; and, finally, because no nitrogen is absorbed from the atmosphere in the vital process.”
“The nutritive process in the carnivora is seen in its simplest form. This class of animals lives on the blood and flesh of the graminivora; but this blood and flesh are, in all its properties, identical with their own. . . . In a chemical sense, therefore, it may be said that a carnivorous animal, in supporting the vital process, consumes itself. That which serves for its nutrition is identical with those parts of its organisation which are to be renewed. The process of nutrition in graminivorous animals appears at first sight altogether different. Their digestive organs are less simple, and their food constituents consist of vegetables, the great mass of which contains but little nitrogen. … Chemical researches have shown, that all such parts of vegetables as can afford nutriment to animals contain certain constituents which are rich in nitrogen; and the most ordinary experience proves that animals require for their support and nutrition less of these parts of plants in proportion as they abound in the nitrogenised constituents. Animals cannot be fed on matters destitute of these nitrogenised constituents. . . . These nitrogenised forms of nutriment in the vegetable kingdom may be reduced to three substances, which are easily distinguished by their external characters. Two of them are soluble in water. The third is insoluble.”
He then states that he recognises “a vegetable fibrin, vegetable albumin and vegetable casein” which is similar in characteristics to these animal products. He continues (p. 48): “How beautifully and admirably simple, with the aid of these discoveries, appears the process of nutrition in animals, the formation of their organs, in which vitality chiefly resides! Those vegetable principles, which in animals are used to form blood, contain the chief constituents of blood, fibrine and albumen, ready formed, as far as regards their composition. . . . From what has been said, it follows that the development of the animal organism and its growth is dependent on the reception of certain principles identical with the chief constituents of blood.”
Liebig’s view on nitrogen in nutrition is summarized by himself as follows (p. 95): . . . “According to what has been laid down in the preceding pages, the substances of which the food of man is composed may be divided into two classes; into nitrogenised and non-nitrogenised. The former is capable of conversion into blood; the latter incapable of this transformation. Out of those substances which are adapted to the formation of blood are formed all the organised tissues. The other class of substances, in the normal state of health, serve to support the process of respiration. The former may be called the plastic elements of nutrition; the latter, elements of respiration. Among the former, we reckon—vegetable fibrine, vegetable albumen, vegetable caseine, animal flesh, animal blood. Among the elements of respiration in our food are—fat, starch, gum, cane sugar, grape sugar, sugar of milk, pectine, bassorine, wine, beer, spirits.”
You will see that none of Von Liebig’s views was new. These were concepts that originated with Magendie, 25 years earlier. Note in particular that Von Liebig did not have an inkling of the possibility of digestion and reconstruction of proteins taken in the diet. (Munro and Allison, 1964)
One of the many productive directions of the work of Von Liebig and his students was the application of oxidizing agents (example, manganese dioxide, and chromic acid) during acid hydrolysis of proteins and in the process identifying a series of acids and aldehydes. The concept of studying the degradation products of protein originated with Von Liebig and was to play a crucial role in the next generation (Sahyun, M. (Editor). 1948) There is an interesting point of application of this work to the modern bacon curer. It has emerged that there is a link between foaming and the length of the amino acids that remain after proteins have been “digested” with the aid of an acid. This became clear when we tried to dissolve the result of our “digestion experiments” in water. If for some reason, such “digested” proteins must be used in a bacon brine, if the foaming is excessive and interferes with the curing operation, it will be of great help to “digest” the proteins for longer in acid before it is recovered and hydrated.
The atomic theory
At this point the Chemistry professor paused. He asked how much we know about Dalton’s atomic theory. Of course, I knew it well from high school in Cape Town.
I was very surprised when the professor said that Dalton’s work had an important application in the field of nutritional studies. John Dalton was by all accounts not the brightest of students. Some said that his main characteristic was not being bright but rather, determination. He was poor and largely self-taught. He worked as a schoolmaster in the north of England and developed a very important notion. The notion was that all of the elements are made up of indivisible particles, or “atoms,” and, importantly, that for each element, every atom is identical. He came to the conclusion that in chemical combinations, two or more different atoms come together to form a firm union and this union, was, as far as the new substance is concerned, always in the same simple ratios by weight. So, for example, the gas, carbon dioxide has exactly twice the weight of oxygen (by unit weight of carbon) compared to what is present in another gas called carbon monoxide. So, the different elements in any compound are fixed. When comparing two different compounds, the same two elements will always be in a simple ratio by weight.
He further concluded that when gasses combine, they always do so in the same simple relation by volume. Let’s take the formation of ammonia as an example. When it is formed, 3 volumes of hydrogen combine with 1 volume of nitrogen and they form exactly 2 volumes of ammonia gas. A conclusion from these is that equal volumes of different gases contain the same numbers of molecules if one sees that many elements, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, have two atoms combined together to form a single molecule.
Early on there was uncertainty if carbon and oxygen each have one-half of the atomic weights that we now assign to them. Prout in England used improved methods of analysis and arrived at the formula C2H4N2O2. Double the atomic weights for C and O and you arrive at the modern formula of CH4N2O. In the early 1800s, Friedrich Wöhler achieved what may believe to the start of organic chemistry when he obtained urea by heating silver cyanate with ammonium chloride. He wrote to his professor: “I can make urea without the use of kidneys.” By doing this, he demonstrated that an organic compound produced in living systems could also be produced in the laboratory without the aid of any “vital force.”
Wöhler and Von Liebig’s Free Radical
Wöhler worked with Liebig and developed the idea of a common radical that would combine with other reagents, but still retain its own nature and be recoverable by further reactions. In chemistry, a free radical is a species that contains one occupied orbital. A characteristic of a free radical is that they are neutral and they tend to be highly reactive. The first such ree radical was “benzoyl”.
Starting with benzaldehyde (C6H5CHO), it can be oxidized to benzoic acid (C6H5CO2H). Note the addition of an oxygen atom. Alternatively, a chlorinated derivative can be formed. The original benzaldehyde can be created by reducing or removing oxygen.” (Carpenter, 2003) It is easy to see the similarity in what we are doing with nitrate, nitrate, and ammonia and this, in turn, is build upon the logic of the atomic theory.
Gerard Mulder and the nature of animal substance
The Dutch chemist Gerard Mulder (1802–1880) published a paper in a Dutch journal in 1838 which was reprinted in 1839 in the Journal für praktische Chemie. Mulder examined a series of nitrogen-rich organic compounds, including fibrin, egg albumin, gluten, etc., and had concluded that they all contained a basic nitrogenous component (~16%) to which he gave the name of “protein” (Munro and Allison, 1964) from a Greek term implying that it was the primary material of the animal kingdom.
The chemistry professor was adamant that we should know the building blocks of living organisms is proteins. Bacon curing is in the first place related to the manipulation of proteins and if we want any chance to understand the chemical reactions associated with bacon production, we should know the chemistry of proteins. Apart from the manipulation of proteins, it is key in our work to understand the concept of nutrition.
The term protein was coined by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, and suggested it to Mulder who was the first one to use it in a published article. (Bulletin des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles en Néerlande (1838); Hartley, Harold (1951) “Ueber die Zusammensetzung einiger thierischen Substanzen” 1839)). Berzelius suggested the word to Mulder in a letter from Stockholm on 10 July 1838. (Vickery, H, B, 1950) Mulder suggested using the symbol “Pr” for the radical, that egg albumin could be expressed as “Pr10 · SP” and serum albumin as “Pr10 · S2P,” and that the radical itself had the molecular formula “C40H62N10O12. (Carpenter, 2003)
This common nucleus was linked with phosphorus and sulfur to give the various compounds referred to above. “Die organische Substanz, welche in allen Bestandtheilen des thier ischen Körpers, so wie auch, wie wir bald sehen, im Pflanzenreiche Vorkommt, könnte Protein von Tporetos primarius, genannt werden. Der Faserstoff und Eiweissstoff der Eierhaben also die Formel Pr + SP, der Eiweissstoff des Serums Pr + SP.” (The organic substance which is found in all the constituents of the animal body, as well as, as we shall soon see, in the vegetable kingdom, might be called protein of Tporetos primarius. The fiber and protein of the eggs thus have the formula Pr + SP, the protein of the serum Pr + SP) (Munro and Allison, 1964)
Liebig initially liked the concept. He wrote, “… When animal albumen, fibrine, and caseine are dissolved in a moderately strong solution of caustic potash, and the solution is exposed for some time to a high temperature, these substances are decomposed. The addition of acetic acid to the solution causes, in all three, the separation of a gelatinous translucent precipitate, which has exactly the same characters and composition, from whichever of the three substances above mentioned it has been obtained. Mulder, to whom we owe the discovery of this compound, found, by exact and careful analysis, that it contains the same organic elements, and exactly the same proportion, as the animal matters from which it is prepared; insomuch, that if we deduct from the analysis of albumen, fibrine, and casein, the ashes they yield, when incinerated, as well as the sulphur and phosphorus they contain, and then calculate the remainder for 100 parts, we obtain the same result as in the analysis of the precipitate above described, prepared by potash, which is free from inorganic matter.” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
If we look at it in this way, the main ingredients of blood and casein in milk can be regarded as a mixture of phosphates and other salts, and of sulphur and phosphorus, with a compound of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, in which the relative proportion of these elements is fixed. This compound can then be regarded as the commencement and starting-point of all other animal tissues because these are all produced from the blood. Mulder had an insight that since the insoluble nitrogenised part of wheat flour (vegetable fibrine) when treated with potash, the exact same product is yielded namely protein. He found that the true starting-point for all the tissues is albumen and that all nitrogenised articles of food, whether derived from the animal or from the vegetable kingdom, are converted into albumen before they can take part in the process of nutrition. Liebig, like Mulder, ascribes the formula C4s H36N6O14 to protein, and albumen becomes C18H38N6014 + P + S, fibrine is C48E36. N6014 + P + 2 S, and so on.
– Liebig’s Opposition
Liebig eventually rejected Mulder’s concept of a nucleus protein based on work he continued to do on protein chemistry. He sets forth his arguments against Mulder at some length in his book “Researches on the Chemistry of Food,” published in an English edition in 1847. Here Liebig indicates that several chemists were unable to repeat some of Mulder’s basic experiments and that his formulas for fibrin, albumin, etc., as compounds of protein with sulfur and phosphorus in specific relations, do not agree with the results of more recent analyses of these substances. In this, he conveniently forgets his own earlier enthusiasm for Mulder’s view, and says (p. 18): “… A theoretical view in natural science is never absolutely true, it is only true for the period during which it prevails; it is the nearest and most exact expression of the knowledge and the observations of that period. It ceases to be true for a later period, inasmuch as a number of newly acquired facts can no longer be included in it. . . . But the case is very different with the so-called protein theory, which cannot be regarded as one of the theoretical views just mentioned, since, being supported by observations both erroneous in themselves and misinterpreted as to their significance, it had no foundation in itself, and was never regarded, by those intimately acquainted with its chemical groundwork, as an expression of the knowledge of a given period.” (Munro and Allison, 1964). “Mulder was enraged by the tone of the criticism from Liebig, who was now denying what he himself had previously asserted.” (Carpenter, 2003)
Despite his criticism, Von Liebig suggests the direction which eventually led researchers to ultimately resolved the structure of the protein molecule. He says (p. 27) : … The study of the products, which caseine yields when acted on by concentrated hydrochloric acid, of which, as Bopp had found, Tyrosine and Leucine constitute the chief part, and the accurate determination of the products which the blood constituents, caseine, and gelatine, yield when oxidised, among which the most remarkable are oil of bitter almonds, butyric acid, aldehyde, butyric aldehyde, valerianic acid, valeronitrile, and valeracetonitrile, have opened up a new and fertile field of research into numberless relations of the food to the digestive process, and into the action of remedies in morbid conditions.” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
It is an interesting thought that in the word “protein” we refer to the important class of body constituents, and we, at the same time, commemorate an erroneous oversimplification of protein structure. We must also remember that we use the word in a meaning different from that originally intended. The German word for protein is “Eiweiss.” The reason may very well be because of Von Liebig’s eventual rejection of Mulder’s hypothesis.” (Munro and Allison, 1964). Dennis M Bier states that despite these nuances, Berzelius and Mulder were, in the most basic analysis, right: “Protein is the essential general principle of the constituents of the animal body. Thus, one might briefly summarize the physiological roles of protein in metabolism as “responsible for just about everything.” (Bier, D. M., 1999). “The notion of the protein radical disappeared from the literature and the term “protein” gradually began to be applied to all the materials previously described as “animal substance.” (Carpenter, 2003)
Is Protein the only true nutrient?
Our good professor was on a roll. Nitrogen, as the key nutrient was firmly established, but is this the only one? While he is on the subject, he gave us a history lesson on the further development of thoughts around this matter. As a food producer, this remains one of the overall biggest subjects. Nutrition! It is the original and main reason why we eat!
Von Liebig wrote the following in his book, Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry in its Application to Physiology and Pathology, that “because his analyses of muscles failed to show the presence of any fat or carbohydrate, the energy needed for their contraction must come from an explosive breakdown of the protein molecules themselves, resulting in the production and excretion of urea. Protein was, therefore, the only true nutrient, providing both the machinery of the body and the fuel for its work.
What is the reason then that we would need the other parts of the food that we consume? Why is carbonic acid produced in much higher volumes during exercise? The explanation of Von Liebig was that increased respiration was needed to keep the heart and other tissues from overheating. This led to more oxygen finding a way into the tissues, which unfortunately potentially cause oxidative damage and a loss of protein tissue. Fats and carbohydrates then acted as mopping agents of this excess by being themselves preferentially oxidized.
Von Liebig’s book quickly gained a reputation as an important intellectual synthesis. His ideas gained wide acceptance, the influence which was felt for many years. The Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University was, for example, asked to investigate an unexpected and very serious outbreak of scurvy in a Scottish prison, he immediately concluded that it must be the result of an inadequate intake of protein. He calculated the average daily protein intake of a prisoner to be an ample 135g. Only 15g of this was from animal sources and 102g from gluten.
His conclusion was to raise the average daily intake of milk to increase the intake of animal protein because, he argued, the power of the body to convert gluten to animal protein was limited. There were, however, a problem with this logic, as was spotted by another Scottish physician who replied that the value of lemon juice in the prevention of scurvy was well established and could not possibly be attributed to its protein content, given that a curative dose contained only a negligible amount of nitrogen.
The theory that muscular work is required to break protein down was problematic. The traditional diet of labourers was of lower protein content that of the less active rich. Now, remember the book, Foods, we are reading every night with Andreas and his family. Edward Smith, the author, and a British physician, and physiologist is another scientist of the time who was interested in the welfare of prisoners. He was worried about the stressfulness of them having to work on a treadmill. He measured their urea excretion in the 24h during and after their 8 hours of work, and again on their subsequent rest days, and found no difference. His findings were in complete opposition to the position of Von Liebig who would have said that on the basis that the energy expended all came from the breakdown of protein that resulted in the production of urea. (Carpenter, 2003)
Liebig and Urine
Von Liebig drew attention to urea as an end-product of protein breakdown in the body. He did not get it right completely. In his work, “Animal Chemistry” (1842), (p. 62) he wrote, “… We know that the urine of dogs, fed for three weeks exclusively on pure sugar, contains as much of the most highly nitrogenised constituent, urea, as in the normal condition. Differences in the quantity of urea secreted in these and similar experiments are explained by the condition of the animal in regard to the amount of the natural motions permitted. Every motion increases the amount of organised tissue that undergoes metamorphosis. Thus, after a walk, the secretion of urine in man is invariably increased.”
Later (p. 245), he wrote, “The amount of tissue metamorphosed in a given time may be measured by the quantity of nitrogen in the urine.” All this shows Von Liebig’s central thought that protein in muscle was the fuel for muscular exercise. He believed that the nitrogenous components of the diet must first be converted to living tissue before being broken down to yield urea. “There can be no greater contradiction, with regard to the nutritive process, than to suppose that the nitrogen of the food can pass into the urine as urea, without having previously become part of an organized tissue.” (p. 144).” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
Liebig’s Contribution to Protein Metabolism and the work of Carl Voit
Why this attention to Von Liebig? It appears from what we have seen that he did not contribute much permanent value to our understanding of protein metabolism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Von Liebig adhered to a vigorous application of organic analysis to compounds of biological interest, he undoubtedly laid the foundations of intermediary metabolism and much of the important work that followed Von Liebig was predicated on these findings. Besides these, Von Liebig identified many of the compounds of biological interest which subsequent researchers made their focus areas with great success.
Von Liebig’s ultimate genius was that he took on seemingly insurmountable problems and even though he did not come up with the ultimate solutions, he managed to break the issues down to such an extent that one can say he pointed the way to their ultimate solution. Look for example at his comments on intermediary metabolism. He wrote (“Researches on the Chemistry of Food,” (1847) p. 10): “The intermediary members of the almost infinite series of compounds which must connect Urea and Uric acid with the constituents of the food, are, with the exception of a few products derived from the bile, almost entirely unknown to us; and yet each individual member of this series, considered by itself, inasmuch as it subserves certain vital purposes, must be of the utmost importance in regard to the explanation of the vital processes, or of the action of remedies.”
Another good example is the fact that he saw certain chemical reactions as only occurring in biological systems and suspected that these were dependent on the presence of proteins. Have a look at the following statement (p. 7) from his book on food chemistry where he came agonizingly close to our modern understanding of the concept of enzymes: “… There is, probably, no fact more firmly established as to its chemical signification, than this, that the chief constituents of the animal body, albumen, fibrine, the gelatinous tissues, and caseous matter, when their elements are in a state of motion, that is, of separation, exert on all substances which serve as food for men and animals, a defined action, the visible sign of which is a chemical alteration of the substance brought in contact with them. That the elements of sugar, of sugar of milk, or starch, etc., in contact with the sulphurised and nitrogenised constituents of the body, or with analogous compounds which occur in plants, when these are in a state of decomposition, are subjected to a new arrangement and that new products are formed from them, most of which cannot be produced by chemical affinities, this is a fact, independent of all theory.”
