FOOD CONTAINERS
Although olive oil, pickles, and other foods that do not require sterilization have been packed in glass and ceramic containers for centuries, the preserving of hot foods in airtight glass or metal containers is a comparatively recent development. Housewives in the eighteenth century knew how to preserve fruits by boiling them in glass jars that were subsequently corked and sealed with wax, glue, or pitch, but the idea of canning as we know it was popularized by Nicholas Appert, a French confectioner who in 1809 won a prize from Napoleon for his method of keeping food fresh for soldiers in the field. Appert succeeded in preserving over 50 kinds of food, including meats and vegetables, and published an essay detailing his method of boiling food in a wide-mouthed jar and sealing it with a firmly driven cork. The process was quickly copied in England and America, where seafood, fruit, and pickles were first packed for wholesale in New York and Boston about 1820.
A major problem with Appert’s method of preserving in glass was the irregular finish of hand-made bottles, which often prevented the cork stopper from forming an absolutely airtight seal. For commercial packers, an early and lasting solution was the tin-plated canister, patented in England in 1810 and in the United States in 1825. An inexpensive and effective closure for glass containers had to await John Mason’s 1858 patent of the threaded jar seal, which consisted of a molded screw thread that allowed the cap to seal on the shoulder rather than the uneven lip of the jar. Home canners still use a similar screw-top jar today.
Many Americans, both civilian and military, had their first taste of commercially canned foods during the Civil War. Increasing varieties of meats and vegetables were packed in tin cans in the late nineteenth century, but glass bottles remained—and still remain—chiefly the package of condiments, sauces, and other foods that require a reclosable cap.
These limited uses can nonetheless result in a large number of empty containers. Food bottles are usually one of the most numerous items found in a household trash heap. At Middleton Place, only four of a total of seventy-seven bottles were food containers, and all had originally held the preserves, flavorings, and oils that are usually packaged in glass. [Figure 23]A shows a “One-pound American preserve,” a jar sold at the turn of the century by at least one glass company, and [Figure 23]B is a typical late nineteenth/early twentieth century olive oil bottle. [Figure 24] shows both the excavated example and a 1920 catalogue illustration of a white pressed glass container for Armour’s Beef Extract, a by-product of the packing business produced by Armour & Co. beginning in 1885.
Figure 23. Preserve jar and olive oil bottle, c. 1860s-1920s.
Figure 24. Armour Beef Extract jar, c. 1900-1920s. Armour & Co. began producing beef extract in 1885, but this glass container was not used until around the turn of the century.
None Genuine without
4 OZ. NET WEIGHT
Armour’s
Extract of Beef
MANUFACTURED & PACKED BY
ARMOUR & CO,
Chicago. U.S.A.