August 16, 2023 • 38 mins
Canned food existed for almost 50 years before the can opener, and even then it took us centuries to come up with a really good one. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren pop open the history and physics of these finger-saving devices.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction by Her And I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And today we have a classic episode for you about
can openers.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This is a favorite of mine me too. I really
enjoy it on a lot of levels about just can
openers can encompass so much and I've learned since we've
did this one. Uh, I don't know how to work
(00:40):
most of them. Okay, I have a story behind this,
but yes, we are talking about can openers. Any reason
that you had can openers on your mind? I was
just kind of going through the archive and it seems
like a fun one. It's from June of twenty eighteen.
(01:00):
I didn't really It feels much fresher in my mind
than that. It feels like only yesterday that we were
struggling with that can of corn beef and that I
was painstakingly writing out the physical description of how a
can works. So I've said it before, I'll say it again.
(01:22):
One of my very favorite pictures we've ever taken together
was when are at the time social media person Alison,
Who's amazing. It was like, let's film you try to
open this corn beef thing, and it took twelve minutes,
and there's a very funny picture where you're looking into
(01:44):
the camera holding a knife and I'm just laughing, unaware
of the danger present.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's really good.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah that was that was That was epic,
was I And this is all bringing back to me
the fact that Annie, I have failed you. I still
have not given you one of these easy open can
openers that just pops the seal. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry,
(02:18):
my dude that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I well, as I told you, I really could use it.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I recently had to.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I was house sitting for a friend and said friend
was very kind and was like, provided me with a
lot of food and things. I was able to figure
out most of their kitchen without problem. Okay, but the
issue came I needed the can opener, and I kid
(02:55):
you not, I couldn't even recognize what the can opener.
When I eventually was like, I think this might be
the can opener, I didn't like. I think I'd passed
that thing over several times. It didn't look like a
can opener to me.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, it was one of the styles that you're not
used to.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Sure, yes, and I almost was like I'm gonna have
to text her and ask her, do you have a
can opener?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
How does it work? Like?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It was a mess, and it was a poorly tired
to miss because I have the friends over and we
were cooking something and we really.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Need you need it, yeah, in a timely manner.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, it was very funny though. I was like, I
just don't know how to work this thing. And one
of my friends eventually figured it out. What I think,
she had to google it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's great. Openers are complicated, they are. They are. I
myself had to I'm in like a kind of like
comedically hilarious housing and car situation right now where my
car isn't working and I'm in this temporary home. It's
all about to work out, I swear. But but yeah,
(04:09):
I had to door dash a can opener so I
could continue cooking dinner the other night. I was like,
all right, well, the next step can just wait for
twenty to thirty seven minutes. I guess that's gonna be.
It's gonna be absolutely fine. The struggle is real. Apparently
(04:34):
all of my googling didn't come up with any particularly
striking can opener news that was not unexpected. But apparently
there's there's a can opener thing on the show Suits.
I haven't watched that show. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
No, I'm either, but I am curious.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, I feel like can openers.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Can openers. You have your one that you know and
then that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I just.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And then when it doesn't work, it is a big problem.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's a whole can of worms. It's a anyway, maybe
maybe we should perhaps allow former Annie and Lauren to
take it away.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and
I'm more in.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Vocal Bomb And Okay, Annie, Well we're talking about can
openers today.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, mostly can openers and cans kind.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Of kind of a little bit. Yeah, a whole other
episode on canned food will need to be forthcoming. Yeah, absolutely,
But can opener technology is also really interesting, especially because
the can opener wasn't invented for almost fifty years after
cans were invented.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, and I want struggles being real.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Speaking of struggles being real, Lauren and I engaged in
a twelve minute battle to open a can of corn
beef a week ago maybe.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
It got us thinking because it was a can opener
that eventually saved the day.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It was we tried with the little key.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Oh right. It was one of those those rectangular, kind
of trapezoidal cans that has little the little pull key
on it that hypothetically you're supposed to be able to
like twist the key and the there's a seam in
the can that will kind of pop, and then you
can like twist the seam around the edge of the
(06:53):
can and it will just release. That's not what happened
to us.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, It's one of my favorite things is I we
have footage of this. We have video footage of this,
and I sped it up and it still took six
minutes of us trying to open a can.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's pretty embarrassing and hilarious and hopefully hilarious. Yes, I
laugh about it now now.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
It wasn't quite so funny at the time. I put
like circus music in the background.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
