Butter, and other Articles of Food.
Year: 1885

page_text: Butter, and other Articles of Food.
I, JOSEPH WALLACE of Oxford Mansion, Oxford Circus in the County of
Middlesex, Gentleman do hereby declare the nature of my invention for AN.
IMPROVED MODE OF PACKING AND PRESERVING FRESH MEAT, BUTTER AND OTHER
ARTICLES OF FOOD to be as follows:-
:-
This invention relates more particularly to the packing of fresh meat, butter and
other articles of food such as fish and poultry for long journeys but the invention is
also applicable to the preservation of fresh food generally.
In carrying out my invention the articles of food to be packed or preserved say
carcasses of sheep, rabbits, poultry are first thoroughly cleaned, washed and wiped
dry and are then coated inside and out in any convenient manner with a saccharine
solution. They are then packed carefully in a box or barrel which is filled up with
a saccharine solution and the box or barrel is closed-up.
The saccharine solution which I prefer to use is produced from white sugar and
the consistency should be about that of treacle. I may also employ treacle of the
best quality.
Treacle obtained from beet root or a solution made from sugar
treated with or prepared by the use of sulphuric or other mineral acid is totally
inadmissible for my purpose.
In hot weather the articles should before packing by preference be cooled down
to about 40% by any convenient or suitable means, but it is not advisable that
the articles should be frozen.
When packing butter, lard or cheese be box or barrel should first receive a
coating of the saccharine solution and the butter which is made up in any
convenient form is carefully packed therein and covered with saccharine solution.
In most cases there will be a large quantity of moisture in the butter so that
the solution must either be stronger than that used with fresh meat or I may use
dry powdered sugar which will combine with the water in the butter to form a
solution of the proper consistency.
When the articles are required for use it will only be necessary to wash off the
saccharine solution with water and they will be ready for cooking or other use.
For preserving articles of food generally it will be found that the saccharine
solution will be thoroughly effective, while for butter and cheese during the procèss
of manufacture sugar will take the place of salt with great advantage.
The saccharine solution may be employed four or five times over but after that
time it should be strained to take out extraneous matters.
:

page_text: Butter, and other Articles of Food.
I JOSEPH WALLACE of Oxford Mansion, Oxford Circus in the County of
Middlesex, Gentleman do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :-
:
This invention relates more particularly to the packing of fresh meat, butter, and
articles of food, such as fish and poultry, for the purpose of preserving such articles
during long journeys, but the invention is also applicable to the preservation of the
like food for ordinary purposes.
In carrying out my invention, the articles of food to be packed or preserved, say
carcasses of sheep, rabbits, and poultry, are first thoroughly cleaned, washed, and
wiped dry, and are then coated inside and out with a saccharine solution. The
carcasses are then packed carefully in a box or barrel, which is filled up with the
saccharine solution, and the box or barrel is closed up.
The saccharine solution which I prefer to use is prepared from the best cane
sugar. The sugar should be converted, in great part, or entirely, into glucose or
"invert" sugar, or otherwise part of the syrup would be too fluid and liable to
ferment, and that portion which is not so changed or converted, should be just at
the point of crystallization, but if brought and kept to the consistency of about
47° Baumé, it will have no tendency to ferment, if kept for years. The proportion
of water to the dry crystallized sugar should be about 15% more or less, and the
conversion into "invert" sugar is preferably effected by extra boiling, or by the
addition of a vegetable acid, as citric acid.
In any case, the syrup should be chemically neutral, i.e. having neither an acid
nor an alkaline re-action. Thus, if acid, it should be neutralized with bi-carbonate
of soda, carbonate of lime, or both combined, and if alkaline, by a vegetable acid,
say, citric or tartaric acid, and afterwards allowed to deposit its feculent matter.
Keeping these lines in view, nearly if not all the sugars and syrups of commerce
can be so prepared as to become available for preserving purposes, to a greater or
less extent, their relative value being always dependent upon their concentration
or richness in natural sugar,
For preserving purposes, colour or brightness is not an essential, as with the
ordinary commercial sugars and syrups, where the main object is to please the eye.
Hence, treacle or molasses, especially that from cane sugar, if prepared according
to the lines here laid down, can be utilized to good purpose as a preservative,
although of course it will not last so long, or stand repeating so often, as best
sugars. In like manner, beet root and other syrups, such as starch glucose, could
be employed, but in consequence of their being so much less rich in sugar, their
powers of preserving would be far more than proportionately limited in time,
because of their greater liability to ferment.

