PRESERVATIVE EFFECT OF FROST, ON BUTCHER’S MEAT, FISH, AND FOWL.
The preservative effect of frost on dead animal matter are of the utmost importance to the northern nations, by enabling them to store up a sufficient stock of all manner of animal provisions for their winter supply, and to receive stores from a great distance.
There is annually held at St. Petersburg and Moscow what is called the frozen, or winter market, for the sale of provisions solidified by frost. In a vast open square, the bodies of many thousand animals are seen on all sides, piled in pyramidal and quadrangular masses: fish, fowl, butter, eggs, hogs, sheep, deer, oxen, all rendered solid by frost. The different species of fish are strikingly beautiful; they possess the lustre and brilliancy of colour which characterises the different species in a living state.
Most of the larger kinds of quadrupeds are skinned, and classed according to their species; groups of many hundreds are piled upon their hind-legs, one against another, as if each were making an effort to climb over the back of his neighbour. The motionless, yet apparent animation of their seemingly struggling attitudes (as if they had died a sudden death), gives a horrid life to this singular scene of death. The solidity of the frozen creatures, is such, that the natives chop and saw them up, for the accommodation of the purchasers, like wood. These frozen provisions are the produce of countries very remote from each other. Siberia, Archangel, and still more distant provinces, furnish the merchandize which, during the severity of the frost, is conveyed hither on sledges.
In consequence of the multitude of these commodities, and the short period allowed to the existence of the market, they are cheaper than at any other time of the year, and are, therefore, purchased in larger quantities, to be stored, as a winter stock.
When disposed in cellars, they will keep, with care, for a considerable time during the cold season. All the provisions which remain, and are exposed to the temperate atmosphere, speedily putrify; but as the desertion of the frost is generally pretty well calculated, almost to a day, but little loss is suffered in this respect. The same advantage is taken of the cold in Canada, and all other countries, when the frost is sufficiently steady.
Substances, so long as they are hard frozen, probably undergo no chemical change, of which the most striking proof was afforded by the body of an animal, probably antediluvian, being found imbedded in a mass of ice at the mouth of the Lena; but in the act of freezing, or of the subsequent thawing, some alteration is produced, which affects the nature of the substance. This may be either merely mechanical, from the particles of ice during their formation, tearing asunder and separating the fibres, or chemical, by destroying the intimate union of the constituents of the fluids, as in wine injured by having been frozen; or by causing new combinations, of which we have an example in the sweetness acquired by the potatoe.
Captain Scoresby, contrary to popular belief, states, that “the most surprising action of the frost, on fresh provision, is in preserving it a long time from putrefaction, even after it is thawed and returns into a warm climate.[34] I have,” says he, “eaten unsalted mutton and beef nearly five months old, which has been constantly exposed to a temperature above the freezing point for four or five weeks in the outset, and occasionally assailed by the septical influences of rain, fog, heat, and electricity, and yet it has proved perfectly sweet. It may be remarked, that unsalted meat that has been preserved four or five months in a cold climate, and then brought back to the British coasts during the warmth of summer, must be consumed very speedily after it is cut into, or it will fail in a day or two. It will seldom, indeed, keep sweet after being cooked above twenty or thirty hours.”
[34] Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale Fishery.
In freezing animal substances, for the purpose of preserving them, no other precaution is necessary than exposing them to a sufficient degree of cold. “Animal substances,” says Captain Scoresby, “requisite as food, of all descriptions (fish excepted), may be taken to Greenland and there preserved any length of time, without being smoked, dried, or salted. No preparation of any kind is necessary for their preservation; nor is any other precaution requisite, excepting suspending them in the air when taken on shipboard, shielding them a little from the sun and wet, and immersing them occasionally in sea-water, or throwing sea-water over them after heavy rains, which will effectually prevent putrescency on the outward passage; and, in Greenland, the cold becomes a sufficient preservation, by freezing them as hard as blocks of wood. The moisture is well preserved by freezing, a little from the surface only evaporating; so that if cooked when three, four, or five months old, meat will frequently appear as profuse of gravy, as if it had been but recently killed.” Captain Scoresby has not informed us why fish cannot be taken to Greenland in a frozen state, though this is a mode of preservation much used in Russia and Germany, and even in this country.
Some attention is necessary for thawing provisions which have been frozen. “When used, the beef cannot be divided but by an axe or saw; the latter instrument is preferred. It is then put into cold water, from which it derives heat by the formation of ice around it, and soon thaws; but if put into hot water, much of the gravy is extracted, and the meat is injured without being thawed more readily. If an attempt be made to cook it before it is thawed, it may be burnt on the outside, while the centre remains raw, or actually in a frozen state.” These observations, which we have transcribed from Captain Scoresby, an excellent observer, agree with the directions of earlier writers. Thus Krünitz says,[35] “when fish taken under the ice are frozen, lay them in cold water, which thus draws the ice out of the fish, so that it can be scraped off their scales. They taste much better afterwards than when they are allowed to thaw in a warm room.”
[35] Encyclop. Vol. X. p. 586.