It's very appropriate.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, we will post it eventually somewhere. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And if you saw on social the picture I posted
for Lauren's birthday, oh yeaing.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
With the knife. That's how we were desperate.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, we were desperate. The knife didn't work, FYI.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
No, nothing worked, but the can opener, which is what
we're talking about today.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, so can opener. What is it?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
It is a device for opening cans.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, there you go.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It can be manual or electric, and I myself have
never figured out how to use the electric variety.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's a running joke in my family. I cannot do it.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I put it on there and it doesn't do.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It doesn't do, and then my mom comes over and
she just does some kind of slightly different gesture and
it works. I don't know if maybe I have at
my house an interesting one, or I'm just maybe I'm
not meant to open cans. I'm starting to think about
my whole life. That's a possibility. I you know, you
(08:41):
can do without them, and these are modern times of refrigeration,
so yes, But in an apocalypse situation, I'm going to
be Oh, I'm gonna be in some trouble.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
You also wouldn't need the electrical one, so.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's true, Okay, I'll be fine, Okay. In the UK,
or perhaps with Commonwealth English, a can opener might be
called a ten sure fyi. And from nineteen seventy two
to now ish we have produced globally over three trillion
cans sixty four million tons of those are aluminum. That's
(09:13):
enough to go to the moon and back five hundred
times if they were stacked from end to end. Only
about a quarter of those are recycled, and a non
recycled can can take up to two hundred years to degrade. However,
if you do recycle, an aluminum can can be back
on the shelves in less than sixty days, and it
takes ninety five percent less energy to produce a can
(09:33):
from recycled aluminum as opposed to aluminum or Annually, billions
of cans are sold around the world, So recycle kids, especially, Yes,
I was going to say, especially certain materials are easier
to recycle.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yet, yes, and in terms of aluminum cans, recycle those, yeah, yes, absolutely.
A canned food is made by manipulating the temperature and
the pressure of the stuff inside the can, and you
do this by heating it to the temperature at which
water boils. That's two hundred and twelve fahrenheit and or
one hundred degrees celsius or higher. And at its most
(10:12):
basic here, you're looking to place the food or liquid
that you want to preserve in a receptacle that's airtight
except for the lid, which you place on top of
the receptacle. And you put this in a hot water bath,
and as the food or liquid in the can heats up,
it'll expand, pushing any remaining gases out of the can.
This creates an area of low pressure inside the receptacle
(10:34):
as compared with the normal atmosphere outside of it. Yeah,
as physics attempts to equalize that pressure in the volume
of air molecules inside and outside of the receptacle, that
the greater pressure outside will push the lid down really hard.
And if it's tight fitting enough, the differences in pressure
(10:55):
will be enough to form an air tight or vacuum
or hermetic seal.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And yes, I said pushed down, not pulled down.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Think of think of flying in an airplane. Okay, can
do all right. If some twilight zone stuff happens and
one of the windows on the plane pops out, William
Shatner or John let go take your pick. Isn't going
to get sucked out of the airplane. He'd get he'd
get pushed out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And that's because at commercial flight heights in our atmosphere
that the air is really thin. It's an area of
low pressure compared with the relatively high pressure inside of
the cabin. So if a window breaks, all that high
pressure air is gonna rush outward, pushing other objects like
William Shatner along with it. Similarly, the pressure is involved
in canning, push the lid down.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
I see physics.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I never worked on my Shatner impression.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Now I'm reminded that I need to. I need to
take some time and do that.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Oh, okay, more homework.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, good job.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Very important, and this technology is really great because a
the heat treatment generally gets the food hot enough for
long enough to kill off any microbes that might be
in there, and b that airtight seal prevents any more
other microbes from getting in. And because, as we've talked
about before, food spoils when microbes start eating it before
(12:19):
you get the chance to canning food means that the
food won't spoil for a long long time.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, pretty long.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think that corned beef that defeated US I believe
it was twenty twenty two, and that was the best buy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, so after that, it's just yeah, and there's some
stuff that we will not go into today about different
types of nutrients can degrade due to the canning process,
stuff like that. But in general, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, that's actually a topic I'd love to come back
to because some listeners have written in and ask how accurate,
How accurate could those nutrition labels possibly be for things
that might degrade over time or like a bag of
spinach that was when packed in one place? Anyway, more homework. Yes, Also,
(13:08):
poor cannon can lead to botulism.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Oh, it certainly can. That's because Cleisterdium bochulinum, the microbe
that causes botulism, only thrives without oxygen around. So if
if you can food improperly, if you don't heat it
to the right temperature to to get rid of stuff
like that, then it can start thriving inside of the
can and eventually bloat out the can from the from
(13:34):
the gases that it gives off as it eats your food.
