IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING AND PRESERVING FISH AND OTHER ARTICLES OF FOOD
Year: 1878

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Sydney Pitt, of Sutton, in the County of Surrey, for the
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING AND PRESERVING FISH AND OTHER
ARTICLES OF FOOD." A communication from abroad by Shebnah Rich, of
Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America.
Sealed the 14th May 1878, and dated the 26th March 1878.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Sydney Pitt at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 26th March 1878.
SYDNEY PITT, of Sutton, in the County of Surrey. "IMPROVEMENTS IN PRE-
PARING AND PRESERVING FISH AND OTHER ARTICLES OF FOOD." A communication
from abroad by Shebnah Rich, of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of
America.
The art of preserving fish, ments, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and other commodities
is not broadly new, but has been long practiced and has been constantly changing,
advancing, and improving, and being extended in its applications through the study
and experiments of Inventors. But the qualities of different substances, particularly
of substances adapted to form articles of food, are so various, and subject respectively
to such delicate and subtle influences and conditions with regard to flavor and odor
(as yet really but little understood) that a process well adapted to treat one sub-
stance is found not only useless and impracticable, but frequently deleterious when
applied to other substances even of the same generic class. Therefore, notwith-
standing the numerous preservative processes that have heretofore been practiced
with respect to various other articles of food, no one of them, previous to my dis-
covery, has been adapted to the perfect preservation of the favorite food commodity
of cod fish and vegetables hashed together.
It is well known that cured cod fish forms an important article of diet in cold
countries, but there is no known and successful process for long keeping it under
varying conditions of temperature, and of humidity of the atmosphere, and it is a
very perishable article, becoming dry, hard, crumbled, tasteless, void of nutriment,
and in a measure putrid under some conditions, and soft and rancid under others.
Price 2d 1

page_text: Potatoes are also very perishable, and in long voyages at sea, where a cheap fish and
vegetable hash is most important as an anti-scorbutic, it cannot be had; hence the
great utility of my Invention, which has for its object the permanent preservation
of the nutriment and agreeable flavored fish and potato hash that is cominonly used
in families, in tin cans and other suitable packages, so that it will keep good and
palatable for months or years, and so that it may be conveniently transported long
distances by land and by sea, and into hot climates.
This healthful and nutritious mixture of fish and vegetables, as it is ordinarily
made in the kitchen, spoils quickly, and becomes offensive even when it is hermeti-
cally scaled up out of contact with the atmosphere; and previous to my discovery
it had never been successfully preserved and sold as an article of commerce. I
have found that it may be effectually preserved as a most valuable commodity of
food by melting and cooking the fish and vegetable hash with beef tallow, with the
addition of some saltpetro, in hermetically sealed tin cans, substantially as specified
below; and to enable persons skilled in the art to practice my Invention, I will give
one mode of procedure, which I prefer, as follows:-Take four pounds of sound cured
cod fish (George's fish preferred) and thoroughly cleanse it from adhering salt and
impurities by soaking and washing in tepid water, instead of parboiling, as is the
usual process when preparing it for the table, and then reduce it to the form of
pulp by any suitable moans. Take five pounds of good potatoes, boil them until
they are well cooked, then remove the skins and mash them; take about half a
pound of raw onions, and chop them fine; take at least half a pound of pure "tried
out" beef tallow. Now put these four ingredients together, warni them and mix
them thoroughly, adding during the mixing not more than a quarter of a pound of
saltpotro and a quarter of an ounce of red or black pepper, mustard, or suitable
condiments to flavor the mixture and make it palatable. While this mixture is
warın fill the tin cans or other suitable packages with it, and hermetically seal them,
then boil these sealed packages for about three hours in a solution bath of salt and
water at a temperature about 212 degrees Fah., in the manner commonly known
to packers of preserved food, and, after cooling, their contents are preserved.
this process the melting fat and the small proportion of saltpetre are essential
ingredients, and my Invention is based upon compounding and melting them with
the fish and potatoes together in closed vessels; but I do not intend to limit my
Invention to the exact proportions of the formula given above, nor to the use of any
particular kind of fat that may be adapted to serve my purpose successfully, and
other vegetables, such as beets or turnips, may be used with or in place of part of
the potatoes.
In
1 claim the process herein describod of permanently preserving cured fish and
potatoes together as a commercial article of food for all climates, consisting in first
washing the fish in tepid water and cleaning it of superfluous salt and other impu-
rities, then reducing it to pulp, then mixing it with cooked hashed potatoes and raw
chopped onions, tallow, condiments, and saltpetre, in substantially the proportions
specified, and then while warm sealing the compound hermetically in cans, and
boiling, as described.
I also claim as a new manufacture, fish and other articles of food prepared and
preserved substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Sydney Pitt, have hereunto set my hand and
seal, this Twenty-third day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and seventy-eight.
SYDNEY PITT. (L.S.)
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