Von Liebig’s greatest contribution to the development of protein metabolism is in the school of biochemical studies, founded by him. This was done first in Giessen, and later in Munich, where he became professor of chemistry in 1852. From here emerged a number of very important proponents of metabolism, chief among them being Carl Voit, whose researches in protein metabolism placed the concept of nitrogen balance on a firm footing.
Voit was intensely interested in “animal chemistry.” He wrote that Dumas was wrong in his assertions since it was well known that pigs would fatten when fed on potatoes that were rich in starch, but had only a small amount of fat. Accordingly, it must be concluded that animals are able to convert carbohydrates to fat even though the conversion required “reduction” rather than oxidation.
French researchers who were regarded as the authorities on this subject challenged this view, and Boussingault put the matter to the test. He performed another groundbreaking experiment with pigs. He took a young pig and killed it and analysed its carcass. He took a littermate of this pig, of the same weight, and fed it measured amounts of feed for another 3 months. The carcass analysis of the second pig indicated that this pig had an extra 13.6kg fat but the feed it consumed only had 6.8kg.
This very clearly showed the French school to be wrong on this point. Both Boussingault and Dumas retired from working with animals. Von Liebig became the new authority, even though he had never actually carried out a feeding trial. He continued to advocate his ideas on physiology and nutrition. Most of these were gradually shown to have been completely wrong, but at least they stimulated others to do research, putting them to the test.” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
An Inspirational Message
Kids, take note that neither Mulder nor Von Liebig illuminated protein or its metabolism fully, but we gain a great appreciation for their work in the early to mid-1800s. I wonder how many of today’s researchers would do as much as these men did with the scant knowledge they had and it is a lesson to us all. Rigour in our work will yield results, no matter how tentative at first. It reminds me of the old verse from Sunday school in the Groote Kerk in Cape Town that there is profit in all labour.
There can be no doubt that nitrogen is key to the art of bacon curing and the most important macromolecule we are working with is protein. I came to realise that bacon is nothing less than the art of manipulating it. A question of whether the nitrogen that we add to the meat in the form of nitrate or nitrite is good for us or not is in the first instance the wrong question since when you are talking about protein you are talking about nitrogen and vice versa.
Thirdly, central to the concepts of nitrogen and protein is the concept of nutrition. Yes, we eat because we are social animals and there is nothing more sociable than a great meal. We eat because we listen to Bach and drink Pilsner. We enjoy it! But most importantly, we eat because it keeps us healthy and it contains the fuel we need every day to live and breathe and have our being. Nutrition is of the absolute greatest importance when we produce food. The development of the art of meat curing and understanding its chemistry and processes is intimately connected to our most basic understanding of life itself.
I am downstairs in the living room. Minette passed ut on the couch – she is exhausted. I’m finishing up and then we will all go to bed.
I love you more than life itself!
Your Dad.
Practical Applications for the Modern Bacon Curer
In bacon production, one determines the total meat content as follows. Assume you start with 100kg of meat and inject 20L brine.
Meat weight: 100kg Brine added: + 20L (100kg becomes 120kg; added through injection/ tumbling) Loose 10% in cooking/ smoking: – 12kg (120kg becomes 108kg) Freezing loss of -1%: – 1.08kg yields total bacon ready for slicing: 106.92kg.
Divide the meat weight you started with by the end weight after processing (100/106.92) = 93.52% total meat content.
According to SA regulations, bacon must be at least 95% total meat content.
One doesn’t lose proteins during steam cooking. Only during water cooking. In the older literature on the subject, when they talk about curing, they mean salt only curing as in dry-curing and in this process there is a loss of proteins (if done in the traditional way of turning the meat every day and allowing the extracted meat juices to run off). If one, however, cooks the bacon, as in Australia, during the cooking step, fat will melt and drip off. Exactly how much fat is lost is determined through analysis. I am sure the % is small, but surprising results are obtained through analysis.
It will impact the calculation since total meat is defined as lean meat plus fat. Meat weight after the actually visible fat has been trimmed off x 0.9 is a good approximation to determine actual lean meat content. All meat contains fat that can not be seen. Without it, meat will be completely un-edible. Two further ratios we want to become familiar with are the ratio of percentage protein nitrogen to lean meat % being N x 30 = lean meat % and the nitrogen to protein factor which is 6.25 meaning N x 6.25 = total protein.
These ratios are important for meat processors. Let’s look at our calculation again which we used above. Note that they only achieve total meat content of 93% in their bacon and they need to have it at 95% or above. They can now do the following:
In the tumbling stage, add 1kg of pork protein (80% actual protein – the other 20% will be a filler). Of course, various levels of functionality are commercially available and one must inquire of what the actual protein percentage is to complete the calculation. This means that the nitrogen added in our example of a product with an 80% functionality is 80% x 1kg = 0.800kg protein / 6.25 – the nitrogen-to-protein ratio to give us the weight of the protein nitrogen x 30 – the protein-to-lean-meat factor = 3.84kg lean meat. In other words, by adding 800g functional protein, they have effectively added 3.84kg to the starting meat weight as lean meat. There is no fat since the added functional pork proteins do not contain fat.
They can then use their starting ratio as 100kg + 3.84kg = 103.84 which, after injection and tumbling will yield them 106.92. Dividing the meat weight you started with by the end weight after processing is now 103.84/ 106.9 = 97.1% total meat content which, if this is in SA, places you well within the legal requirements for bacon.
For those interested in having this in a live spreadsheet I include this sheet, courtesy of Dr. Francois Mellett. ED2-8 Cost op Protein, LME, and TME. Here he compares the cost of different protein sources and uses the conversion factor of 4.8 to move between % protein and TME/ LME. He derives his conversion factor of 4.8 to move between % protein and LME eqw as follows: The two equations he works with are:
Protein Nitrogen x 6.25 = Proteins
Percentage Lean Meat = (Percentage Protein Nitrogen × 30 )
Let’s take TVP Soy with a protein content of 50%. Therefore:
Protein Nitrogen x 6.25 = 50%; Protein Nitrogen % = 50%/6.25 = 8
Percentage Lean Meat = (8 × 30 ) = 240/100 = 2.4.
The same can be achieved by the factor 30/6.25 = 4.8; 4.8 x 50% = 250/100 = 2.4
A very small added benefit for the producer will be that the protein added representing 3.84kg lean meat will be cheaper than the actual meat. There is, therefore, no financial downside for the producer. The producer is limited in how much of the protein can be added since it will start to affect the appearance and colour of the bacon. My suspicion is that in countries like Australia, more can be added due to the fact that the bacon is sold fully cooked which yields a paler bacon as opposed to South African producers where the bacon is sold par-cooked and have a much brighter reddish-pinkish appearance. Adding protein, I suspect, will, therefore, have less of an impact in Australia compared to South Africa. I will not be surprised if some Australian producers add a lot more non-meat and meat protein alike and therefore inject more brine.
The reality is that actual food legislation in Australia and New Zealand allows for a slightly different approach which we will look at in detail in the next article. For now, it is enough that we start interacting with some of the values we encounter as we learn how they were discovered.
We continue our fascinating journey by looking at the contribution of a formidable man, Justus von Liebig during whose time, protein was identified and named. We also encounter our first ratio when Mulder estimated that meat proteins contain 16% nitrogen (N). By multiplying the nitrogen content with 100/16, the protein content is estimated. Therefore, nitrogen x 6.25 is the protein content.
(1) Nitrate is the essential curing agent and in Salpeter is coupled with potassium or sodium or calcium.
References
Bier, D. M.; The Energy Costs of Protein Metabolism: Lean and Mean on Uncle Sam’s Team, Protein and Amino Acids, 1999, Pp. 109-119. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press
Bulletin des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles en Néerlande (1838). pg 104. SUR LA COMPOSITION DE QUELQUES SUBSTANCES ANIMALES.
Carpenter, K. J.; A Short History of Nutritional Science: Part 1 (1785–1885), The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 133, Issue 3, 1 March 2003, Pages 638–645, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/133.3.638
Hartley, Harold (1951). “Origin of the Word ‘Protein. Nature 168(4267): 244–244. Bibcode 1951Natur.168..244Hdoi10.1038/168244a0.
Munro, H. N., and Allison, J. B.. 1964. Mammalian Protein Metabolism. Academic Press.
Vickery, H, B; The origin of the word protein” Yale journal of biology and medicine vol. 22,5 (1950): 387-93.
“Ueber die Zusammensetzung einiger thierischen Substanzen”. Journal für Praktische Chemie (in German).16: 129–152. 1839.doi10.1002/prac.18390160137
Featured Image: Venison Sausage Catalan Style, Robert Goodrick.
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.
Lauren Learns the Nitrogen Cycle
Copenhagen, August 1891
Dear Lauren,
A father’s relationship with his daughter is very special. It’s magical! This is your turn to get a letter, my precious La. I miss you guys! This week I learned an important lesson, that life is about much more than science, technology, and business.
Tribute to Jacobus Combrinck
I got a telegraph on Thursday, 6 August 1891 from David de Villiers Graaff. He told me the devastating news about the death of Uncle Cornelius Combrinck. (1) I was immensely saddened. He was a part of our lives for so long. I practically grew up in his home. He and your grandfather were friends since before I was born. I can almost not imagine going forward without him. The knowledge of his passing left a gap in my heart. When I read David’s message, I took a long walk and cried much.
In my mind, I see him with the two of you on his lap when you were still very small. When we visited at his Woodstock home (2) he would put you on his knee and you would “ride horsie”. I don’t know if you will remember this. You were so small!
You loved going there and he loved having us over. The large apricot trees in his back garden! You and Tristan enjoyed climbing them. He had the biggest garden and tended it with care. I will never forget the last time I saw him just before I left for Denmark. He spoke to me privately and urgently. He told me that he thinks I am finally making a good career choice. He did not like the fact that I rode transport to Johannesburg because he believed that the railroads would soon have put me out of business. The meat industry, he told him, is one of the iconic, almost eternal industries. People would always need food. He told me that the opportunity to become proficient in one aspect of it is something I can build a future on. Now he is gone. Life is short.
Uncle Cornelius never had his own children, but he invested liberally in the lives of others, particularly children. He spared no effort to mentor me, even in times when I made choices that he did not agree with. He took the Graaff brothers into his house and cared for them as if his own.
I understand that he was buried from the Groote Kerk, in Cape Town and laid to rest in the Maitland Cemetary. His life is an example to all of us, little La! He was your age when he started to work in the butchery of Johannes Mechau. His dad passed away and his mother was desperate for extra income. The fact that as a 10-year-old boy he had to earn his living could have been a sign that he was destined for a life of mediocrity and poverty. The opposite was true by his own resolve and willpower! Mechau found that he learned the trade quickly.
He was ambitious and left Mechau’s employment to join the leading pork butcher in town, the Swiss Ithmar Schietlin. When Schietlin returned to Switzerland, Combrinck went into business for himself.
He was very successful. He speculated in the diamond industry in Kimberly. He owned houses in Sea Point, Three Anchor Bay, and Wynberg. He had sheep farms that supplied his own and other butcheries throughout the Colony.
Uncle Jakobus knew the value of a young apprentice from his own experience. He thought it best to select such an apprentice from his own people and in 1870 he visited the farm Wolfhuiskloof in the lovely Franschhoek mountains. Like his own family situation, years earlier, the Graaff family fell on hard times and found it difficult to feed their children. One of the children of Petrus and Anna Graaff impressed Jacobus. The child was lively and intelligent and he suggested that David return to Cape Town with him where he would be taught the butchery trade. The suggestion pleased everybody. This is how it came about that David joined the butchery, Combrinck & Co. (Simons, 2000)
I am sorry that I missed his funeral but I managed to send a telex to the Graaff brothers. It is a comfort to know that you, Tristan, and my parents attended. I wonder how Cecil Rhodes took the news of his passing? (3) (Simons, 2000)
The Best I Can Be
Lauren, I am here to learn the butcher’s trade and the art of curing bacon. One of the best responses possible to honour the memory of Uncle Jacobus is to become the best I can be at these.
As a child on Stillehoogte, I learned that saltpetre is the magical salt that cures meat. A friend of Uncle Jeppe, Dr Eduard Polenski, discovered that nitrites form in bacon brine and suspects that it is the actual compound that changes pork into bacon and not saltpetre (potassium or sodium nitrate). At the factory, I would walk behind Unkle Jeppe on the way to the curing room and he would ask me, “Eben, what changes pork into bacon?” My answer always had to be, “Nitrite!” (4) He would follow this up by asking, “Where does nitrite come from?” upon which I reply, “From the saltpetre, when bacteria change the nitrate into nitrite when it removes the one oxygen atom from the saltpetre molecule.”
To fully comprehend the different nitrogen compounds that play a role in meat curing, there is another compound you must know besides nitrite (NO₂⁻) and nitrate (NO3-), namely ammonia. In my last letter to you and Tristan, I already introduced you very briefly to it when I told you about ammonium chloride which was another great salt from antiquity that cured meat.
The three cousins of the chemical gas, nitrogen are ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates. These three cousins are key to all life and exist almost everywhere. It occurs naturally in sea salt, in the ground, in salt beds. They are pervasive. Without them, we won’t be able to shoot a gun, fertilize our fields or cure bacon. Some people refer to it as the nitrogen cycle – the fact that nitrogen exists in the atmosphere as a stable gas, that the tight bonds are broken through the action of lightning which then frees the two nitrogen atoms so that one can react with oxygen to form nitric oxide (NO). As it cools down, it reacts further with the oxygen molecules around it to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2) which is one nitrogen atom and two oxygen atoms. Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) reacts with more oxygen and raindrops. Water is H2O. The two oxygen atoms of nitrogen dioxide combine with the one from water to form 3 oxygen atoms bound together. There is still only one nitrogen atom giving us NO3– or nitrate. There is now one Hydrogen atom left and it combines with the nitrate to form nitric acid (HNO3). Nitric acid falls to earth and enters the soil and serves as nutrients for plants.
There is now an interaction where oxygen is added to nitrogen-containing compounds (oxidation) and removed (reduction). Bacteria change decomposing animal and plant matter from ammonia into nitrite and nitrates and eventually back into nitrogen gas which is released into the atmosphere. Certain bacteria change atmospheric nitrogen directly into a form that can be digested by plants. Uncle Jeppe organized a visit for Minette and me to the University of Copenhagen where a professor in biology and chemistry took an entire morning to describe to Minette and I the most recent discoveries in this field.
I wrote to Tristan about nitrate. I told him about saltpetre and nitrite, when I reported on the work of Dr Eduard Polenski and his insight and experiment showing that in bacon cures, nitrate is converted to nitrite. It has recently been shown that there is a conversion of each of these compounds into the other through the action of small organisms, called bacteria in soil and water. It was these discoveries that gave Dr Polenski the insight that it may be bacteria in brine, changing the nitrate ( NO3-) to nitrite (NO₂⁻). Our visit to the University was breathtaking. I was glad that Minette accompanied me. I needed someone there to help me take notes and to remember every bit of insight shared by the Professors. It is thrilling to share my journey of discovery with all of you!
Discovery of the Microscopic
One of the pillars of understanding nitrogen is its chemical make-up. Another is to understand bacteria and their role in these processes. Some of the reactions in meat curing are driven by chemistry and some by bacteria. Like many of our greatest discoveries, the ancients had a very good idea that the microscopic world must exist.
Bacteria and micro-organisms were discovered between 1665 and roughly 1678. Two of the men responsible for their discovery were Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. (Gest, H. 2004) As one can imagine, microorganisms were discovered when the instruments were invented to see them. The first illustrated book on microscopy was Micrographia, published by Robert Hooke in 1665. (Gest, H. 2004)
On 23 April 1663, Hooke reported on two microscopic observations to the Royal Society, one of leaches in vinegar and another of mould on sheepskin. So opened up to humankind the magical world of the minute! The microscopic!
It was the astonishing Antoni van Leeuwenhoek from Holland who introduced us to many micro realities of our world. Here is an interesting list of some of the discoveries of this remarkable man: In 1674, in a single vial of pond scum that he took from the Berkelse Mere, a small lake near Delft, he discovered and described the beautiful alga Spirogyra, and various ciliated and flagellated protozoa. He found in 1674 that yeast consists of individual plant-like organisms. In 1675 he discovered and accurately described and differentiated red blood cells in humans, swine, fish, and birds. In 1677 he was the first to observe sperm cells in humans, dogs, swine, molluscs, amphibians, fish and birds. In 1679 and 1684 he described the needle-shaped microscopic crystals of sodium urate that form in the tissues of gout patients in stone-like deposits called “tophi”. In 1684, he correctly guessed that much of the pain of gout is caused by these sharp crystals poking into adjacent tissues. More than a century would pass before any further advance in the understanding of gout. He found and described in 1680 foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells) in the white cliffs of England’s Gravesend and nematodes in pond water.
Between 1680 and 1701 he carried out many microdissections, mainly on insects, making an enormous number of discoveries: He wrote extensive accounts of the mouthparts and stings of bees. He was the first to realize that “fleas have fleas”. His keen perception enabled him to correctly conclude that each of the hundreds of facets of a fly’s compound eye is, in fact, a separate eye with its own lens. This outlandish (but true) idea was met with derision by visiting scholars. The big breakthrough came in 1683. In his most celebrated attainment, he discovered the bacteria in dental tartar, including a motile bacillus, selenomonads, and amicrococcus.
16 October 1674, Antoni wrote a letter describing his study of the tongue of an ox and his observations of the taste buds. On 24 April 1676 Antoni studied pepper water that has been sitting for three weeks under his microscope. He observed small organisms that he called “little eels” (animalcules). What he was looking at were bacteria. He has discovered a world that we knew very little about!