It also gives off really really toxic botulism toxin. So
you don't want that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
No, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So that's that's why if you ever see a can
that's bloated outwards, don't eat that can. No. Yeah, And
generally cook food that you get out of a can
to an appropriate temperature before you start eating it. Usually
that's around ohness, like a one hundred and twenty two
to one hundred and sixty five degrees, depending on the components.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yes, yeah, food safety tip of the episode.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Dented cans are usually fine as long as the dent
is not along either the side seam or the top
or bottom. Scenes.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Seems not scenes different thing entirely.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, that is our primer of canning and the can opener.
But we've got some pretty interesting history for you.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
We do.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, but first we're gonna pause for a quick break
forward from our sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
The tail of the can Opener starts with Napoleon Bonaparte.
What yeah, huh, it's been a while a while since
we've talked about Napoleon.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, hey, Napoleon.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah hey.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
In seventeen ninety five, as he was wont to do,
Napoleon offered a prize to anyone who could figure out
a way to preserve.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Food for soldiers. Nicolas A.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Pear got the prize money in the early nineteenth century,
but his methods called not for ten cans, but glass
jars that were corked and sealed with wax, then wrapped
up and boiled. A pair also went on to publish
a book, The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And a fun aside.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, he was from the Champagne region of France, so
the first glass he used they were Champagne bottles sealed
with a lime and cheese mixture that seems to have
been effective. Later he did move on to wider lipped jars.
But I love thinking about buying like canned cord.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But but it's in a Champagne bottle.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Mm hmm. Finding ways to feed soldiers was a serious
business during the Seven Years War of the seventeen fifties.
It's estimated half of British seamen.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Died from malnutrition. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah. In eighteen ten, the same year that a pair
won the prize money over in the United Kingdom, King
George the third granted a patent for the first iron
and tin cans to an inventor named Peter durand, similar
to a pair, durand sealed food in the cans, submerged
them in cold water before slowly bringing the temperature up
to a boil, and then resealed them it seems Durand
(16:22):
was kind of interested in the fame of this whole thing.
While it may have been his patent, the patent comes
with this caveat an invention communicated to him by a
certain foreigner residing abroad, and that foreigner was Frenchman Philippe
de Gerard. Gerard couldn't get the product patented in his
own country because of some red tape, so he came
to London to get it done. But he couldn't take
(16:43):
it out himself because the two countries.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Were at war, oh Man.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So Peter Durand was like, okay, I'll do it. Then
Duran sold the patent to Brian Doncan for one thousand pounds.
England's first commercial canning company, Donkin Hall and Gamble, opened
in eighteen thirteen. Before going out, every can of food
they produced into a month at high temperatures as sort
of a quality assurance. And they were numbered two so
(17:08):
you could trace back where they came from. Yeah, and
soldiers loved the canned food. There's even a cove in
chilet called calleta Duncan named because of the arriving cruise
affinity for the canned food.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I mean, and when all you've got after that is
like is like a salt beef and hard tack. Then
it's easy to see why.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
A surgeon on a friendship wrote of the stuff quote
forms a most excellent restorative to convalescence and would often
on long voyages save the lives of many men who
run into consumption tuberculosis at sea for want of nourishment
after acute diseases. My opinion, therefore is that its adoption
generally at sea would be a most desirable and laudable act.
(17:51):
After trying over two year old canned veal, Sir Joseph
banks Over at the Royal Society declared it to be
in a quote perfect state of preservation, and that donkins
invention was one of the most important discoveries at the
age we live. In a letter penned by an engineer
in eighteen fifteen, read, I gave visitors a round of
(18:12):
English beef which was cooked by Messrs Donkin and Gamble
two years and four months before, which with a glass
of wine, made no bad lunch.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's kind of delightful, that is.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
They got a lot of letter to kind of fan letters.