page_text: By the external application of this preservative saccharine solution, and careful
packing, fresh meat or fish may be brought from the most distant parts of the
world, and kept perfectly fresh and sweet for an indefinite length of time, inasmuch
as the preservative renders it impossible for the ever present decomposing air-germs
to come into contact with the meat, so long as it is immersed therein. No chemical
action is set up, and no taint or discolouration is given to the meat to interfere
with its wholesomeness.
Great care and technical knowledge are required in selecting and preparing the
syrup for the purposes of this invention, in order to ensure a uniforin specific
gravity, and freedom from mineral acid, or other chemicals, that would interfere
with its natural mechanical preservative power.
This process of preserving fresh meat &c. was chiefly designed for the use of
importers of fresh meat from distant parts, but it commends itself also to all
purveyors of meat, Fishmongers, Hotel or Restaurant keepers, and shipowners, as
well as for home or private use generally, the preservative being equally applicable
to fish, flesh, and fowl of every kind, it being moreover open to repeated use, if
need be, for a period of several years, and afterwards available for sale at about one
third of its original cost. By the timely application of this economical preservative,
no meat or fish need be lost or wasted during the hottest weather, and the article
so treated will neither lose in weight nor flavour.
In hot weather, the carcasses should, by preference, before packing, be cooled
down to about 40 degrees by any convenient or suitable means, but it is not
advisable that the articles should be cooled to the freezing point.
The decomposition of sound flesh meat, when exposed to the air, may be said to
be chiefly due to the action of animalculæ, the lowest form of which I will term
putrefactive animalculæ.-These are ever present in the air, and resolve all
substances on which they operate into their ultimate, most offensive, and poisonous
elements, and against which all our sanitary science has been directed, when
striving to keep poisonous effluvia as far from our homes as possible.-The germs.
are so infinitesimally minute, that not the space of a pin's point about us can be
said to be free from them.
Thus it may be understood how it is that decomposition always begins on the
outside of sound meat, and chiefly through incisions, crevices, or broken tissue
surfaces, and never from within, and that these air germs, which produce the
decomposition, are prevented from coming in contact with the meat so long as the
preservative is keep surrounding it.
I may here remark that I am aware attempts have been made to preserve fresh
meat by embedding it in dry sugar, but it will be readily inferred from the
foregoing facts that dry crystallized sugar will not of itself effectually preserve
meat in a fresh and wholesome condition, because the air germs already on the
meat will insinute themselves and be able to operate in the interstices between
the crystals. There will also be, of necessity, a certain proportion of germs attached
to the crystals, which coming in contact with the meat, will be able to operate
upon it.
!
I am also aware that it lins been proposed to preserve meat by cutting it up into
pieces of suitable size, and impregnating it with molasses, this being effected by
the natural phenomenon of exosmose and endosmose, after which the pieces are
washed and hung out to dry. But this mode of treatment is entirely distinct from
that I now propose.-The action of the molasses, as described, is chiefly chemical,
and is due to the presence of mineral acid and other chemicals which are to be
found largely in all commercial syrups or molasses, while the action of my neutral
syrup is purely mechanical, and merely coats or "varnishes" the meat, preserving
it only from the contact of the destructive air germs, and not producing any
changed condition in the meat itself through the natural phenomenon of exosmose
and endosmose, as a neutral syrup has no such power of permeating the tissues.
Besides, the common treacle or syrups, because they have a mineral- acid re-action,
discolour and otherwise injure the neat as a wholesome food. They contain also a-