Antoni was responsible, not just for discovering bacteria, but for discovering important classes of bacteria. He was among others responsible for identifying anaerobic bacteria. (5) (6) In a letter dated 14 June 1680 to the Royal Society, he described his discovery. This would become very important in considering the action of bacteria in meat systems since the environment is often devoid of oxygen.
The important point about bacteria that I want you to focus on is that it plays a pivotal role in the nitrogen cycle as described by Louis Pasteur. It continues the very same interaction with family members of nitrogen in the curing of meat. (Dikeman, M, Devine, C: 436) (6) (7)
Scientists in the late 1800s started to hone in on the particular bacteria responsible for converting nitrate to nitrite. This is becoming very important to us because generally, nitrate exists because of the action of bacteria, but particularly, as Dr Eduard Polenski speculated in 1891, it is the action of bacteria that turns nitrate from saltpetre into nitrite in curing brines and meat that is being cured. The question we have been asking is if this was a fair assumption for him to make and the answer is an overwhelming “yes!”
Since 1868 it has been known that bacteria in soil are responsible for the exact same reduction. It was known for 23 years before Dr Polenski’s 1891 experiments on curing brine and the meat being cured. The reduction of nitrate in soil to nitrite or ammonia was brought about by various forms of microorganisms. The person who demonstrated this in 1868 was the German scientist C F Schonbein. Our French friends, Gayon and Dupetit, confirmed this. (Waksman, SA, 1927 : 181)
Adding carbohydrates, glycerol, and organic acids, in addition to peptone (a soluble protein formed in the early stage of protein breakdown during digestion) to meat through its brine stimulate the reduction of nitrate to nitrite. It was also discovered that an abundance of oxygen hindered it. (Waksman, SA, 1927 : 181) This will prove to be of the greatest importance to meat curing and since we can achieve a brighter colour by adding organic acids, glycerol, carbohydrates and reducing sugars to the brine mix.
One researcher, Maassen, tested 109 different bacteria and found that 85 were capable of reducing nitrate to nitrite, especially Bact. Pyocyaneum. Similar results were found by others who studied this. Not only did they find that many of the bacteria responsible for the reduction were anaerobic (functioning in the absence of oxygen) but that many strict aerobic bacteria were found to act anaerobically in the presence of nitrates. (Waksman, SA, 1927 : 181) This was true of soil and certainly, it should be true in meat and brine systems also!
Ammonium Chloride (Sal Ammoniac)
We have seen that nitrite is formed by removing an oxygen atom from nitrogen. There is another very important way that nitrate is formed namely when ammonia breaks down. The Russian microbiologist Sergei Winogradsky discovered this. Microorganisms, through a process called biological oxidation, change ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. Have a look at how oxygen is added at every step. Ammonia is NH3 and there is no oxygen. Nitrite is formed NO−2 which is the nitrogen and two oxygen atoms. From nitrite, through bacterial action, nitrate is formed NO−3. So, from a form with no oxygen, the most oxygenated state is reached namely nitrate with its three oxygen atoms.
We have to understand a bit more about ammonia to see how this works. This will be very important when we look at the decomposition of animal tissue and in animal urine and excrement since it contains copious amounts of ammonia. The building blocks of ammonia is seen in its chemical formulation. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3.
In nature, ammonia exists as NH3 or its ammonium ion (NH4+). The ammonium ion, in nature, also combines with a metal such as chlorine to form a salt of ammonium. Ammonium is therefore not only important in the nitrogen cycle, but also in meat curing in the form of a salt where a metal such as chloride combined with the ammonium ion to form ammonium chloride (NH4Cl). It is the NH4 that makes it mildly acidic and the new molecule of sal ammoniac or ammonium chloride is highly reactive with water. Ammonium chloride occurs naturally as a crystal and is formed through the action of bacteria on decomposing organic material. As a salt, it is one of the iconic salts of antiquity.
Natural Sal Ammoniac
Ammonium chloride occurs naturally in the smoking mountains of Turfan and in Samarkand where volcanic fumes are released through vents. The crystals form directly from the gaseous state, skipping the liquid state. The crystal that is formed tends to be short-lived, as they dissolve easily in water. This is the basis for my guess that in Turfan, where ammonium chloride occurs in the mountains and nitrate in the depression these salts were often confused and initially when sal ammonia was the more popular site, nitrate was sold as an imitation of ammonium chloride. Once the crystalline form of ammonium chloride comes into contact with moisture it breaks down to a brownish salt which looks similar to the nitrate salts found on the top layer of soil in the depression between the mountains. I suspect that these nitrate salts were sold as “fake” ammonium chloride because it has overlapping characteristics because of the nitrogen.
Natural Sal Ammoniac occurs in places like the Turpan and Samarkand. An important branch of the silk road runs from Turfan through Samarkand and into Europe. Samarkand is a city in south-eastern Uzbekistan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia.
In China, ancient names given for Sal Ammoniac are “red gravel” and “essence of the white sea.” There were sal ammoniac mines in Soghd. Mohammadan traders passed it at Khorasan travelling towards China. Kuča still yielded sal ammoniac at the beginning of the 1900s. There are ancient references to white and red varieties of sal ammoniac. The mines in Setrušteh or سمرقند (Samarkand in the Persian language) are described in classic literature as follows. “The mines of sal ammoniac are in the mountains, where there is a certain cavern, from which a vapour issues, appearing by day like smoke, and by night like fire. Over the spot whence the vapour issues, they have erected a house the doors and windows of which are plastered over by clay that none of the vapour can escape. On the upper part of this house the copperas rest. When the doors are to be opened, a swiftly-running man is chosen, who, having his body covered over with clay, opens the door; takes as much as he can from the copperas and runs off; if he should delay he should be burnt. This vapour comes forth in different places, from time to time; when it ceases to issue from one place, they dig in another until it appears, and then they erect that kind of house over it; if they did not erect this house, the vapour would burn, or evaporate away.” (Laufer,1919)
Tibetans received this salt from India as can be seen from an ancient name they gave to it namely “Indian salt.” There are records that it was harvested from certain volcanic springs from Tibet and Se-č’wan. (Laufer,1919) The same vapours are seen in the smokey mountains of Turfan.
Human-Made Ammonium Chloride
Just like saltpetre, sal ammoniac occurs naturally and is also generated through human endeavour. The name, ammonia, came from the ancient Egyptian god, Amun. The Greek form of Amun is Ammon. At the temple dedicated to Ammon and Zeus near the Siva Oasis in Lybia, priests and travellers would burn soil rich in ammonium chloride. The ammonium chloride is formed from the soil, being drenched with nitrogen waste from animal dung and urine. The ammonia salts were called sal ammoniac or “salt of ammonia” by the Romans because the salt deposits were found in the area. During the middle ages, ammonia was made through human endeavour through the distilling of animal dung, hooves, and horns. (Myers, RL. 2007: 27)
The New York Tribune of 31 January 1874 wrote the following. “For centuries sal ammoniac was imported from Egypt where it is sublimed from camels dung.” An article, published in 1786 on Friday, 18 August in the Pennsylvania Packet, described the process of making sal ammoniac in Egypt as follows. “Sal Ammoniac is made from soot arising from the burnet dung of four-footed animals that feed only on vegetables. But the dung of these animals is fit to burn for sal ammoniac only during the four firsts months of the year when they feed on fresh spring grass, which, in Egypt is a kind of trefoil or clover; for when they feed only on dry meat, it will not do. The dung of oxen, buffalos, sheep, goats, horses, and asses, are at the proper time as fit as the dung of camels for this purpose; it is said that even human dung is equal to any other.”
“The soot arising from the burnt dung is put into glass vessels, and these vessels into an oven or kiln which is heated by degrees and at last urged with a very strong fire for three successive nights and days, the smoke first shows itself, and, in a short time after, the salt appears sticking to the glasses, and, by degrees, covers the whole opening. The glasses are then broken, and the salt taken out in the same state and form in which it is sent to Europe.” At this time, Egypt was one of the major suppliers of sal ammoniac to the European continent.
Discovery of gasses
– Joseph Black
At this point in the development of chemical technology, a much bigger development took place in which the discovery of nitrogen and ammonia is only a small part of. In the 1770s scientists started to realise that the atmosphere is made up of various gasses. This was the start of the chemical revolution and the discovery of gasses was, in a way, the major propellant. Up to this time gasses were not regarded as a separate chemical entity and largely ignored in experimental work. The drawback was major and real advances became only possible as this was being resolved. One of its pioneers was Joseph Black (1728–1799). Black is credited with the discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air).
– Charl Wilhelm Scheele
The Swedish Chemist, Charl Wilhelm Scheele (1742 – 1786) prepared oxygen by heating saltpetre (potassium nitrate, KNO3) in 1770. Somewhere between 1771 and 1772, he became the first scientist to realise that “air consists of two fluids different from each other, the one that does not manifest in the least the property of attracting phlogiston while the other … is peculiarly disposed to such attraction.” (Smil, 2001: 2) Phlogiston was believed to be the substance present in all material that burns, responsible for combustion. The one substance is obviously oxygen and the other nitrogen.
– Daniel Rutherford
At the same time, Daniel Rutherford (1749–1819), a pupil of Black, obtained his doctorate in Medicine in 1772 from the University of Edinburgh. In his “Dissertatio inauguralis de Aere Fixo Dicto, aut Mephitico” (Rutherford, 1772) he records the following experiment. He placed mice in a closed-in environment. Eventually, the mice will die and Rutherford expected to find was that the only air that is left will not be able to support life and a flame will not burn in it. He removed the fixed or mephitic air (carbon dioxide) with a caustic potash solution (alkali). He found a residual gas still incapable of supporting respiration or fire, similar to carbon dioxide, but unlike carbon dioxide, did not precipitate lime water and was not absorbed by the alkali. He thus discovered a residue of his fixed or mephitic air. He named it “aer malignus” or noxious air.” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
– Joseph Priestley
Priestly, who is credited for the discovery of oxygen (1774 – 1775) presented experimental evidence similar to Rutherford’s before the Royal Society of London. He, however, did not draw conclusions regarding the possible nature of the gas (Priestley, 1772).
– Isolation of Ammonia
The identification of nitrogen was “in the air”, so to speak and as we will see, never far removed from meat curing. Sal Ammoniac (ammonium chloride, NH4Cl) was used since antiquity as curing and preserving agent of meat and was investigated by none other than Joseph Black. In 1756 he became the first to isolate gaseous ammonia by reacting sal ammoniac with calcined magnesia (Magnesium Oxide). (Black, 1893) (Maurice P. Crosland, 2004). Scientists were now widely experimenting with gasses and along with air, gasses like ammonia received a great deal of attention. It would later be discovered that nitrogen is its key constituent in ammonia along with hydrogen.
Following Black, ammonia was, for example, also isolated again by Peter Woulfe in 1767 (Woulfe), by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1770 (kb.osu.edu) and by Joseph Priestley in 1773 and was termed by him “alkaline air”. Eleven years later in 1785, Claude Louis Berthollet finally unravelled its composition. (Chisholm, 1911) (Berthollet, 1785)
Priestley, in Part II of his work, Experiments and Observations, described work from between the years 1773 and the beginning of 1774. In this document, he gives a reprint of an earlier publication on effluvia from putrid marshes. Here he identifies ammonia and nitrous oxide. (Schofield, RE. 2004: 98)
His discoveries on ammonia were the result of a consistent application of the English scientist, Stephen Hales’s (1677 – 1761) technique for distilling and fermenting every substance he could get his hands on or capture over mercury rather than over customary water so that the air would “release.” He heated ammonia water and collected a vapour. When it cooled down, it did not condense, proving it was air. He called it alkaline air. (Schofield, RE. 2004: 98, 103, 104)
More experiments showed him that alkaline air was heavier than common inflammable air but lighter than acid air. It dissolved easily in water, producing heat and it was slightly inflammable in the sense that a candle burned in it with an enlarged colour flame before going out. In the end, he not only described ammonia chemically, but also its mode of production, and its characteristics. (Schofield, RE. 2004: 98, 103, 104)
– From Ammonia to Nitrogen
In 1781 the French Chemist, Claude Louis Bertholett became aware that something joined with hydrogen to form ammonia (NH3). Three years later, Claude joined Lavoisier who was responsible for unravelling the composition of saltpetre along with de Morveau and de Fourcroy, in naming the substance azote. (Smil, V. 2001: 61, 62) Lavoisier named it from ancient Greek, ἀ- (without) and zoe (life). He saw it as part of air that can not sustain life. In 1790 Jean Antoine Claude Chaptal, in a French text on chemistry which was translated into English in 1791, gave it the name “nitrogen”. He used the name ‘nitrogène’ and the idea behind the name was “the characteristic and exclusive property of this gas, which forms the radical of the nitric acid,” and thus be chemically more specific than “azote.” (Munro and Allison, 1964) As for ammonia, its modern name was given in 1782 by the Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman. (Myers, RL. 2007: 27) The discovery of hydrogen, the other component in ammonia, is credited to Cavendish in 1766.
A Hint of Nitrogen in Animals
The relation between nitrogen through ammonia and animal bodies was known from early on. In 1785, Claude Berthollet reported to the French Academy of Sciences that he found that the vapour that came from decomposing animal matter was ammonia. When he realised the gas, he found that it was composed of three volumes of hydrogen and one volume of nitrogen, or around 17% hydrogen and 83% nitrogen by weight. He was very accurate in his measurements and the modern values of these are given as 17.75% and 82.25% respectively. (Carpenter, 2003)
Techniques for Testing for Nitrogen
The key to the identification of nitrogen in animal substances was developing the tools to test for it. One of the earliest tests was the oxidation of organic material in the presence of cupric oxide. The gasses resulting from this reaction is then collected and measured. It was extensively developed by none other than Gay-Lussac while he was a professor at the Sorbonne, and later when he was a chemist at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. (Sahyun, M. (Editor). 1948)
The method of Gay-Lussac was modified by Jean Dumas (1800-1884) and used by Dumas’ contemporary, Liebig. Despite the many alterations of the basic method of micro procedures, the Dumas method would continue to be the preferred one well into the 1900s. In 1841, F. Varrentrapp and H. Will developed a total nitrogen method. This method is based on the liberation of ammonia by heating protein with alkali, followed by gravimetric estimation of the ammonia as its chloroplatinate. (Sahyun, M. (Editor). 1948)
A downside to this method was the fact that it is slow and tedious with fundamental inaccuracies. It had, however, specific technical advantages over that of the Dumas method when applied to metabolic observations and it was used in many early studies. The famous method we are all familiar with today is the Kjeldahl method. It was developed by the Danish chemist, J. Kjeldahl (1849-1900), of Carlsberg, who in 1883 presented a much-improved method for catalyzed digestion of nitrogenous materials in sulfuric acid which allowed for the production of ammonia quantitatively. (Sahyun, M. (Editor). 1948)
Nitrogen in Respiration
Antoine Lavoisier was inspired by Joseph Black, something that Lavoisier was not shy to admit. He wrote Balck a letter, dated 19 November 1790, where he describes experiments on the respiration of human subjects. He showed that oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide evolved during this process. Interestingly he showed that oxygen consumption increases by some 50% above the basal level after a meal (the modern specific dynamic action of food) and that in severe exercise, oxygen consumption can increase by as much as three-and-a-half times. The measurements were accurate, even by modern standards. Part of the letter states: “Legaz azote ne sert absolument à rien dans l’acte de la res piration et il ressort du poumon en même quantité et qualité qu’il y est entré” which translates to Nitrogen is absolutely useless in the act of respiration, and it appears from the lung in the same quantity and quality that it has entered it.
They had their test subjects exercise in a closed container. They measured for oxygen and carbon dioxide. They also measured the amount of nitrogen ingested during a meal before the experiments started and then, after exercise, the urine and stools were tested to see how much nitrogen was retained in the body or “lost” through the urine and stools.
The experiment was undertaken 18 years after the discovery of nitrogen. It is regarded by many as the first metabolic experiment with nitrogen. The experiments appear (D. McKie, personal communication, 1962) to have been based on studies made by Fourcroy in the late 1780s, using gasometric methods that were published in 1791 by Séguin. They did not find any correlation between nitrogen and respiration. Some researchers of the time still claimed that some nitrogen is lost from the body during respiration. Today, most will simply subscribe to Lavoisier’s view that gaseous nitrogen plays no part in the nitrogen metabolism of the mammalian organism. (Munro and Allison, 1964) They believed that the balance of nitrogen ingested and that which was not recovered in stools or urine was probably lost through what they called “insensible perspiration.” (Carpenter, 2003)
Antoine Lavoisier and Armand Seguin’s experiment of human respiration showed that breathing had no influence on nitrogen levels. It had other positive results. An increase in the output of carbon dioxide (carbonic acid, as they called it) during exercise was demonstrated. They measured this at rest and while lifting weights. This was by itself a step forward. At the time it was believed that the only purpose of respiration was to cool the heart. (Carpenter, 2003)
Lavoisier, in collaboration with a mathematician and one of the greatest scientists of the time, Pierre-Simon Laplace, identified the slow combustion of organic compounds in animal tissue as the major source of body heat. In their experiments, they compared the heat produced by the guinea pig and the production of carbon dioxide with the heat produced by a lighted candle or charcoal. They used an ice calorimeter to measure heat production. The instrument itself is very interesting. It measures the heat generated by relating it to the weight of water released from the melting of the ice surrounding the inner chamber where the animal or burning material is housed. The measurements are crude and not very precise, but results were consistent and it allowed the researchers to draw the conclusion of the origin of body heat. (Carpenter, 2003)
Momentous political movements in France of the time would put an end to one of the most brilliant scientific careers of any person to have lived on earth. Lavoisier returned to further studies on respiration was arrested in 1793 during the Reign of Terror and kept in prison. He pleaded with the judge for a short stay of execution on the day of his trial in 1794, to be allowed one more experiment, but the judge is believed to have replied that the Republic had no need of “savants” (scientists), and he was guillotined the same afternoon. (Carpenter, 2003)
Nitrogen in Animal Matter
Lavoisier introduced order into the study of the new chemistry. One of his great achievements was the vigorous school of chemists he left behind. Some of his students took up the work on organic compounds and applied procedures in which gas was either evolved or removed. Gay-Lussac (a pupil of Lavoisier’s collaborator, Berthollet) and Thénard worked out a system of organic analysis in 1810. Accordingly, the organic material is treated with potassium chlorate and the amount of oxygen and nitrogen liberated is measured (Partington, 1951). The Dumas procedure, which we eluded to above, remained the standard gasometric method of nitrogen analysis. It was developed in 1830. (Partington, 1951). The studies made by Magendie on the importance of nitrogenous components in the diet was one of the matters to be elucidated by the new technique. (Munro and Allison, 1964) Viewed in this way, the persona and influence of Lavoisier continued to directly affect the work he started long after his untimely death.