By eighteen twenty one, the order for Donkin's canned food
was somewhere around at nine thousand pounds. That same year,
Donkin ended his relationship with the company and went on
to develop the first paper making machine. And it seems
he was genuinely just interested in inventing things. He wasn't
(18:47):
in it for the fame or the money. He kind
of was like, Okay, I did that. I'm going to
go do this wedding.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, goodbye. I already got a cove from that one,
so yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I'll have to visit my cove.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
These cans, though, they were very thick, and they weighed
anywhere from four to twenty pounds or about two to
nine kilos. Soldiers found they couldn't get them open unless
they used a hammer and chisel our very first pass
at a can opener, or they would just throw the
cans at things like rocks.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, just bash, just bash them until like, nope, there's
the food.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean, wouldn't it just go everywhere?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I guess if that's all you got.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I guess you form a technique. Yeah, they are men
the tool maker.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I bet a lot of people had a very specific technique.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Oh man, a certain kind of rock that you need.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
To get yeah, in shape certain angle.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, absolutely, cans sometimes actually came with the instruction quote
cut around at the top with the chisel and hammer.
But Lauren and I we used a knife like fools. Fools,
But we weren't the only fools, because instructions made out
on how to open a canister from Fortinam and Mace
(20:00):
in eighteen forty nine catalog red. First stab a hole
with the butt end of the knife near the upper
rim of the canister capital C. Then insert the blade
as far as it will go, Draw the handle towards you,
the claw resting towards the canister as a lever. When
the blade will be found to cut through the tin
with perfect ease, I somehow.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
To have as I some wowed out it too. And
I can see that you doubted it because in the
nerd in the notes here you said draw the handle
towards you, and then in parentheses what with like four
exclamation points, which definitely made me laugh out loud at
my desk, which made everyone look at me. But you know,
these things where were made of like wrought iron lined
(20:43):
with tin, and that combination of metal could be almost
a fifth of an inch thick. That's like five millimeters.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's bake. Yeah, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
And you can find in many a museum but also
online pictures of these old timey cans. And I I
like read the you know, five millimeters, like it.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Must be thick.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But then when I saw the picture, I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Oh, that's a bunch.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I don't know if our can openers would have been
able to put much of a dent in there.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Certainly certainly not the dinky little one.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Oh geez, I'm still mad about this whole thing. Madden tickled.
At the same time, I recently broke a can opener,
a manual one.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It just like the.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Wheels went everywhere. Again, I'm not sure I'm meant to
open cans. How about the pull tabs? Do you do
okay with those? Generally I have broken off the tab
many more than once, more than anyway. Not only were
these thick cans really tricky to open at am easily
(21:54):
six per hour, these cans were hard to produce.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
They were handmade.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Improvements to speed things up didn't come along until eighteen
forty six with Henry Evans's process to make a can
with a single motion, which brought production up to sixty
cans an hour. Alan Taylor patented a machine that produced
thinner cans quicker in eighteen forty seven, but we still
had no better method for opening them. In eighteen fifty one,
(22:18):
John Gamble, now at the helm of the company left
behind by Donkin, introduced a whole variety of canned foods
at the Great Exhibition. Canned food was more popular than
ever until until undiln In eighteen fifty two, an inspection
of three hundred and six cans of meat revealed only
forty two had not putrefied. The smell was so bad
(22:43):
the inspectors had to leave the room at one point
I think it was multiple times for fresh air, and
the stone floors where they were inspecting these cans had
be coated with chloride of lime. Some of the cans
contained bits of heart rotting tongues, some of the meat
was frown disease animals.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
He had ligaments, tendons, and an.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Entire quote perfectly putrid.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Kidney was found in one oho.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
This prompted a nationwide inspection, and this was in the UK.
Officers on the plover tossed five hundred and seventy pounds
of canned food into the bearing streets in eighteen fifty
three after finding it in a quote pulpy, decayed and
putrid state. This all seemed to trace back to the
eighteen forty five winner of the Admiralty contract, Stefan Goldner.
(23:30):
He'd won this contract because he was cheaper than everyone
else thanks to the chief labor he employed and the
corners that he cut. Despite a growing number of complaints,
he was re awarded the contract with a higher demand
for ten to meat in eighteen forty seven and again
in eighteen fifty. Goldner started using bigger cans, but he
did not cook them correctly. Some historians estimate over six
(23:52):
hundred thousand pounds ended up getting thrown away, valued somewhere
around six six hundred and ninety one pounds. Yeah, Goldner
was never allowed to provide food for the Navy again,
and it took about ten years for people to come
back around to canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
This was kind of like the event at which people
were like, maybe not this invention. Yeah, maybe never again.