page_text: large percentage of other chemicals, such as various salts of potash, soda &c., which
increases their liability to ferment, and it must not be forgotten that there is to
be found in almost, if not all, the sulphuric acid of commerce, notable traces of
arsenic, which adds materially to its unwholesomeness.
Should, however, it be desired to use molasses or other common syrups for the
sake of economy, and not for continuous use, over an extended period, they may
be utilized by first treating them in such a way as to render them chemically
neutral, and afterwards defecate and filter them through charcoal.-It is, however,
unadvisable to use molasses or other common syrups, even when so treated, except
when they are only required for use for a limited period, because of their greater
tendency to ferment, not only from the paucity of sugar, but from the extra per-
centage of chemical salts contained in their composition.
"
I am also aware that from time immemorial, meat has been, after a manner, cured
by using sugar in combination with salt and saltpetre, as in the cases of the
Virginian Sugar Cured Hams," and the celebrated "Suffolk Hams," but although
hams so cured are more palatable and more natural in flavour than those cured in
the ordinary way, yet they are salted or chemically cured nevertheless, for the sugar
alone used would not preserve them, and it requires the salt in addition, which,
although not perhaps used in as large a quantity as usual, yet, by reason of its
deliquescent nature, it attracts sufficient moisture from the air to moisten or fluidify
the sugar, and thus between them the meat is protected. But meat thus treated is
salted or chemically cured without having the least pretention to be perfectly fresh
and wholesome, as meat preserved by my process is, and salted meat cannot be taken
with impunity, or without injury to the constitution, the development of scurvy
being purely a question of time with those who persistently use it. Such a result
can never be imputed to fresh meat, and more especially to meat preserved by my
process, which conserves all the natural juices and flavour to the utmost possible
extent.
With the exception of the freezing process now adopted by several importers of
meat, there bas been no truly scientific approximation to the solution of the
problem of preserving fresh meat, until the present mode was discovered. The
freezing process, however, is open to several objections, such as loss in weight and
flavour, discolouration of the meat, owing to the air germs and dust attached to it,
which accounts for the rapidity with which decomposition sets in on its being
thawed; and last, but not least, the enormous expense incurred in freezing before
shipping, the keeping up of the process during the whole voyage, as well as on its
arrival at its destination until it is sold.
The preservative will also act as a deodorizer, and will restore tainted and
discoloured meat to its original colour and sweetness. Thus, a piece of tainted
meat, first coated with the preservative (which is then wiped off with a wet cloth
or sponge), will be at once restored, and this restoration is effected, not by virtue
of any disinfecting power which the preservative possesses, chemically speaking, but
from the fact that it instantly surrounds and seizes hold of the germs existing on
the meat, which are thereby isolated, and caught in a trap, as it were, and prevented
from further contact with the meat.
When packing butter, lard, or cheese, the box or barrel should first receive a
coating of the saccharine solution, and the substance to be preserved, which is made
up in any convenient form, is carefully packed therein and covered with saccharine
solution.
In most cases, there will be a large quantity of moisture in butter, so that the
solution used in packing the same must either be stronger than that used with
fresh meat, or I may use a solution of the ordinary density in combination with
dry powdered sugar, which will combine with the water contained in the butter,
and thus maintain the solution at the proper consistency.
By the employment of my preservative for packing butter, the use of salt in the
manufacture will be unnecessary, as the butter will be preserved good for any
length of time by being covered with the saccharine solution.

page_text: When the articles of food subjected to my mode of preserving are required for
use, it will only be necessary to wash off the saccharine solution with water and
they will be ready for cooking or other purposes.
Or it
The saccharine solution may be employed four or five times over, but after that
time, it is desirable it should be strained to take out extraneous matters.
can be reprepared, as at first, at end of each voyage, at a merely nominal cost.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
1. The mode herein described of packing and preserving animal food, and food
obtained from animal products, substantially as herein set forth.
2. In preserving animal food, and food obtained from animal products, the use
of a neutral saccharine solution, substantially as set forth.