It was confirmed that animal matter contains nitrogen and it was shown to be absent from sugars, starch, and fats. It was long suspected that wheat flour contained matter with characteristics closely associated with animal matter. This was proved, that gluten (the plant matter) has properties of animal matter, including the development of alkaline vapour when it was allowed to rot. When potatoes were introduced, there was a debate if it could provide an adequate substitution for wheat because it did not have anything resembling gluten. Was it the gluten that made wheat flour good food? (Munro and Allison, 1964)
Bartolomeo Baccari (1682 – 1766) was a professor at the University of Bologna for most of his life. In 1734, one of his papers entitled “de Frumento,” appeared. In this paper, he gives details on how to prepare gluten which was found to be the protein portion of wheat flour. The following is translated from Latin:
“This is a thing of little labour. Flour is taken of the best wheat, ground moderately lest the bran goes through the sieve, for it ought to be purified as far as possible in order that all suspicion of mixture should be removed. Then it is mixed with the purest water and agitated. What remains after this process is set free by washing, for water carries off with itself whatever it is able to dissolve. The rest remains untouched.”
“Afterward that which the water leaves is taken in the hands and pressed together and is gradually converted into a soft mass and beyond what I could have believed tenacious, a remarkable kind of glue and suitable for many purposes, among which it is worth mentioning that it can no longer be mixed with water. Those other parts which the water carries away with itself for some time float and render the water milky. Afterwards, they gradually settle to the bottom but do not adhere together; but like a powder return upward at the slightest agitation. Nothing is more nearly related to this than starch or better, it is indeed starch.”
He classified the starchy material as flour. He described the following characteristics. It ferments to give acid spirits, indicating its “vegetable nature.” On the other hand, it had a characteristic of “animal nature” for “within a few days it gets sour and rots and very stinkingly putrifies like a dead body.”
This was an old way of distinguishing what we call today proteins from carbohydrates. There was a theory at this time that vegetable protein which is consumed by herbivores changes into the flesh and blood of the animal. This was still prevalent during the time of Mulder and Liebig’s. (Sahyun, M. (Editor). 1948) Another question was the source of nitrogen in animal bodies. Since nitrogen is most prevalent in the air around us, some chemists suggested that animals get the nitrogen from the air through a kind of combination that must occur during an animal’s digestion of plant foods “so as to give the ingesta the characteristics that would allow them to be incorporated into the animal’s own tissues either for growth or replacement of worn-out materials.” (Carpenter, 2003) The mechanisms of nutrition were in a developmental process.
François Magendie: Nitrogen as the basis for Nutrition
A major step came from the work of Magendie (1783–1855) who linked the nitrogen of inanimate substances with that of living systems. He was the first to recognise that there is a major difference between the nutritional value of food containing nitrogen and those without it. Magendie grew up in revolutionary Paris and practised as a surgeon before changing to physiology.
In his first work on the subject, reported to the Academy of Sciences in 1816, Magendie addressed the question of whether animals could access atmospheric nitrogen to “animalize” ingested foods of low nitrogen content. (Carpenter, 2003) In his 1816 article, “Sur les propriétés nutritives des substances qui ne contiennent pas d’azote.” (On the nutritional properties of substances that do not contain nitrogen), Magendie famously described experiments on dogs that were only fed carbohydrate (sugar) or fat (olive oil) until they all died in a few week’s time. The conclusion is obvious that a nitrogen source was an essential component of the diet.
As we look back at these early experiments we can see that the results were complicated by vitamin deficiencies, yet they were the first approximations to an ideal—the long-term feeding experiment with purified foodstuffs—which has only been attained in recent years. They can rightfully be seen as forerunners of the classical procedure for establishing whether a nutrient is essential to the body, namely by excluding it from the diet and then looking for symptoms attributable to its deficiency.
In his “Elementary Compendium of Physiology for the Use of Students,” Magendie draws an even clearer distinction between nitrogenous and nonnitrogenous foods. The first edition appeared in 1817 and the third edition was translated into English in 1829. Magendie’s compendium of work is very different from earlier writers like Haller’s “Elementa Physiologiae,” (1757–65). Magendie did not write in Latin and he clearly departed from the primaeval forests of mystery and speculation. His work is done with the illumination of bright sunshine of scientific observation and deductive reasoning.
Again, we have to give credit to the monumental work of Lavoisier. Magendie’s success in the physiology of nutrition directly stems from the influence of Lavoisier’s vigorous school of chemistry, which had grown up in the interval. Megandie followed his 1816 work where he fed dogs only carbohydrates or fat with new experiments. In these, he fed them exclusively on cheese or eggs, both nitrogenous foods. The dogs survived indefinitely, although they were weak. Magendie concluded that “these facts . . . make it very probable that the azote of the organs is produced by the food.”
Magendie’s inquiring mind also extended to views on how the diet was utilized by the tissues of the body. In his textbook (p. 18), he says: … The life of man and that of other organised bodies are founded upon this, that they habitually assimilate to themselves a certain quantity of matter, which we name aliment. The privation of that matter, during even a very limited period, brings with it necessarily the cessation of life. On the other side, daily observation teaches, that the organs of man, as well as those of all living beings, lose, at each instant, a certain quantity of that matter which composes them; nay, it is on the necessity of repairing these habitual losses that the want of aliment is founded. From these two data, and from others which we shall make known afterwards, we justly conclude, that living bodies are by no means always composed of the same matter at every period of their existence. . . . It is extremely probable that all parts of the body of man experience an intestine movement, which has the double effect of expelling the molecules that can or ought no longer to compose the organs, and replacing them by new molecules. This internal, intimate motion, constitutes nutrition. And again (p. 468), … Nutrition is more or less rapid according to the tissues. The glands, the muscles, skin, etc. change their volume, colour, consistency, with great quickness; the tendons, fibrous membranes, the bones, the cartilages, appear to have a much slower nutrition, for their physical properties change but slowly by the effect of age and disease.” (Munro and Allison, 1964) (14)
When one looks back at history, one tries to bridge the linguistic and cultural divide. An important assumption underpinning Magendie’s work is that an animal species could be used as a model for humans; that our bodies are essential of the same general character. A possible reason for this is the interest that existed in France for studies in comparative anatomy. (Carpenter, 2003)
Jean Baptiste Boussingault
Another active investigator in France in the 1830s, with a quite different background from that of Magendie, was also studying the source of an animal’s nitrogen-rich tissues. This was Jean Baptiste Boussingault, the great “farmer of Bechelbrom,” who had learned his chemistry in a school for mining engineers. After a period of adventurous geological exploration in South America, he returned, married a farm owner’s daughter and put his mind to agricultural science. He obtained a position at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he collaborated with J. B. Dumas, one of the leading French chemists, and divided his year between Paris and the farm. (Carpenter, 2003)
It was Boussingault who realised in 1836, over sixty centuries after it was noted and recorded that manure and legumes were beneficial to crop production, that it was the nitrogen content in the soil or fertiliser which is important for plant nutrition. In 1838, he performed a number of experiments where he grew legumes in sand with no nitrogen in it. The legumes continued to grow and the only conclusion he could come to was that they took their nitrogen from the air. How they did it, he still had no idea. (Galloway, J. N, et al., 2013) He was able to show that this was not possible for cereal grain.
His next subjects were cows and horses, whose common feeds were believed to be exceptionally low in nitrogen. First, he wanted to determine the level of feeding that would ensure that his animals are kept at a constant weight, and then for 3 days, he recorded the animal’s feed, what was excreted and, in the case of the cow, its milk. All these were analysed for their nitrogen content. The results for the horse was that he received 8.5kg hay and oats, every 24 hours. The daily nitrogen intake was 139g, and the nitrogen recovered in urine and dung came to only 116g. When the cow was fed on hay and potatoes the figures were as follows. The daily intake of nitrogen was 201g and the recovered output, including 46g from milk, was only 175g. This showed that the animals’ feed provided enough nitrogen to meet their needs. There was no need to speculate about them getting their nitrogen from the atmosphere.
It is important to have some understanding of how these trials were carried out. Many thousands of “balance” trials followed the Boussingault tests that continue to be carried out until today. A drawback was the method he used to test for nitrogen. The system of analysis required the sample to first be dried. There would have been a loss of ammonia when he was drying urine and dung. This probably gives the reason why there seems to have been an apparent “positive” balance in these animals that were assumed to be in a steady state.” (Carpenter, 2003)
Nitrogen and the Nutritional Value of Plants
Boussingault had proposed that the nutritional values of plant food could be extrapolated from their contents of nitrogen. These speculations came from before he did his balance experiments with herbivores. His reasoning was more or less as follows. “Magendie has shown that foods that do not contain nitrogen cannot continue to support life, therefore the nutritional value of a vegetable substance resides principally in the gluten and vegetable albumin that it contains.” Researchers of the time knew that animal bodies contained minerals which they got from the food they ate. Even earlier, two workers had written that: “Beans are so nourishing because they contain starch, an animal matter, phosphate, lime, magnesia, potash, and iron. They yield at once the aliments and the materials proper to form and colour the blood and to nourish the bones”. Perhaps in response to such criticism, Boussingault explained, “I am far from regarding nitrogenous materials alone as sufficient for the nutrition of animals; but it is a fact that where nitrogenous materials are present at high levels in vegetables they are generally accompanied by the other organic and inorganic substances which are also needed for nutrition”. It is clear from the context that the “organic substances” to which he is referring are starches and not any hypothetical trace nutrients. (Carpenter, 2003)
Synthesis by plants
Dumas, a colleague of Boussingault’s concluded in the early 1800s that the plant kingdom alone was capable of synthesizing the kinds of nitrogenous compounds abundant in animal tissues. Then, from the observation that the overall reactions of animals were characterized by oxidation, he made the further generalization that the animal kingdom was only capable of oxidizing the materials that are obtained from its plant food. (Carpenter, 2003)
Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate
Ammonia is changed into nitrites or nitrated through the action of what was called a “microscopic ferment.” The next step would be the discovery of how nitrogen changes into its cousins and enters the earth and living plants and animals.
A science class uses microscopes in a lab in 1908. (University Archives Photo)
The afternoons with Jeppe became challenging as I tried to keep up with his lectures. He seemed to remember the names and formulations off by heart and I was not always sure who or what we were talking about. It was nevertheless engaging and I tried to keep up.
– How does nitrogen enter the plant kingdom?
The animal kingdom gets its nitrogen from the plant kingdom. We now return to the matter of how nitrogen enters the plant world. When we looked at the discovery of the microscopic world, we jumped to the discovery of nitrification and the reduction of oxygen in various nitrogen compounds. With the background information on nitrogen and its role in nutrition, let’s look at the progression of thought on ways that nitrogen enters our world.
HB de Saussure (1740 – 1799) discovered that the nitrogen in plants does not come directly from the atmosphere. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300) He was born in Switzerland and became interested in biology and geography. Most of the discoveries he made while scaling some of the highest mountain peaks and passes in the world. He regarded the Alps as central to understand the geology of the world and spend much time there.
His idea was that nitrogen must be taken up through the roots of plants, through the decomposition of humus (9, 11). (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300) Not everybody agreed with him and a debate developed that raged for almost 50 years. The German chemist, Justice von Liebig (1803 – 1873), was the first to see nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient. This discovery gave him the honour of being regarded as the father of the fertilizer industry. Justice was also an important man in the meat processing industry. He developed the manufacturing process for beef extract and founded a company, Liebig Extract of Meat Company, and later trademarked the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. (10)
This question of how nitrogen was absorbed by plants remained very controversial (11). Justice believed it is taken directly from ammonia gas in the air. (Craine, JM, 2008: 70) This was the state of affairs until a French chemist, Boussingault (1802 – 1887) demonstrated that plants are incapable of absorbing free nitrogen but were able to flourish even without humus as long as alternative sources of nitrates or ammoniacal salts are supplied. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300)
Boussingault and his contemporaries saw the uptake of ammonia as purely chemical. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300) What other way could there be? The great German physiologist, Theodor Schwann, born in 1810, took a step closer to the solution. He discovered that alcoholic fermentation and the fermentation that causes putrefaction was carried out by microbes. (12) (Barnett, JA)
Louis Pasteur, born in 1822 grew up to become very important in the field of science. He was the first one to suggest that microorganisms may be involved in the nitrogen absorption process of plants. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300) He studied the breakdown and reorganization of material that contained nitrogen by soil bacteria, fungi, and algae. It seemed that nitrogen was not used up but was circulated. Decaying humus gave ammonia, from which microorganisms constructed nitric acid and its compounds. These were then absorbed by plants and turned into proteins and incorporated into living substance. The cycle was completed by the death and natural decay of the plant and the animal. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300) At the death of the animal, the process of nitrification was reversed and microbes were again responsible for breaking the molecules down until only gaseous nitrogen remained.
The German agricultural chemist, Hermann Hellriegel (1831-1895), discovered that certain plants (leguminous) take atmospheric nitrogen and “replenished the ammonium in the soil through the process now known as nitrogen fixation. He found that the nodules on the roots of legumes are the location where nitrogen fixation takes place.” (Boundless, 2014) Hermann did not discover how this is done. Martinus Willem Beijerinck (March 16, 1851 – January 1, 1931), a Dutch microbiologist and botanist, discovered that the small growth areas on the roots contained bacteria. He called it rhizobia. It is the rhizobia that are responsible for changing the nitrogen to ammonium. Ammonia is NH3 and ammonium is NH4. (Boundless, 2014) Soon more ways were discovered that changed nitrogen in the air into a form that plants can absorb.
Berthelot described in 1885 how lightning was responsible for nitrogen fixation before he too turned his attention to microscopic organisms in the ground that is responsible for nitrogen fixation. (Elmerich, C, Newton, WE. 2007: 3) The energy of a lightning strike disrupts the nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) molecules in the air producing highly reactive nitrogen and oxygen atoms that attract other nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) molecules that form nitrogen oxides that eventually become nitrates. (Zumbal, 2000: 924) Alternatively, Beijerinck’s rhizobia bacteria fix the atmospheric nitrogen directly (Boundless, 2014) in small growths on plant roots such as beans, peas and alfalfa (Zumbal, 2000: 924), or animal droppings and urea or dead animal or plants provide saprobiotic bacteria, nitrogen or nitrogen-family members that can be changed.
Nitrogen is turned directly into either ammonia (NH3) or ammonium (NH4) or into nitrate (NO3–). Nitrifying bacteria turns ammonia into nitrite. Nitrite is toxic and nitrifying bacteria change the nitrites into nitrates that either becomes plant food along with nitrate’s that are formed during lightning strikes or are changed back into nitrogen by denitrifying bacteria.
Chemical Engineering at MIT
A friend of Jeppe, Dr. Polenski found in 1891, months before I arrived in Denmark, that when he mixed curing brine for bacon with Saltpeter and tested it, that he found nitrate to be present. After a week, when he tested it again, there were only nitrites. The same with the meat that he cured. At the beginning of the week, there was nitrate present in the meat and later he found only nitrites. (13)
The notion that bacteria are responsible for changing the nitrate to nitrite was well established by the time he did the experiment and so, his conclusion that what had happened in the brine was the result of bacteria was reasonable. It would not surprise me if it would be shown that nitrite is responsible for curing and not nitrate. (8)
I realised that saltpetre was a key part of the world we live in. The energy of the acid in the air, harnessed by an entire world of microorganisms that probably occur in every environment on earth and changed into a format that plants and then humans and animals can absorb. An acid, coupled with a salt helps us to preserve meat and change pork meat into bacon, grow plants, feed oceans and drive the processes of the earth. By it we fight wars, we grow crops and we eat and live!
At night after supper, we are reading Foods by Edward Smith. He wrote on bacon and said, “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, Edward, 1876: 65) The reason why it is good for the poor is that it can be cooked in water and the liquid part can be given to the children and the solid part consumed by the parents and “thus both be in a degree pleased, if not satisfied.” (Smith, Edward, 1876: 65)
He continues to say that “it is also the rich man’s food, for the flavour, which is naturally or artificially acquired by drying (and curing), is highly prized, and although it may be taken as a necessary by the rich, it is in universal request as a luxury” (Smith, Edward, 1876: 65)
This is our business plan: to produce the best bacon on earth! Uncle Cornelius passed away after a full life and I can not help to see our current quest as a necessary evolution of time as young and new thoughts replace older methods. Evolution must in the first place be predicated on sound science as well as common sense.
This is then your chance to discover the nitrogen cycle from the perspective of a meat scientist. I miss you, my little girl. There is not a single day that I don’t think of you! It’s late. I am sure that you are fast asleep by this time and that you are holding your bear and dream of the cumming summer.
I learn so much and still, you are my biggest lesson in life. Your love and your spirit have taught me how to live myself!
I count the days till I see you guys again! I miss you all so much and love you!
Your Dad.
Practical Applications for the Modern Bacon Curer
In this section, I highlight some of the points of application in the modern high throughput bacon plant.