This invention it was.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I've read in several places the thing that almost killed
canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Goldner also supplied the can food for Sir John Franklin's
doomed Arctic voyage and could have possibly played a role
in its fate. In eighteen forty seven, when the bodies
of the crew were discovered, they had high levels of lead,
which people attributed to lead leaking from the cans.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Or from the soldering material at the rims of the cans.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, and people were very scared and eager, not eager,
but ready to blame canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
However, more recent research suggests that it was more likely
the lead piping in the ship. Oh yeah, probably wasn't
the cans. Well, good, good, yeah, good for canned food
and can foods PR did recover with the help of
some ads about its nutritional benefits, and condensed milk became
the first mass produced can food item. And this kind
(25:13):
of brings us to some more can opener innovations, because again,
we really don't have a good way.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
To open these things yet.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Nope, nope, But first we're going to take one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. In the US, canned
items like oysters and meats hit the shelves around eighteen
(25:42):
twenty five, but can foods didn't really take off until
the Civil War. Again, we've got to feed those soldiers,
and the demand went up by six times.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Ezra Warner was the first to answer the call for
a better can opener with a US patent for one
in eighteen fifty eight.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Better better as.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
In not a hammer and chisel or a.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Knife heavy square scare quotes right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Nowadays it would be labeled as a bayonut and sickle,
if that gives you any idea. It does kind of
look like a combination of those two things. A blade
would penetrate into the top of the can, prevented from
going too deep by this kind of guard thing, and
then the sickle part, this curved blade would cut around
the top sort of like a saw, which left a
very not safe jagged edge. And so I know another
(26:33):
story in my tail with my bad luck with cans.
I sliced the dickens out of my head with the
edge of a can when I was two years old.
It's one of my first memories. Oh wow, how to
go to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I assume it wasn't a can opened by one of
these things, but nonetheless.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Could have been. Who knows.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Mysteries of Annie's history, Warner's design never really took off
outside of for soldiers in the civil or in grocery
stores where grocers would open cancer customers to take home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, Oh, And I want to mention here that that
Louis Pastor hadn't patented his process of pasteurization of heating
foods or drinks too to an appropriate temperature to kill
off microorganisms up until this point in history. That that
came in eighteen sixty five. So this whole time, this
heating of foods to make them safer was lucky. Wow,
(27:29):
it was lucky that like the ceiling works this way,
and so therefore the food got cooked, killed off bacteria. Ingrats, guys, yeah, kingrats,
you did a thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
You did. Perhaps you didn't understand why, but you did it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
A year later, in eighteen sixty six, Lauren and I's
arch Nemesis can opener was invented by Jay Osterholt. No
thanks to you, sir, the tin can with a key opener.
And yes you can still find these, particularly with canned meats.
I have been meaning to look up a video of
(28:04):
how it should work, because I'm still at a loss
for what went wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Me too, I'd like, were we not pulling hard enough
like I think we both have? Was it a matter
of strength, surprising arm strength? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's the can faulty many questions. The one, the can
opener that's most familiar, probably for most of those outside
of the electric one, came about in eighteen seventy courtesy
of one William Lyman. He patented a can opener that
used a rotary cutter method, but it did look a
bit different than what you'd find a day. It was
just a wheel that went around the can's edge, just
(28:41):
cutting away as it did. The design was refined in
the nineteen twenties by the Star Can Company.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Star Can Company.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yes, and Charles Arthur Bunker, who added the wheels serrated edges.
Before that, though, people lost a lot of fingers with
the so called bull beef can opener. And this thing
looked kind of like a wrench but with blades.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, this was like the fun update to that bayonet
style can opener, A little bit safer.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But a little not for your fingers.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
The name is because a lot of the can foods
in the army were ten meats, and these can openers
were what soldiers used during World War One. To get
to that stuff, I recommend looking out pictures of that
as well, because it's like.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, a lot of them were a terrifying looking, but
be decorated to look like little bulls with a little
like it kind of makes sense, like it's the you're
opening it with like the bulls jaw I guess right, yeah,
the corns. Yeah, it's it's interesting, fanciful, yeah, for something
that might take off a finger.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
The first known Hinz baked beans can traces back to
eighteen ninety five from an old recipe out of Boston,
and these cans made their way over to London in
nineteen oh one and have since become part of the
English breakfast. The UK is the number one consumer of
baked beans and the US isn't even in the top ten.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I just thought that was a little interesting. Yeah, yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
The double seaming of cans helped speed the process of
making them along in eighteen ninety six, and this.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Is a type of seal along along the lid of
the can, and it's still in use today, which is
fascinating to me. Okay, so when the lid is fitted
on the edge of the lid and the lip of
the cans cylinder, like the wall of the can, yeah,
are folded around each other and then crimped together. And
this can create that airtight seal that you're looking for.