A friend of mine from the bacon industry in Castlemaine, Australia recently interacted with me on the matter of total meat content in bacon. Nitrogen is a constituent of the meat protein and important in its nutritional value. This identification and the subsequent determination of a phenomenally stable nitrogen percentage in meat lead to a number of important applications and implications, among others, a way to determine lean meat content and total meat content in meat processing.
A good summary of the thinking early in the late 1800s and early 1900s on the subject exists in the old South African Food, Drugs and Disinfectants Act No. 13 of 1929 (See note 1). It has subsequently been repealed, but the basis of the law is still very much applicable. As an important historical document, it sets out the determination of total meat content. It essentially remained unchanged (apart from minor updates).
The calculations of total meat content are defined in subparagraph 4 (iv) which reads as follows: “In all cases where it is necessary to calculate total meat under regulations 14 (1), (2), (3) and (4), the formula used shall be:—
Percentage Lean Meat = (Percentage Protein Nitrogen × 30 ). Percentage Total Meat = (Percentage Lean Meat + Percentage Fat).”
The questions of interest are how did they arrive at this and how accurate an indication is it of total meat content? What is the relationship between nitrogen and nutrition? When decay takes place, what happens with the nitrogen in the protein? How does the amount of nitrogen we consume determine the total nitrogen content of our bodies or any animal or plant for that matter? What is the value of nitrogen to the body which makes it essential for nutrition? How does nitrogen move from a plant or an animal into our bodies to provide nutrition? What is the impact of processing on nutrition and the total nitrogen content? Can the standard calculation for fresh meat be applied to processed products? Lastly and equally fascinating, what are other sources of nitrogen that can increase the total nitrogen count and skew the nitrogen count in a product and its relationship and to meat content.
This short series of articles set out to deal with these fascinating issues. In this first article, we will look at the time from the start of the chemical revolution to Boussingault. Sincere thanks to my friend in Castlemaine, Australia for provoking a fascinating line of inquiry!
(1) After a short service in the Woodstock house, the procession moved to the Groote Kerk where Jacobus has been an elder. The coffin was carried into the church by the Cape premier, Cecil John Rhodes, Sir John Henry de Villiers (subsequent chief justice of the Union), JW Sauer, Onze Jan Hofmeyer, Sir Gordon Sprigg, Colonel F. Schermbrucker, ML Neetling and DC de Waal.
After the service the funeral procession moved to the Cape Town station, where a special train took the mourners to the Maitland Cemetery. The coffin, of Cape teak, was lowered into the ground which Jacobus picked himself.
The grave was filled up and wreaths were laid on top. One from David and Johanna Graaff, a second from John and Rosetta Graaff and a third from Jacobus and Susan Graaff. (Dommisse, E, 2011: 48, 49)
Jacobus Combrinck’s grave in the Maitland Cemetery.
The funeral procession would have walked along this path from the train tracks at the far top side of the picture to Jacobus’s grave on the right, under the tree, on the right.
The affection from the Graaff brothers who were responsible for erecting the gravestone is evident. At the top, the words, “Ter Dierbare Herinnering aan Jacobus A. Combrinck,” “For affectionate remembrance of Jacobus A. Combrinck.”
Under Jacobus’s birth date and date of passing, the inscription in Dutch reads, “Ik weet op wien te vertrouen,” “I know in whom to trust.”
Underneath is written in Dutch,”Opgericht door zyne dankbare neven de broeders Graaff,” “Erected by your grateful nephews, the brothers Graaff.”
David took over Jacobus’s position in the Legislative Council of the Cape Colony soon after his passing.
The following notice appeared in a colonial newspaper.
A notice published on page 11 in The Colonies and Indian under the heading “Colonial, Indian and American News Items” on 10 Oct 1891.
(2) The Woodstock house was previously owned by a highly respected judge, Henry Cloete in the suburb of Papendorp (later to be renamed, Woodstock). He enlarged it greatly. The house was built on an estate where Jacobus planted trees, erected a water mill of his own design, cultivated a splendid flower garden. (Simons, PB, 2000: 14)
(3) Sir Gordon Sprigg, prime minister before Rhodes ousted him, was moved when he heard the news of Combrink’s death. He said, “A good man has gone from among us.” Rhodes apparently only slipped a posy of white and purple violets into his coffin and said nothing. These two powerful men were never the best of friends. (Simons, PB, 2000: 27)
(4) When doing trials at the then Vion Factory in Malton, Ken Pickles was the NPD (New Product Development) manager. A young intern from Brazil would walk behind him and every time we went to the curing tanks, he would ask the young man this question. It’s an image that I will never forget.
(5) An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth.
(6) Processed meats many times contain bacteria, many of which are responsible for changing nitrate to nitrite. “This conversion proceeds more rapidly in unpacked bacon than in the vacuum-packed variety, a difference which has been ascribed somewhat surprisingly to the low reducing activity of anaerobic bacteria. (Hill, MJ. 1991: 96)
(7) The nitrate and nitrite in salts are primarily responsible for the curing activity in meat. “The reduction of nitrate (NO3-) salts to nitrite (NO2-) and then to gaseous NO and its subsequent reaction with myoglobin to form the nitrosyl-myoglobin complex forms the basis for cured meat flavour and colour.
It was also later realized that it is bacteria that first converts nitrate into nitrite, which is the mechanism underlying in the preservation of food. Nitrite in meat is responsible for inhibiting the growth in aerobic bacteria (especially the spores of Clostridium botulinum), retard the development of rancidity during storage, develop and preserving the meat flavour and colour, stabilizing the oxidative state of lipids in meat products.” (Dikeman, M, Devine, C, 2014: 436)
(8) The fact that nitrate is not the curing agent, but nitrite was in fact discovered soon asfter 1891. One of the men at the forefront of these discoveries were Prof. D. R. Hoagland, professor of plant nutrition, University of California (www.nature.com). He suggested in 1908 that the “reduction of nitrate to nitrite, nitrous acid and nitric oxide was by either bacterial or enzymatic action or a combination of the two and was essential for NOHb formation. The scientific knowledge led to the direct use of nitrite instead of nitrate, mostly because lower addition levels were needed to achieve the same degree of cure.” (Pegg, RB, Shahidi, F. 2000)
In keeping with our interest in the person and his discovery, the following notice was published at the death of Prof. Hoagland by the University of California. “1884-1949
Dennis Robert Hoagland, Professor Emeritus of Plant Nutrition, died September 5, 1949. His life had been fruitful in achievement and stimulating in quality.
Professor Hoagland was born in Golden, Colorado, on April 2, 1884. He attended the Denver public schools and in 1903 entered Stanford University, graduating with an A.B. degree in the Chemistry major in 1907. After a fall semester of graduate work, he accepted a position at the University of California in January 1908 as Instructor in Animal Nutrition. From that time until his retirement June 30, 1949, with the exception of the period 1910 to 1913, his academic life was associated with the Berkeley campus.
About 1910 the U. S. Department of Agriculture became concerned with the alleged injurious effects of food preservatives on humans. A consulting board of scientific experts was set up and Professor Hoagland became a member of its staff. This assignment took him to the University of Pennsylvania where in addition to his research he found opportunity to continue his graduate studies in chemistry. It is evident that this early experience introduced him to the intriguing problems of biochemistry and this interest once developed became his major scientific concern the remainder of his career. In 1912 he accepted a graduate scholarship at the University of Wisconsin in the field of Animal Biochemistry, a field there cultivated with distinction by E. V. McCollum and E. B. Hart, and he was awarded the M.A. degree in 1913.
In the fall of 1913 he returned to California as Assistant Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. This area of knowledge, through the stimulating domination of Professor Hilgard, concerned itself with the soil and crop problems confronting California agriculture. Professor Hoagland found no difficulty in adapting himself to this new emphasis. It was probably his diversified early experience that made it possible for him later to develop on this campus a world center for the study of interrelated plant and soil problems. His broad interest did not lead him to scatter his efforts, however. He early demonstrated an ability to clearly outline a segment of the field and vigorously attack it, without restricting his vision of the entire complex problem. It was this quality which enabled him to achieve so significantly.
Professor Hoagland became head of the newly created Division of Plant Nutrition in 1922. Under his guidance and stimulation, this became more than a “Division” in the College of Agriculture: it was in effect what the Germans might have termed an “Institut für Pflanzen und Boden Wissenschaft.” It was a dynamic research center in which both basic and practical problems of plant oil interrelationships were studied with enthusiasm and insight; the laboratory was a magnet which drew students and mature investigators from all parts of the world. His own contributions to the research center’s activities were many and important. It was the early disclosure by himself and associates of the phenomenon of so-called “active absorption” of salts by living cells, both plant and animal, that compelled a complete reappraisal of salt absorption processes. His own research and that of his students led to new discoveries on the need and function of “trace” chemical elements–elements required by living cells in such minute amounts as to escape detection except by the use of the most refined techniques. These and other revelations constituted the leaven which activated investigations in many associated fields. His laboratory was a center with a radiating influence which reached out and touched other great scientific centers, and also the lone worker at an isolated post.
Professor Hoagland entered fully into the academic life of the University. He served as a member, then as chairman, of the Budget Committee and as a member of many other Senate and administrative committees. He was a member of numerous scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Science, and served on important national scientific boards. Many honors came to him. The American Society of Plant Physiologists presented him with the Stephen Hales Award in 1929; the annual $1,000 prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was given to him and an associate jointly in 1940. He was selected as Faculty Research Lecturer at Berkeley in 1942 and the same year delivered the John M. Prather Lectures at Harvard. In 1946 he was awarded the Barnes Life Membership in the American Society of Physiologists.
Professor Hoagland was married to Jessie A. Smiley in 1920. She died in 1933 leaving three sons, all of whom are graduates of this University. He did not possess a rugged constitution and the last few years of his life were marred by illness. But almost to the last he kept a faculty for keen appraisal of scientific and social situations and an interest in human events of the most diverse sort. He was a man of judgment, of tolerance, and of discernment, one who abhorred hypocrisy and admired honesty. He was the quality out of which great human structures are built.
W. P. Kelley D. I. Arnon A. R. Davis” (CDLIB)
(9) Humus is decaying organic matter. (Bynum, WF, et al, 1981: 300)
(10) The trademark was granted in 1899 for Oxo.
(11) The German chemist, Justice von Liebig (1803 – 73), continued to believe that plants got their nitrogen from the air (in the form of ammonia). (Wikipedia, Justice_von_Liebig) He has popularised a principle developed in agriculture science by Charl Sprengel (1828) and was called Liebig’s Law of the Minimum, often simply called Liebig’s law or the law of the minimum. It states that growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor) (Wikipedia, Law_of_the_Minimum)
(12) He also attributed fermentation to microorganisms.
“Schwann is famous for developing a ‘cell theory’, namely, that living structures come from formation and differentiation of units (the cells), which then constitute the bodies of organisms (Schwann, 1839). His paper on fermentation (Schwann, 1837) was entitled ‘A preliminary communication concerning experiments on fermentation of wine and putrefaction’. Using a microscope, Schwann examined beer yeast and described it as resembling many articulated fungi and ‘without doubt a plant’. His conclusions from his observations and experiments were unequivocal, revolutionary and correct: The connection between wine fermentation and the development of the sugar fungus is not to be underestimated; it is very probable that, by means of the development of the fungus, fermentation is started. Since, however, in addition to sugar, a nitrogenous compound is necessary for fermentation, it seems that such a compound is also necessary for the life of this plant, as probably every fungus contains nitrogen. Wine fermentation must be a decomposition that occurs when the sugar-fungus uses sugar and nitrogenous substances for growth, during which, those elements not so used are preferentially converted to alcohol.
In one of his experiments, Schwann boiled some yeast in a solution of cane sugar in four stoppered flasks. After cooling, he admitted air into the flasks: for two flasks, the air was first passed through a thin red-hot glass tube (analysis showed this air still to contain 19·4 % oxygen); the other two flasks received unheated air. Fermentation occurred only in the latter two flasks. Schwann’s conclusion was important:Thus, in alcoholic fermentation as in putrefaction, it is not the oxygen of the air which causes this to occur, as previously suggested by Gay-Lussac, but something in the air which is destroyed by heat.
In this notable 1837 paper, Schwann anticipated observations made by Pasteur over twenty years later, writing:Alcoholic fermentation must be regarded as the decomposition effected by the sugar fungus, which extracts from the sugar and a nitrogenous substance the materials necessary for its own nutrition and growth; and substances not taken up by the plant form alcohol.
(Barnett, JA. 1998, 2000)
(13) The chemist, Eduard Polenske (1849-1911) (Wikipedia. Pökeln), was born in Ratzebuhr, Neustettin, Pommern, Germany on 27 Aug 1849 to Samuel G Polenski and Rosina Schultz. Eduard Reinhold married Möller. He passed away in 1911 in Berlin, Germany. (Ancestry. Polenske) He was working for the German Imperial Health Office when he made the discovery about nitrite in curing brine. (Wikipedia. Eduard_Polenske)
The Imperial Health Office was established on 16 July 1876 as a focal point for the medical and veterinary in Berlin. First, it was the division of the Reich Chancellery and since 1879 the Ministry of the Interior assumed. 1879, the “Law concerning the marketing of food, luxury foods and commodities” was adopted, including the Imperial Health Office was responsible for its monitoring. Erected in 1900 Reichsgesundheitsrat supported the Imperial Health Office in its tasks. (Original text: “1879 wurde das „Gesetz betreffend den Verkehr mit Lebensmitteln, Genußmitteln und Gebrauchsgegenständen“ verabschiedet, für dessen Überwachung unter anderem das Kaiserliche Gesundheitsamt zuständig war.”) (Wikipedia. Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt)
The spelling of his surname varies between Polenski and Polenske.
(14) “This prophetic insight into the continual renewal of body constituents, differing in rate in different tissues, succumbed to the theories of Liebig, Voit, Folin and others, and was not regained until more than a century later when Schoenheimer’s publication in 1942 of “The Dynamic State of Body Constituents” demonstrated the instability of tissue components by isotopic means.” (Munro and Allison, 1964)
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.
From the Sea to Turpan
University Geology Museum (1), Copenhagen, June 1891
The day has finally arrived, our much-anticipated visit to the University of Copenhagen’s Geology Museum. It is located on Nørregade. The museum is part of the Natural History Museum of Denmark. It was truly exceptional. The exhibition of minerals is, from what I am told, one of the finest in Europe! There are exhibitions on meteorites, volcanoes, continental drift, the geology of Denmark, the geology of Greenland, fossils (including the largest bivalves such as clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops), and an exhibition on the origin of humans. The fact that we had to postpone the trip for a week worked out well. Despite Uncle Jeppe being unable to join us, the Curator of the Museum was there and what happened was exceptional! He proved to be just the man to bombard with my many questions!
Bezeklik caves on mountain slopes near Turfan
Wondering About Meat Preservation
For as long as I can remember, I have been wondering about meat curing. As a child, I tried to imagine how people discovered that dry meat lasts longer. It seems self-evident to us now, but someone had to “discover” it! There is a difference between dry meat and cured meat. Cured meat is identified by three things. Its look, taste, and longevity. When an animal is killed, the meat blooms a beautiful red colour. If you do not rub it with saltpetre, it changes to a dull brown colour. If you, however, rub it with a mixture of salt and saltpetre, it retains the pinkish-reddish colour. If you rub it onto meat that already turned brown, after a few days the entire piece of meat will return to its pinkish-reddish colour, resembling fresh meat. This probably conjured up images of the power of immortality in the minds of the ancients endowing saltpetre with seemingly magical powers.
Is Curing possible without Saltpeter
Using saltpetre does not guarantee you good bacon, but without it, curing does not happen. When you dry meat, this can be done without saltpetre and the meat will also last a long time but the meat will be dry and without juices. In South Africa, the old Dutch farmers fused their knowledge of drying meat in the chimnies in Holland and the North European practice of using vinegar in their hams with the indigenous practice of hanging meat out in the sun and wind to dry. They add coriander with salt to the vinegar to create what they call biltong. This is a good example where drying works well to preserve meat with or without saltpetre. Saltpetre can only be left out of the recipe if vinegar is used and lots of salt and provided that the temperature where the meat is hung is not too high.
It is possible to cure meat with salt only, but the process takes a long time. Longer even than dry-curing with saltpetre. Communities in Italy that does this often have to carry the hams or bacon higher up the mountain to parts where it is still cold if the weather turns warmer and where humidity is lower. For our curing plant in Cape Town, similar to Uncle Jeppes’ plant, time is a luxury that we will not have and besides, we do not have high mountains. The process of curing it without saltpetre is a special skill.
The Friendly Curator and My Research Partner
The curator of the museum was on duty this weekend which was must fortuitous. He agreed to have coffee with us and answer our questions. This is the thing about the Danish that I notice wherever I go – they don’t have inflated egos. If this was in Cape Town, I can not imagine that someone with his position would have taken the time to have coffee with us and answer a novice in the area of minerals and chemistry’s many questions. Minette is a research partner second to none! She asks simple but powerful questions. She is never afraid to ask for clarification on points of seeming contradiction.
From Sea to Dry Deserts
The curator patiently listened to my questions before he started speaking. It was as if he did not really listen to my questions but decided to rather address the topic of the origins of curing more generally. Not one of us minded his approach. It was all fascinating and he had Minette, Andreas, his dad, his mom and me hanging on his every word.
First, the professor had to set me right in a wrong perception I had about how salts naturally occur on earth. I did not understand that today our salts are very refined. Impurities are removed before it is sold. Different salts are neatly separated but in nature that is not how they occur. Salts occur in nature as a mixture of various minerals. When the ancients talk about saltpetre, for example, there were many different grades of purity. The nitrate salts may be mixed with what we refer to as table salt or sodium chloride along with many other chemical compounds. The opposite also occurs. If salt is mined from a salt pan, for example, there may be small amounts of nitrate salts mixed in with the table salt. There may even be some nitrite salts present in very small quantities from game urinating in the pan.
After setting me straight, the professor continued. “While people living in desert areas would have noticed 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 seen that seasalt or bay salt has the same ability. It is possible that curing was first noticed by early seafarers: meat proteins contain nitrogen. When the meat is placed in seawater, the surface proteins start to break down and forms nitrites for a period of 4 to 6 weeks. Nitrite is then converted to nitrate over the next 4 weeks through bacteria. It is possible that they preserved meat in seawater barrels and that the whole process of curing was discovered accidentally.”
Our friendly curator ordered a second cup of strong coffee! We all remained spellbound. My note-keeping was put to the test and there was no time for me to even take a sip of coffee! I had to keep up and did not want to miss a single point. “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 the 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.”
“We know that dry-curing of pork takes around 5 to 6 weeks under the right conditions and if the meat is not cut too thick. It must be cool enough that the meat doesn’t spoil before it is cured. Even though I now suspect that curing was first noticed by communities living by the sea as I just explained, I suspect inland dwellers discovered salt that cures meat in deserts also. Salt in nature almost always appear as a mix of various salts and under certain conditions, these salt deposits contain small amounts of nitrate salts and ammonium chloride. The ancients would have noticed that these salts cure meat.”
Sal Ammoniac
He then introduced me to something that I did not expect. Another curing salt! “The most important two curing salts that appear to us from antiquity are saltpetre (sodium nitrate) and sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride). Both salts were well known in Mesopotamia and references to them appear alongside references to salt curing of fish mentioned earlier and both salts were used in meat curing.”
I was riveted! “The ancients developed basic techniques of separating out the different salts. In particular, sal ammoniac was by far the more important salt of the bronze age (2000 BCE). It was produced in Egypt where it appeared around the kilns where camel dung was used as fuel for the fire and it was mined in Asia. When the horse was domesticated around 5000 BCE, a food source was needed to sustain humans on long expeditions and I believe sal ammoniac fits the requirement perfectly.”
“Both salts cure the meat in a week which obviously had huge advantages compared to salting the meat with normal table salt. In my experience, salt ammoniac is, however, a far better preservative than saltpetre. Sal ammoniac, as far as I can find, was globally traded from much earlier than saltpetre. Ancient Macedonian records indicate that even in 2000 BCE saltpetre was preferred in food over sal ammoniac on account of the better taste of saltpetre. Sal ammoniacwas far more vigorously traded than saltpetre in the early Christian era and possibly for thousands of years before that. Fascinatingly enough, I realised that ammonium chloride will, like nitrates, undergo bacterial transformation into nitrites which will then in the meat matrix yield nitric oxide which will cure the meat.
He then introduced us to a region of the word that I did not even know existed. “Turpan is the name of an oasis in the far western regions of China. It is an extremely dry area. Turpan is also probably the only place on earth where sal ammoniac and nitrate salts in the form of sodium nitrate occur in massive quantities side by side.”
“Chinese authors of antiquity are unanimous that sal ammoniac came into China from Turpan, Tibet, and Samarkand and through Samarkand, it was traded into the Mediterranian along the silk road. It all makes for an appealing case for sal ammoniac as the actual curing salt from antiquity that was used in meat curing when the practice spread around the world. There is even a tantalizing link between Turfpan and the ancient city of Salzburg and the salt mines which leads me to speculate that the trade of sal ammoniac was done into the heart of Western Europe, into what became known as Austria. This leads me to believe that the actual technological progressions related to meat curing may have come from Austria. Whether it was through Salzburg and initially from Turfan is not clear.”
“Around Turpan (also called Turfan), Sal Ammoniac forms in volcanic vents and after volcanic eruptions before it has rained which dissolves the crystals. It is highly soluble. It is unique in that the crystals are formed directly from the gas fumes and bypass the liquid phase, a process known as sublimation. The Turfan area, both the basin and the mountains are replete with different salts containing nitrogen (nitrate salts and ammonium) any one of which could be used effectively in meat curing.”
“The sal ammonia was mined from openings in the sides of volcanic mountains where steam from underground lava flows created the ammonium chloride crystals. These were traded across Asia, Europe and into India. Massive sodium nitrate deposits occur in the Tarim Basin, the second-lowest point on earth. I then speculate that traders used some of these deposits to forge ammonium chloride since the ammonium chloride crystals did not survive in crystal form on long voyages due to its affinity for water that breaks the crystal structure down. Once this happened, the sodium nitrate and the ammonium chloride look similar. Due to the fact that it is known that almost all the sal ammonia produced in Samarkand was exported, I deduce that demand outstripped supply and this provided the incentive for such forgery. I find support for the likelihood of such a forgery, not just in the limited supply of sal ammoniac compared to nitrate salts, but also in the fact that mining sal ammoniac was a seasonal affair and extremely dangerous and a difficult undertaking.”
“It seems likely that sal ammonia wasthe forerunner of saltpetre as the curing agent of choice. It is composed of two ions, ammonium, and chloride. The ammonium would be oxidized by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) into nitrites and the well-known reaction sequence would follow.”
“Not only would it result in the reddish-pinkish cured colour, but it was an excellent preservative. An 1833 book on French cooking, The Cook and Housewife’s Manual by Christian Isobel Johnstone states that “crude sal ammonia is an article of which a little goes far in preserving meat, without making it salt.” (Johnstone, C. I.; 1833: 412) It is, of course, the sodium which tastes salty in sodium chloride and ammonium chloride will have an astringent, salty taste. I know exactly what ammonium chloride tastes like since it was added to my favourite Dutch candy “Zoute Drop” with liquorice.”
Flaming Mountains of Turfan
More Information on Saltpeter
“Sal ammoniac may be the oldest curing salt, but saltpetre is the curing salt that most of us are familiar with. By far the largest known natural deposits of saltpetre of the 1600s were located in and the East Indian Companies of England and Holland plaid pivotal roles in facilitating its acquisition and transport. The massive nitrate fields of the Atacama desert in Chile and Peru and those of the Tarim Bason in western China were still largely unknown. In 1300, 1400 and 1500 saltpetre had, however, become the interest of all governments in India and there was a huge development in local saltpetre production.”
“In Europe, references to natron emerged from the middle of the 1500s and were used by scholars who travelled to the East where they encountered both the substance and the terminology. Natron was originally the word that referred to saltpetre. Later, the word natron was changed and nitron was used.”
“At first, the saltpetre fields of Bihar were the focus of both the Dutch (VOC) and the British East Indian Company (EIC). The VOC dominated the saltpetre trade. In the 1750s, the English East Indian Company (EIC) was militarised. Events soon took place that allowed for the monopolization of the saltpetre trade. In 1757 the British took over Subah of Bengal; a VOC expeditionary force was defeated in 1759 at Bedara; and finally, the British defeated the Mughals at Buxar in 1764 which secured the EIC’s control over Bihar. The British seized Bengal and took possession of 70% of the world’s saltpetre production during the latter part of the 1700s.”
“The application of nitrate in meat curing in Europe rose as it became more generally available. The more generally it became available, the lower the price dropped. Later, massive deposits of sodium nitrate were discovered in the Atacama Desert of Chile and Peru and became known as Chilean Saltpeter. This was, as I have said before, only a re-introduction of technology that existed since 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia.”
“The pivotal area where I believe saltpetre technology spread from across Asia, India and into Europe, is the Turpan-Hami Basin in the Taklimakan Desert in China. Here, nitrate deposits are so substantial, that an estimated 2.5 billion tons exist, comparable in scale to the Atacama Desert’s super-scale nitrate deposit in Chile. Its strategic location on the silk road, the evidence of advanced medical uses of nitrates from very early on and the ethnic link with Europe of people who lived here, all support this hypothesis.”
“Large saltpetre industries sprang to the south in India and to the south-east in western China. In India, a prominent saltpetre industry developed in the north on the border with Nepal – in the state of Bihar, in particular, around the capital, Patna, in West Bengal and in Uttar Pradesh (Salkind, N. J. (edit), 2006: 519). Here, it was probably the monsoon rains which drench arid ground and as the soil dries during the dry season, capillary action pulls nitrate salts from deep underground to the surface where they are collected and refined. It is speculated that the source of the nitrates may be human and animal urine. Technology to refine saltpetre probably only arrived on Indian soil in the 1300s. Both the technology to process it and a robust trade in sal ammoniac in China, particularly in western China, predates the development of the Indian industry. It is therefore unlikely that India was the birthplace of curing. Saltpetre technology probably came from China, however, India, through the Dutch East Indian Company and later, the English East Indian Company became the major source of saltpetre to the Western world.”
“To the south-east, in China, the largest production base of saltpetre existed dating back to a thousand years ago. Here, a network of caves was discovered in the Laojun Mountains in Sichuan Province. Meat curing, interestingly enough, is also centred around the west and southern part of China. Probably a similar development to the Indian progression.”
“In China, in particular, a very strong tradition of meat curing developed after saltpetre was possibly first introduced to the Chinese well before the advent of the Christian era. Its use in meat curing only became popular in Europe between 1600 and 1750 and it became universally used in these regions towards the end of the 1700s. Its usage most certainly coincided with its availability and price.”
“The Dutch and English arrived in India after 1600 with the first shipment of saltpetre from this region to Europe in 1618. Availability in Europe was, generally speaking, restricted to governments who, in this time, increasingly used it in warfare. This correlates well with the proposed time when it became generally available to the European population as the 1700s from Lauder. I believe that a strong case is emerging that the link between Western Europe and the desert regions of Western China was the place where nitrate curing developed into an art. The exact place, I believe, in Western China is the Tarim depression.”
Everyone sitting around the table was hanging to his every word. I did not notice but by this time a small crowd had gathered around us. The curator raised his voice slightly to allow everyone to hear.
“There is another form of meat curing that I can tell you about.” As he started, Minette jabbed me in the ribs. “You see!” she said! “I told you!” Minette asked me before why the sweat of horses is also called saltpetre which is exactly the subject that he brought up.
Horse Sweat
“It may surprise you that one of the techniques used by ancient horseback riders to cure their meat was to hang strips over the neck of the horse or placing it under the saddle for the sweat of the horse cure the meat. Sweat contains nitrates and the same bacteria that reduce the nitrate to nitrite or that remove the one oxygen atom from the Salpeter to form nitrite is present on horses. This would result in the rapid curing of the meat. The fact that meat was placed under the saddles shows the importance of “softening the meat” in a time when people did not have many options in caring for their teeth.” It is the same mechanism, just in a less culturally acceptable way.”
“German and Austrian cookbooks pre-1600’s reveal that vegetable dyes were used to bolster colour and speak of curing with salt only. It is well known that the Germans and Austrians were familiar with nitrate curing and, I will argue, they would have been acquainted with sal ammoniac as a curing salt also, but no doubt due to the effect of sal ammoniac on taste, it fell out of common use. Hanging meat around the nacks of horses had a limited lifespan and as the availability of nitrate salts in Europe increased due to its use as a pharmaceutical, for military use and to fertilise fields, the nations of Europe started using it to cure their meat instead of salt only.”
An Unforgettable Day
It was all over too soon. When the Curator of the Geology Museum was done, everybody applauded! I asked him how he knows so much about meat curing and not only geology and mineralogy. He told me that he grew up in a butcher’s family. His dad had a keen interest in mineralogy in particular since it deals with chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artefacts. His father inspired him to studied geology.
That evening we did not read from Edward Smith’s book after supper. Instead, we went over the notes I took and where our host was too fast for me to catch everything he said, Minette, especially, helped me to get the facts straight. She has a very keen mind and a great memory.
We talked till very late into the night and all retired to bed, aware that we all experienced something very special today. There were two groups of people that I wanted to share this with. Tristan, Lauren, I could not go to bed without writing this letter. It is now 2:00 a.m.. Tomorrow I will share this with the second group of people or as in this instance, a person. Jeppe could not attend on account of the birthday celebrations of a grandchild. I can hardly wait for Minette and me to share this with him.
Now I am off to bed! I am exhausted but insanely excited! My Danish experience had just gone to another level! I can hardly believe the privilege I have to be here!
Lots of love from Denmark and a very happy father!
Neither the University of Copenhagen, the Geology Museum or any other affiliated organisation had no input in any of the content in this chapter. All research and conclusions are that of Eben van Tonder and the interaction with the curator of the museum, as portrayed here, is fiction. Eben places it in this setting for literary and artistic reasons.
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 Polenski Letter
June 1891
My dear Son,
Next weekend we have plans to visit the geology museum at the University of Copenhagen. It is summer in Denmark and the demand for our bacon is very good. We all agreed that we will put in extra work on Saturday to get through our work and take the following weekend off. Uncle Jeppe will not be able to join us at the University but we will all still go, capitalising on the good weather we are having. I am not disappointed at all. Still, this week, the most unexpected set of facts became known to us. Uncle Jeppe was on fire!
The Noord Nieuwland in Table Bay 1762
There is much that we can learn from the Danish nation. Their food, the strange shops, elevated above the streets, the beer and the warm people. I realised that the culture of this amazing land is having just as big an impact on me as what I am learning about the curing of bacon. These people set their mind to a task and then work to achieve the goals. They not only learned from the Irish system of curing but took it to new heights by combining it with their powerful and unique cooperative model! I am learning the mechanics of a bacon curing business and spending a lot of time on the topic of saltpetre. Andreas gave me a word of caution that knowing the steps of a process and understanding the process are two different things. Deeper insights into the steps in bacon production will flow from my understanding of saltpetre.
No sooner did I hear those words from Andreas when the ever-resourceful Jeppe presented me with the next gold nugget in my education. How it happened that I came to Europe at this time, is remarkable. It is exactly in this epoch when humans are discovering that, despite the fact that saltpetre has been used for thousands of years to cure and preserve meat, there is an even more fundamental principle behind it that stems from its composition and nature. This fundamental principle is a relative of saltpetre or sodium nitrate, called sodium nitrite. The “a” changes to an “i“.
FOODS by Edward Smith
After supper, at the Østergaard home, we follow another great Danish tradition. We read together every evening and discuss what was read. This is customary in many households. The Danes have a practicalness about them. As I have seen from their unique high school model, they never stop learning and if something works, they adopt it. I saw how certain mental constructs are more productive than others. This practice is one of the more productive ways of spending evenings.
Andreas’ dad chose as a book to read every night after supper, called Foods, written over 20 years ago in the 1870s by an Englishman, Edward Smith. He helped me to see the curing of meat as both a necessity and a delicacy. We cure meats because, for the most part, using modern curing methods, cured meat tastes great. On the other hand, meat curing was started to impart longevity; to prevent spoilage.
Back home we are familiar with the value of meat that “last.” In Europe and England with their growing populations and vast navies to feed, it is an obsession and a priority to solve the problem of conserving meat for future use. Smith says that “the art of preserving meat for future use, with a view to increase the supply and lessen the cost of this necessary food (meat), is of very great importance to [England] and all the available resources of science are now engaged in it.” (Smith, 1876: 22) This means that the best scientists of the time devote much time to the subject. The discovery that it is not saltpetre (nitrate) that cures meat but nitrite came from this drive.
Smith lists the main ways that meat preservation is done, as “by drying, by cold, by immersion in antiseptic gasses and liquids, by coating with fat or gelatin, by heat, salt[ing] meat and by pressure.” (Smith, 1876: 22 – 38) All have their benefits and disadvantages and I have a feeling that these categories will remain and continue to be available to the public.
Edward Smith says that pork is particularly prized over beef and mutton because of the “taste, but chiefly perhaps [due] to the universal habit among the peasantry of feeding pigs, which has descended from Saxon times. Moreover, there is a convenience in the use of it, which does not exist with regard to beef and mutton, for in such localities the pork is always pickled and kept ready for use without the trouble of going to the butcher, or when money could not be spared for the purchase of meat.” Pigs proved to be an equally prized meat in the new world due to the “ease with which pigs are bred and reared, and the meat preserved, whilst there is great difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of persons, in a thinly populated country or a small village, to eat a sheep or ox whilst meat is fresh. (Smith, 1876: 59)
“Bacon is made when cuts from the pig are preserved by salt and saltpetre.” (Smith, 1876: 64). This gives bacon its characteristic pinkish/ reddish colour, a nice flavour, and it lasts a long time before it tastes “off”. This is the kind of thing we learn at night. After a good supper, we discuss what has been read for an hour or two before retiring to bed.
At Uncle Jeppe’s bacon curing factory I started working in the curing department where we mix herbs, spices and salts. Uncle Jeppe is a knowledgeable man and it seems as if he has been around in the meat industry forever. I have not asked him any question that he did not know the answer.
Saltpetre is the curing salt for bacon and hams. When we do dry curing, we use 1.25 st. (10 pounds) salt, 0.375 st. (3 pounds) of brown sugar, 0.04 st. (6 ounces) of black pepper and 0.02 st. (3 ounces) of saltpetre. We use 1.25 st. (10 pounds) of this mixture per 12.5 st. (100 pounds) of meat. (1, 2, 3) The Irish system of mild cured bacon calls for liberal use of saltpetre and the purer form called sal prunella. It is military-grade refined saltpetre. This is the main curing system we use and in both dry curing and tank curing, as “mild cure” is also called, it is a key ingredient.
What confused me much about saltpetre was that Trudie’s dad, Anton, also talks about the value of phosphates and saltpetre in fertilizing their fields in the Transvaal. It is the explosive power in gunpowder. I know that the Dutch East Indian Company, and the English East Indian Company, were created, in large part, for the purpose of transporting saltpetre from India to Amsterdam, London and other European cities like Copenhagen for fertilizer and to make gunpowder. How can this one substance be useful for such diverse applications?
The power of saltpetre is the fact that it contains nitrogen and nitrogen is one of only two elements, with carbon, that can exist in 8 oxidation states. This means that nitrogen can react in a diverse and complex way and, like carbon, is foundational to all of life. The two substances that contain nitrogen, most familiar to us, are saltpetre and ammonia.
The nitrogen in saltpetre makes it very reactive, giving it explosive power. In saltpetre it has a particular effect on blood, explaining the fact that it gives cured meat its pinkish/ reddish colour. Nitrogen exists in the first place as a gas in our atmosphere and comes into our world in different ways. Remember the lecture I have Minette and the baboons on the Witels about how saltpetre is formed? I said that there are other ways in which atmospheric nitrogen is converted into a salt. The most important process is not through the action of lightning as I explained on the Witels but through microorganisms with the ability to take it from the air and convert it directly to plat food.
Dr. Eduard Polenski – Nitrate and Nitrite
Uncle Jeppe told Minette and me that he will return to the fascinating story of how this was discovered but must be patient to hear this another day. The first very tentative step to identify the “real” curing agent came when a friend of Uncle Jeppe discovered something remarkable. His friend’s name is Dr Eduard Polenske (4), a chemist, working at the Imperial Health Office in Germany. Jeppe tells me that 1891 will forever be remembered as a watershed year for Woody’s since it is the year I arrived in Denmark and started learning about bacon curing; for the curing industry in South Africa at large since it is the year when Woody’s took the first steps to excellent bacon in Africa; and for the curing industry around the world because of Dr Polenskis’ discovery.
He cured meat with saltpeter. He then tested the meat and curing brine or the curing salts and discovered that it contained nitrite. This is remarkable since he did not add any! Saltpetre or nitrate does not contain nitrite. Nitrate is . it is a different compound! The one oxygen atom in the nitrate composition is not as tightly bound as the other two and is easily stripped away. On the other hand, nitrite () has the affinity to combine with an extra oxygen atom to again form nitrate (). It is a very volatile compound. Nitrite is then when one of the three oxygen atoms is removed from the molecule and we have . The important point is that it is a different compound from nitrate. The nature of these two compounds are different.
When meat is cured with saltpetre, nitrate () is added. If Dr. Polenski tested the brine and meat and found nitrite () present, the only way this could occur is if somehow the one oxygen atom was stripped of the saltpetre molecule to form nitrite ().
The fact that he discovered nitrite in the curing brine is of concern because nitrite is toxic. I know nitrite very well! In Cape Town, as is done around the world, the local water is tested for nitrites every day and if the levels are too high, one can not drink the water. It is so important that newspapers report the nitrite counts in the water on a weekly basis. Farmers can suffer loss if their livestock drinks from this contaminated water. For humans and animals, it can be fatal. It is one of the consequences of livestock grazing in rivers and dams. Their urine is loaded with ammonia and from this we get nitrite after oxidation.
The Value of Speed
Before Uncle Jeppe learned about Dr. Polenskis’ findings in 1891, what we knew is that only saltpetre or nitrate is used to cure meat. We also know that the Irish system of curing compared to dry curing cures the meat much faster. This matter of the speed of curing is important. Dry curing is accomplished in 28 days where mild cured bacon can be produced in 19 days. On farms, long curing is generally not a problem, but for a commercial curing operation, it means that you keep larger stocks of bacon being cured. If you produce bacon for household consumption, that is one thing, but when you have an army to feed, the 9 days you save makes a big difference!
The question has been asked why mild curing achieves this faster than dry curing and various possible answers have been proposed. For Jeppe, the answer came at Wiesbaden.
The Wiesbaden Meetings
Jeppe and Ed met up in Wiesbaden, Germany, earlier this year. This is a winter ritual for them taking their annual retreats at the same time. They became acquainted at the General Congress on Hygiene in Brussels in 1852 and has been close friends ever since. It is exactly the hygienists that Dr Ed fears will be most concerned about the fact that he found nitrites in cured meat.
Wiesbaden is the perfect place to share the latest scientific developments in their fields. It is famous for its hot springs since ancient Roman times and the second shared passion of these men, besides meat technology and science, is their love for hot springs.
They have been hosted each year by an equally interesting man, Francois Blanc, at one of his gambling resorts in Wiesbaden. It is said that he is the man who made Wiesbaden what it is today. Jeppe describes Blanc as a mighty wizard with an eye, quick to see the possibilities of a situation, with a brain to plan and a hand to execute. His ambitions and achievements are great and celebrated across Germany, yet, Jeppe tells me that his tastes are simple. Their association with Blanc serves as an inspiration to the various commercial interests these men have. For Jeppe, it is his meat curing plant and he finds value in the input from a man from a completely different field such as Blanc. Jeppe is mentoring me and at the same time, he exposes himself to men who can, in turn, mentor him. This is another area where I intend following Jeppes example for the rest of my life!
Jeppe tells me that Blanc’s clothes do not attract any attention and he wears his spectacles on the tip of his nose. He does not pay attention to flattery, yet, he is a hard-headed, silent man without any enthusiasm and equally without any weaknesses. He keeps lavish tables, yet he himself eats sparingly. His wine cellar rivals those of the autocrats in Russia, yet, he himself only drinks mineral water. He is one of the largest gambling hall owners in Europe, yet, for entertainment, he may occasionally play Dominoes and frequently goes on a drive through the countryside with his wife.
It was at their annual retreat at Wiesbaden, earlier this year, where Dr Ed told Jeppe about his monumental discovery. Dr Ed is not a fan of cured meat since, in the process of making it, nutrition is lost. The entire matter of the relationship between nutrition and nitrogen is introduced by this statement. Unfortunately, the subject is of such a nature that, again Jeppe said that we will deal with this over the next two weeks. For the time being, we take Jeppe at his word that there is a close relationship between nitrogen and nutrition.
Without looking too much into the subject, my suspicion is that this has to do with the meat juices that are lost in dry curing. I also suspect that in the loss of meat juices, nitrogen is lost which explains the loss of nutrition, if indeed the relationship between the two is linear. The new Irish system largely overcomes the loss of meat juices by filling the tank with liquid brine and placing the meat inside it. Pressure is created around the meat with brine wanting to draw into the meat instead of drawing the albumen, or protein-rich juices out of the meat. If the meat is not placed in liquid brine, as is done in dry curing where the meat is only rubbed with salt, the pressure is for the meat to dehydrate. In contrast, in the mild curing technique, brine seeps into the meat as opposed to albumen (meat juices) being drawn out. In mild curing, little albumen is lost.
For the most part, therefore, dry curing is practised with an accompanying loss of nutrition. At a time when most families across the world can not afford to eat meat more than two days a week and where most children go to bed hungry, at least a couple of times a week any loss of nutrition is a problem in food. In the current world context, Dr Polenske believes the most important consideration in evaluating methods of preservation is their effect on the nutritional value of the preserved food. He is obviously not very familiar with the Irish mild cure system and in his work, he mainly considered dry curing. His observations about the formation of nitrites are, however, volcanic!
The Polenski Experiment
Dr Polenski designed an experiment to study just how much nutrition is lost. The brine he prepared was a combination of salt, sugar, and saltpetre. (5) He put this in three jars with three pieces of meat which he sealed and opened again after 3 weeks, 3 months and 6 months respectively. When he tested for nitrite, he unexpectedly found it in the brine and the meat, despite the fact that he did not add any. (6)
The Foundational work of Ulysse Gayon and Gabriel Dupetit
Dr. Polenske told Jeppe that he was not really surprised to find nitrite in the brine since he knew that saltpetre is a compound of potassium or sodium nitrate. Nine years earlier a drama unfolded with a discovery by French scientists of bacteria that changes nitrate into nitrite. The important reduction process of nitrate to nitrite was identified by E. Meusel (1875). He noted that mixed populations of bacteria in soil and natural waters reduced nitrates to nitrites and even further. (Meusel, E. 1875)
What this means is that certain bacteria, under specific conditions is able to remove one oxygen molecule from nitrate () to form nitrite (). The further reduction of nitrite to NO happened through chemical reactions in an acidic medium by non-enzymatic means. An example of this would be lactic acid bacteria that acidify a brine mixture or reduce the pH of meat which would lead to a chemical reaction and the reduction of nitrite to nitric oxide. It would be shown later that this step of nitric oxide formation was also accomplished through bacteria when certain E.coli cultures were identified which is able to reduce nitrite to nitric oxide, even at neutral pH levels. Thus, certain bacteria are able to remove another oxygen atom from the nitrite () to form Nitric Oxide (NO). It was clear that the conditions that favour such a “reduction” as it became known of nitrate to nitrite must exist in curing brines and in the meat along with the bacteria required for the reduction.
In 1882 a team of researchers, Ulysse Gayon from the French commune or town, as we call it, Bouëx in Charente and his 22-year-old collaborator, Gabriel Dupetit, from the town of Auch, Gers, coined the term denitrifying bacteria. This formidable research team went on to make a number of very important discoveries about denitrifying bacteria. (7)
Nitrification starts with nitrogen gas which is one of the most abundant gasses in our atmosphere and through the nitrification process, bacteria create more complex compounds such as nitrate (). An example of nitrification is ammonia () which is changed into nitrite () and finally into nitrate () which serves as the nutritional source for plants. This is the reaction that occurs if animals urinate in rivers and dams. Ammonia is converted to nitrite throiugh oxidation (adding oxygen atoms to nitrogen).
Denitrification is the reverse where a more complex molecule is broken down to the point where it ends up with a simple molecule like nitric oxide (NO) or pure nitrogen gas (). Denitrification is, therefore, the reverse of nitrification. This time it starts with a complex compound of nitrate () which is changed into nitrite (), nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide () and finally back into nitrogen gas or molecular nitrogen (). Note the gain or loss of the oxygen atom in both processes.
The Mentorship of Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur, the renowned French chemist, and microbiologist urged Gayon to follow what happens with the oxygen of the nitrite utilised in the process of denitrification. They heeded his advice paid close attention to this. They conclusively refuted an old notion that nitrate was reduced through chemical means by hydrogen, generated during fermentation. As to the purpose of the loss of oxygen they believed that the bacteria used the oxygen from nitrogen for the combustion of organic matter to generate carbon dioxide (CO2). (8) They noted that this happens in an environment where there is no oxygen for the bacteria, other than the oxygen from nitrate. Based on their very thorough work, Dr Polenske believes that nitrite is present through this process of denitrification of nitrate by bacteria. He expects there to be much public concern following his discovery due to a negative perception of the public about nitrite. (9)
Jeppe and the Main Point
Jeppe was now becoming particularly excited. “Eben, Minette!” he said and put his hands around our shoulders. “In dry curing, we start with nitrate. Sodium or potassium or calcium or magnesium nitrate, depending on where you harvest the nitrate from. Nitrogen and THREE oxygen atoms. We mix it into salt and rub it on the meat to cure in dry curing. What is happening?”
I told him that the nitrate will be turned into nitrite by bacteria. “Yes, yes, yes!” He said impatiently. “But what else? What do you see?” Still, I had no clue what he was talking about.
“Time!” Jeppe exclaimed, “It will take time! Bacteria are living organisms and it will take time to achieve the reduction of nitrate. Think about fermentation – it takes time!”
“What is the faster process? Dry curing or mild curing”, he asked.
That one I gladly knew. “Mild curing!” “Correct!”, he exclaimed. “Correct!” “But why?”
Suddenly Minette and I saw what he was driving at! She answered, “The time it takes the bacteria to convert the nitrate to nitrite . . .” “And what?”, he spurred her on. “What does this points to?” “What is doing the curing?'”
I suddenly saw it and a bolt of energy hit me. “It is the nitrite doing the curing and not the nitrate!” “The time difference between the old system of dry curing using nitrates and the new system which re-uses old brine is that in the old brine, the nitrate has been converted to nitrite! This is the power of the old brine! This is why it is so much faster!”
His secretary walked in at that moment announcing that his next appointment is there. “Oh, let him wait”, Uncle Jeppe exclaimed! “”Get us coffee! There is some hope for South Africa after all!” He gave me an enthusiastic slap on my back!
“Exactly!”
“Exactly!”
He walked around his desk and sat down. “I did not discuss this with Polenski but I saw it immediately! If I told him the entire Germany would convert to mild curing and Denmark’s competitive edge would be lost. I sat there thinking of what Andreas told me. That I will find that my greatest discovery won’t be the mild curing process, but why it works the way it works. The “why?” And “how?” of curing. I was exhilarated!
Tristan, I know you love biology and the natural sciences. This is why I address this mail to you and I have no worry that I become too technical. The reaction sequence and mechanism of curing is beautiful. I can say that I am completely in love with the natural world and my fellow explorer in all this is Minette! I now want to know every element present in the brine, and its exact function. What is the chemistry in the meat itself? How does curing happen? When we know this, we will be in a position to manipulate the process and improve it.
A Bigger Point
Jeppe had something very important to share with Minette and me that flows from the discovery of denitrifying bacteria. Right at the start of this journey, I realised that what we are discovering is much more than simply learning how to cure bacon. This journey back to the lands of my forefathers is a big deal! In a way, it was already an end in itself. History and context are of enormous importance. Our lives are never in isolation. We come from the soil of Denmark and the fact that it is here where we find the answers is hugely important to me!
Bacon is in the centre of scientific research of Europe, America, and the United Kingdom, and the combined scientific focus of these countries are directed at unlocking its secrets which are bound up with that of agriculture and superior technology in warfare. Besides these, there are many human stories that are part of the story of bacon. Real people who each contribute small parts of a very large jigsaw puzzle that is coming together. They teach us about life. We do not live in isolation, my son! What I am recounting is not fiction! I tell you real stories of real people! Jeppe taught us that life is more than bacon. The journey of discovering its secrets are far more important than just the factory we will one day set up.
Within the same year of publishing a major paper on denitrifying bacteria by Gabriel and Ulysse, tragedy struck. The young Gabriel Dupetit ended his own life. He travelled to the Italian city of Savano and booked in at the Albergo Svizzero under the false name, Gaston Denault. Overcome by anxiety of all sorts, on the evening of 28 December 1886, he injected poison into himself. He was discovered, barely alive and despite many efforts to save his life, he passed away on the morning of the 29th. He left a note in French explaining some of his worries. The use of the false name was done to hide his identity and spare his parents’ embarrassment. Both Minette and I sat silently as Jeppe told us what had happened.
Minette cried. We are both humbled and saddened by this story. His work directly contributes to our quest of understanding bacon and still, his death reminds me that our lives are short and fragile. Despite our ambitions, we must pay attention to each sunset and sunrise and never make the mistake of thinking that achieving goals define us. Francois Blanc got it right. He found fulfilment in small things, despite his success. His success does not define him. The greatest fulfilment, for him, is the ordinary in life. In this, bacon and life become inseparable and I am never sure when I stop learning about the one and start learning about the other. What I could not understand was that the mental picture of Gabriel Dupetit was so troubling to him that he ended his life. It highlighted to me the value of life on the one hand and on the other, it showed me how strongly our mental world can influence our existence. More than anything, it affirmed to me that in our own lives there is nothing permanent and fixed. Not in our lives themselves or our mental worlds. Still I continue to look for that what is fixed!
The entire account of Jeppe and Blac and the French research team taught me more! Maybe, for Blanc, the biggest and most important acts of his life was the drives he took through the countryside with his wife. His relationship with his sons and the evenings that Uncle Jeppe and Dr Polenski spent with him. Uncle Jeppe told me how much he enjoys it! For my dad, maybe the best times of his life was when he rode out to welcome me back in Cape Town upon my return from Johannesburg. It would have been for me if you were in my place.
We see glimmers of the full mechanisms of curing brought about by microorganisms, nitrate, nitrite, salt, sugar, and spices. I would love to know much more to take back to Cape Town than a curing method where curing can be done in a shorter time than 19 days, yielding a product that tastes just as exquisite as Irish or Danish Mild Cured bacon. I have many friends in the curing industry who would rather cut off their one hand than do anything quickly. “Low and slow” they always tell me referring to low temperatures and long processes.
There are those who believe that in order to cure bacon in the “right” way, one needs time, but my quest is centred around understanding a process that fits with a bacon curing plant that is capable of supplying bacon in large quantities. We do not envisage setting up something small in Cape Town.
Even so, with all the excitement from our quest, never forget the priority of each sunset. Knowing that we are but small parts of a very big whole. Like Blanc, our highest achievements will be measured in whom we loved and how content we were with whatever life offers us. My heart goes out to that young man and his parents! Imagine his final moments – alone, in a foreign land!
With these, my dear son, it is time for me to go. Know that, no matter what, my love for you and your sister is eternal. You guys will be my last thought when I die. The vision of you and my dear Minette! You guys are my entire world and as certain as I write these words today, one day you will read it and I will be gone. Know that my life was not just about bacon, but like Gabriel Dupetit, it is also about the art of living! Imitate me, my son! Live!!
Be well, my boy! Take care of Lauren and your mom! How is Julie? Do you share my letters with her also?
(1) “St” is the abbreviation for “stone.” Until as recent as the Second World War, the Smithfield market in London used the 8 lb to a stone measurement. (hansard.millbanksystems)
The stone weight differed according to the commodity weighed. Animals were weighed in 14 lb to a stone before they were slaughtered and once slaughtered, the carcass and meat would be sold in 8 lb to a stone measure. Spices were also sold in 8 lb to a stone weights. (Newman, 1954)
(2) A survey was done in the US in the 1950’s to determine the most common brine mix used for curing bacon at the time. (Dunker and Hankins, 1951: 6) Even though it is 60 years after this letter was presumably written, I include it since methods and formulations in those days seemed to have a longevity that easily would have remained all those years later. The survey was also done among farmers, in an environment where innovation are notoriously slow.
(3) How salty was this bacon in reality? The recipe is used by most US farmers by the 1950’s was 10 lb (4.54kg) salt, 3 lb (1.36kg) of brown suger, 6 ounces (170g) of black pepper and 3 ounces (85g) of saltpeter. 10 pounds (4.54kg) of this mixture per 100 pounds (45.36kg) of meat.
The total weight of dry spices is therefore 6.07kg of which salt is 74% or 3.4kg. This was applied at a ratio of 3.4kg salt per 45kg of meat or 1 kg salt per 13 kg of meat. Not all salt was absorbed into the meat, but the meat was regularly re-salted over the curing period which means that this ratio would be applied many times over before curing was complete. Compare this with the salt ratio targeted by us in 2016 of 25g per 1kg final product, this means that the bacon made with this recipe would be extremely salty, irrespective of the use of sugar to reduce the salty taste. The bacon would have to be soaked in water first to draw out some of the excess salt, before consumed.
(4) Eduard Polenske (1849-1911) was born in Ratzebuhr, Neustettin, Pommern, Germany on 27 Aug 1849 to Samuel G Polenski and Rosina Schultz. Eduard Reinhold Polenski married to Möller. He passed away in 1911 in Berlin, Germany. (Ancestry. Polenske)
The Imperial Health Office was established on 16 July 1876 in Berlin,focussing on the medical and veterinary industry. At first it was a division of the Reich Chancellery and from 1879, fell under the Ministry of the Interior. In 1879, the “Law concerning the marketing of food, luxury foods and commodities” was adopted, and the Imperial Health Office was tasked with the responsible for monitoring compliance with it. Established in 1900, the Reichsgesundheitsrat supported the Imperial Health Office in its tasks. (Wikipedia. Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt)
(5) Brine is a solution of salt in water.
(6) Qualitative and quantitative techniques for measuring nitrite and nitrates in food has been developed in the late 1800’s. (Deacon, M; Rice, T; Summerhayes, C, 2001: 235, 236). The earliest test for nitrites is probably the Griess test. This is a chemical analysis test which detects the presence of organic nitrite compounds. The Griess reagent relies on a diazotization reaction which was first described in 1858 by Peter Griess.
Schaus and others puts the year of the discovery by Griess as 1879. According to him, Griess, a German Chemist used sulfanilic acid as a reagent together with α-naphthylamine in dilute sulfuric acid. In his first publication Griess reported the occurrence of a positive nitrite reaction with human saliva, whereas negative reactions were consistently obtained with freshly voided urine specimen from normal individuals. (Schaus, R; M.D. 1956: 528)
(7) Gayon and Dupetit’s discoveries include the following:
they demonstrated the “antagonistic effect of heat as well as oxygen on the process.”
“They also showed that individual organic compounds such as sugars, oils, and alcohols could supplant complex organic materials and serve as reductants for nitrate.”
In 1886 they reported on “the isolation in pure culture of two strains of denitrifying bacteria.”
(Payne, W. J.. 1986)
(8) In reality, the key to understanding the function of the utalization of the oxygen atom is understanding cell respiration. The purpose of cell respiration is the formation of ATP. The organism needs nutrients for respiration which is obtained from sugar, amino acids, fatty acids and an oxidizing agent (electron acceptor), oxygen (). Now, in environments where oxygen is depleted (where the rate of oxygen consumption is higher than oxygen supply, the bacteria respire nitrate. The nitrate serves the purpose of the terminal electron acceptor, a function which is better performed by molecular oxygen, if it is available. It is not only nitrite that is used by microorganisms in respiration when molecular oxygen is depleted. Other electron acceptors are sulfate, iron and manganese oxides.
Asheville Citizen Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 20 August 1895. All information on Francois Blanc was from an article on page 3.
Dunker, CF and Hankins OG. October 1951. A survey of farm curing methods. Circular 894. US Department of agriculture
Jones, Osman, 1933, Paper, Nitrite in cured meats, F.I.C., Analyst.
Drs. Keeton, J. T.; Osburn, W. N.; Hardin, M. D.; 2009. Nathan S. Bryan3 . A National Survey of Nitrite/ Nitrate concentration in cured meat products and non-meat foods available in retail. Nutrition and Food Science Department, Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M, University, College Station, TX 77843; Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas, Houston Health Science Center, Houston, TX 77030.
Meusel, E. 1875. De la putrefaction produite par les batteries, en presence des nitrates alcalins. C. R. Hebd. Seances Acad. Sci. 81:533-534.
Payne, W. J.. 1986. 1986: Centenary of the Isolation of Denitrifying Bacteria.
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 Saltpeter Letter
June 1891
Dear Children,
The days grow ever more light and joyful as summer approaches. The cornerstone of meat curing is Saltpeter and understanding its composition and function in meat is the starting point to unravel the mysteries of bacon. Curing is a separate discipline to fermentation such as is used in making salamis and drying, such as is used in biltong. Saltpetre is what cures meat. It is the overarching and controlling mechanism in bacon production. I am thankful that I educated myself in the latest developments in chemistry. I wrote to you in my last letter about how I reviewed the basic formation of salts with Minelle on the Witels hike. Uncle Jeppe’s classes are far more meaningful to me now that I have context about how these salts are formed and I am thankful that I shared my knowledge with Minette right from the start.
1910 photograph – sent to Schalk LE ROUX by Martinus van Bart Photographer: Unknown
My mind drifts back to Cape Town when I see the Danes going about their business of being Danish! Similar to saltpetre in bacon, there are principles that make this great nation who they are. Traditionally, their work ethic, their view of the equality of all humans, their model of cooperation are not just good ideas. It is fundamental to their existence as people. We have similar beliefs that make us who we are as an emerging nation. Mental pictures such as religion and the concept of the Boer in Africa shaped our society. I remember the last church service at the Groote Kerk in Cape Town before I left on my grand quest.
It is in the same church where my mom and dad were married and where I was christened as a baby. As staunch Calvinists, much of life revolved around church and the Groote Kerk was my second home.
It was the first Christian place of worship in South Africa. The oldest church structure on this piece of land dates back to 1678, 26 years after the Dutch landed to set up their refreshment station. The current building was built by the German architect Herman Schuette in 1841. Much of the old church, including the steeple, was retained in Schuette’s new design. It is situated right next to parliament. The last Sunday before I left for Europe, my kleinneef preached.
He is a true gentleman with a large pastoral heart. His theology is progressive and his faith sincere. My mom and dad are close to Oom Giel and his brother, Oom Sybrand. They are my mom’s cousins.
That particular morning his text was Ephesians 5. I remember hearing the horse carts rattling by in the street outside the church down Adderly street. As always, there was energy in the air as people arrived. The Graaff brothers and sister sat in their own allocated seating as did the other families. Each had its own seating reserved for them. The men hung their hat on the racks provided for them.
Oom Giel’s thesis was “Live as people of the light.” Here, at the Groote Kerk, the people who started the Cape Colony worshipped and received their spiritual direction. Oom Giel stressed that we received the light, but he was humble about what that means. As a theologian, he was ahead of his time. “A day will come when we realise that the church does not have all the answers. One day the church will no longer be able to scare non-believers into faith by the threat of hell. The light we receive is that we are in God’s hands. It’s a way of life.”
Deep-seated Calvinism shaped the colony. From the straight roads and square corners on neat houses to straight orchards. They believed God was in the first place viewing life as a geometer and this shaped everything they did. The Groote Kerk is the spiritual spring of the Colony.
The Groote Kerk is at the top of Adderley Street. This was the scene outside when Oom Giel preached. Photo by Michael Fortune.
It was not only an obsession with geometry that bewitched those who drank from this well with a misplaced superiority complex over all of God’s world, but good was also distilled from these waters. A friend from further up in Africa pointed it out to me one day when he visited Cape Town and I took him around to see the beautiful city. A mindset prevails among its inhabitants that says, we are here and we can thrive! We can get many things from Europe, but by golly, we can do it ourselves! What we can do is any time as good as the best we can get from Europe! With discipline and diligence, we approach every task set before us! In straight lines! This is exactly the reason why I am in Denmark. An inherent belief that whatever the Europeans can do, we can do better! First, I had to learn from my ancestors!
Apart from this, people from southern Africa mind their own business and desire a quiet life. We want to live in light of our gospel. That is how I remember Oom Jacobus Combrinck. How he cut his meat and wrapped it for customers; cured the bacon; grew his spices in his enormous garden at his home in Woodstock; these are all outworkings of his fundamental view of life.
As Oom Giel led us in reciting the Apostolic Creed, I wondered how many times through the years was it recited in this Church! The settlers, for all their faults – many of them were bound by this confession and tried to live true to its articles.
Oom Giel broke the bread. It is communion with the body of Christ. And so is the wine, union with the blood of Christ. Our rituals and confessions link us to countless generations. Past and present and from these deeply held beliefs we became. On my last Sunday in Cape Town, I listened to Oom Giel with many of my family and friends attending. It was a special day!
The Groote Kerk is at the top of Adderley Street. This was the scene outside when Oom Giel preached. Photo by Michael Fortune.
Now I am learning another gospel in Denmark. The art of curing bacon and the salt we use is saltpetre. That day at the Groote Kerk Minette was also there. We sat together and shared communion. Today it is Sunday and again, Minette is here with me.
It is a surprise I never expected! She arrived last weekend and Uncle Jeppe returned from Liverpool during the week. This morning she joined me at his bacon factory.
Uncle Jeppe reminded me of Oom Giel when he leaned forward in his chair pressing down on his desk. Passion for the subject. Authoritative. Uncle Jeppe must have been quite a ladies man in his day! He made Minette feel very welcome and gave her the grand tour of the factory. At lunchtime, I was already sitting in his office waiting for them.
They walked in while Uncle Jeppe and Minette were laughing at a joke. They do not share the joke with me. “So, today we go back to a time when saltpetre was still a mysterious compound,” Uncle Jeppe said. Minette took the seat beside me. Uncle Jeppe walked behind his desk where he took a notebook out of a drawer. He does not sit in his chair but walks around the desk and sits on it facing us. “The story of saltpetre goes back, aeons of time!”
Minette interjected that she still remembers exactly how it is formed. She looked at me when she recounted it. “Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), formed in the atmosphere when nitrogen reacts with ozone, reacts with raindrops which is water or H2O. The two oxygen atoms of nitrogen dioxide combine with the one from water to form 3 oxygen atoms bound together. There is now one nitrogen atom bound to three oxygen atoms to give us NO3 or nitrate. There is still one hydrogen atom left and it combines with the nitrate to form nitric acid (HNO3). Nitric acid falls to earth and enters the soil and serves as nutrients for plants.”
The Groote Kerk is at the top of Adderley Street. This was the scene outside when Oom Giel preached. Photo by Michael Fortune.
“In the ground,” I finished her thought, “it reacts with a salt such as potassium, calcium or sodium to form potassium nitrate, calcium nitrate or sodium nitrate, which is taken up as plant food.” I smiled at her. “You remember well!”
Uncle Jeppe smiled. He almost got lost in the moment. He pulled himself back to reality and opened his notebook. He balanced the open book in his one hand. He is a meticulous note keeper, something that I learned from him. He keeps notes written in his neat cursive handwriting. One can see that he values every sentence he writes! I now have my own notebook and on Sundays, I review the work we covered each week and I write what I learned or saw in my letters to you guys.
“Saltpeter is one of the magical salts of antiquity. For most of human history, we did not know what saltpetre was,” Jeppe preached on. “Saltpetre was used in ancient Asia and in Europe to cool beverages and to ice foods. There are reports dating back to the 1500s about it. Without any doubt, it has been known for millennia before it was reported on in writing.” (Reasbeck, M: 4)
“From antiquity, the ancients cured their meat with it and enjoyed its reddening effect, its preserving power and the amazing taste that it gives. The earliest references to it go back to people in Mesopotamia from the Bronze Age who used it in the same way as the Romans. The characteristic flavour it imparts to meat was reported in 1835 (Drs. Keeton, et al; 2009) but there can be little doubt that it was noticed since many thousands of years before the 1800s.”
“The Chinese worked out how to make explosives, using the power of saltpetre. There is even a record of gunpowder being used in India as early as 1300 BCE, probably introduced by the Mongols. (Cressy, David, 2013: 12) People started using it as a fertilizer when overuse of the land required us to replenish the nutrients in the soil.”
“It was widely known from the markets in China, India, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and England from where it was traded. It was its use by the military in gunpowder and its pharmaceutical use made it generally available in Europe from the 1700s. This meant its usage as curing agent with salt increased and by 1750 its use was universally found in curing mixes in Europe and England. Most recipe books from that time prescribed it as a curing agent.” (Drs Keeton, et al, 2009)
“Despite its wide use by 1750, people still could not work out if saltpetre occurred naturally or was it something that had to be made by humans. When they managed to get hold of it, they wondered how to take the impurities out of the salt which gave inconsistent curing results and was no good in gunpowder. People were baffled by its power. Some speculated that it contained the Spiritus Mundi, the ‘nitrous universal spirit’ that could unlock the nature of the universe!”
The photo of the Groote Kerk was among the first taken in SA, by Piazza Smyth of the Royal Observatory, c. end-1842 to start-1843. Photo and information supplied by Ian Glass.
Jeppe quoted Peter Whitehorne, the Elizabethan theorist who wrote in the 1500s. He said about saltpetre, “I cannot tell how to be resolved, to say what thing properly it is except it seemeth it hath the sovereignty and quality of every element”.
Paracelsus, the founder of toxicology who lived in the late 1400s and early 1500s, said that “saltpetre is a mythical as well as chemical substance with occult as well as material connections.” The people of his day saw “a vital generative principle in saltpetre, ‘a notable mystery which, albeit it be taken from the earth, yet it may lift up our eyes to heaven’” (Cressy, David, 2013: 12)
Jeppe got up and settled in his large office chair. He leaned back as he continued to read. “From the 1400s to the late 1800s we have records of almost every scientist probing and testing it to determine its properties. No doubt, ancient scientists and stone age chemists did the same for many thousands of years and in a way, it is the fascination with enigmatic salts that precipitated the science of chemistry.”
“Saltpeter encompassed the “miraculum mundi”, the “material universalis” through which ‘our very lives and spirits were preserved. Its threefold nature evoked ‘that incomprehensible mystery of … the divine trinity,’ quoting Thomas Timme who wrote in 1605, in his translation of the Paracelsian Joseph Duchesne. “Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor and Privy Councillor under James I, described saltpetre as the energizing “spirit of the earth.”” (Cressy, David, 2013: 14)
“Robert Boyle, who did experiments trying to understand saltpetre, found it ‘the most catholic of salts, a most puzzling concrete, vegetable, animal, and even mineral, both acid and alkaline, and partly fixed and partly volatile. The knowledge of it may be very conducive to the discovery of several other bodies, and to the improvement of diverse parts of natural philosophy” (Cressy, David, 2013: 14)
I could tell that Minette loved it! We were both riveted to every word! When I saw her interest in the subject, I realised that in Minette I not only had a friend and a beautiful friend at that, but I had a partner to explore life with me. She not only loves nature and explores our natural universe, but she also has an amazingly inquisitive mind in all matters technical. “Cheepes, I thought, what a woman!”
Tristan, Lauren, I was completely dumbstruck! On the one hand was the realisation that there are bonds between Minette and me that are stronger than simply a friendship. On the other hand, there is the realisation that the salt that I have been using to cure pork for most of my life is one of the greatest salts from antiquity! I used it with my Dad and Oupa Eben on the farm every time we cured Kolbroek meat. Here in Denmark, I work with it every day!
I was overcome by a feeling of deep respect for this chemical compound that we readily use. Even now that we know saltpetre is a salt attached to an acid in the form of one nitrogen atom and three oxygen atoms (CaNO3), its history is remarkable! I stepped onto a stage where a Shakespearean drama has been acted out and I became part of a grand history. I would never again hold it in my hand and think of it in the same way! Saltpetre is far more than just its chemical composition! Contained in its essence is the spirit of every man and woman who ever looked at it to unravel its secrets for thousands of years.
Groote Kerk rebuilt ca 1840. The tower and pulpit dates from the 18th cent. Supplied by Martin Greshoff.
I recall Oom Giel’s sermon.”Live as people of the light. Be true to your most basic quality.” For millennia, saltpetre mesmerized us long before its essential nature could be explained. Oom Giel’s message was the same. Mesmerize others with your essential Christian character. There should be no need for debate or discussion.
It is late in the Østergaard family home. Andreas, his dad, mom, Minette and I were discussing Uncle Jeppe’s lessons from today after supper. They told us about a museum dedicated to geology in Copenhagen and they are planning to take us there next weekend where I intend exploring the question of the origins of saltpetre more closely. The question of who were the first people to change the use of saltpetre into an art? Who harnessed its use and who established what is now the collective knowledge of saltpetre into an art? The art of curing meats. Who were the custodians of its power for millions of human history? I intend exploring this question with the good people from the University next weekend!
Both Minette and I are insanely excited. The house is now quiet with everybody asleep except me, wrapping the day up with my customary letter to you guys. I love you more than life itself and can’t wait to share what we learn from the University next weekend.
Cressy, D. 2013. Saltpeter. Oxford University Press.
Cressy, D. Saltpetre, State Security, and Vexation in Early Modern England. The Ohio State University
Crookes, W. 1868/ 69.The Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science, Volume 3. W A Townsend & Adams.
Deacon, M; Rice, T; Summerhayes, C. 2001. Understanding the Oceans: A Century of Ocean Exploration, UCL Press.
Dunker, CF and Hankins OG. October 1951. A survey of farm curing methods. Circular 894. US Department of agriculture
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. it is a different compound! The one oxygen atom in the nitrate composition is not as tightly bound as the other two and is easily stripped away. On the other hand, nitrite (
) has the affinity to combine with an extra oxygen atom to again form nitrate (
) which is changed into nitrite (
). Denitrification is, therefore, the reverse of nitrification. This time it starts with a complex compound of nitrate (
) and finally back into nitrogen gas or molecular nitrogen (
). Now, in environments where oxygen is depleted (where the rate of oxygen consumption is higher than oxygen supply, the bacteria respire nitrate. The nitrate serves the purpose of the terminal electron acceptor, a function which is better performed by molecular oxygen, if it is available. It is not only nitrite that is used by microorganisms in respiration when molecular oxygen is depleted. Other electron acceptors are sulfate, iron and manganese oxides.