And would you guys go on a visual journey with
(30:38):
me on this audio podcast, absolutely, because the way that
it's designed is super fascinating. I mean it's just really
clean design from a design standpoint. Okay, to picture what's
going on in this fold, it's like if you took
if you took a candy cane, okay, and pointed point
(30:59):
to it so that the crook is facing left, all right, yep.
The straight edge of the cane is the wall of
the can, and the crook is this little extra bit
of metal that's going to help form the seal.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Okay, all right, yep.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now take a question.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Mark okay, well, this is fun and rotate.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It ninety degrees counterclockwise.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Okay, all right, so.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
That the crook is kind of facing down and like
the flat flat bit is parallel to the ground. Does
that make sense?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It does?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Okay. The straight edge of the mark is the lid
of the can, okay, And the crook of the question
mark is a little extra bit that's also going to
help form the seal. So you fit the crook of
the candy cane into the crook of the question mark
and while wow, press them together and that's it.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
That was amazing, Laurence.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I'm just shocked that it worked.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I just went on this journey in my head. It's wonderful.
I was in it all the way.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
So, yeah, it's a really ingenious way of just making it,
making it do.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I add a little bit of glue or a rubber
seal in there, and it's very effective.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Centuries olt century centuryls.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
In nineteen thirty one, the electric can opener entered the market.
The company behind it, the Bucker Clancy Company, faced a
lawsuit from the Star can Opener, but they changed their
design enough that they.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Were able to get away with it.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It took twenty five years before they became practical, though,
thanks to a father and daughter duo that came up
with one in their garage that could freestand on the
kitchen counter.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
The first Canda beer cougar cream ale out of Virginia
went on sale in nineteen thirty five. Several can openers
were developed for soldiers during World War two. A lot
of them were more compact, perhaps your Swiss army knife
of multiple uses shan opener. Andy Warhol's painting of thirty
two soup cans hits the art scene in nineteen sixty two.
(33:12):
In nineteen sixty three, Emmy Rays invented the easy open
aluminum can top, especially useful for can drinks. Before that,
you had to use a tool that left a triangle
hole on the top of cans to get to your drink. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, you'd make one little one little punch on one
side of the lid and another little punch on the
other so that you aren't going to get the liquid
pressure stopping from pouring it out.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I feel like I've been to perhaps the hipster esque restaurant.
I still still use it, I think so. I've definitely
drank out of a can like that before.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
In the nineteen sixties, we saw patents for machines that
would unfold that that folded seal of a tin can.
But they took a lot of energy, and that's we're
more of an industrial thing than home use kind of object.
In the eighties, people were experimenting with can openers that
acted on the cylinder wall of the can rather than
(34:08):
on the lid, though that still left a sharp edge
and like wasn't necessarily easier than attacking the lid. But
in nineteen ninety three we finally saw a patent for
the safety can opener, which is my favorite type of
can opener. Okay, all right, So rather than cutting through
the wall of the can or the lid of the can,
(34:31):
it cuts through the outermost layer of that folded seam,
which which is just a little piece of the lid.
So you just cut through the outermost layer of that.
And the way that the way that it works, it
also like bends the metal out a little bit, so
so you you just cut around the seam of the
of the lid rather than the actual huh, lid itself,
(34:54):
and it just pops right off wow boop, and then
it can and you can just kind of pop it
right back on again. No, no sharp edges.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Man, I've never heard of this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh oh man, Okay, probably what I need. I'm going
to go get you one, like right after this podcast.
Do you apparently need one very badly?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Canned food got a boost after the recession in the
US in two thousand and nine about eleven percent increase.
And there was a lot of talk before that of
can food was going to be a dying industry. It's
going to be replaced by frozen food or just like
bagged bagged food. But people in the can food industry
(35:36):
seem pretty confident.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
That it's sticking around.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah, and I would agree.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, and now we have ways to get to the
food inside the can.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Thanks to the can opener.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yes, yes, so that is our look story.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, oh, story of the can opener.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
The story of the can opener. It is a very
interesting one.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
I just love it.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Us that long too to figure out how to do it. Yeah,
and I mean you and I still still struggle, me
more so than you.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But I wouldn't call what I do in that video
succeeding with flying colors.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So no one succeeded in that video except for the
can of corn. It was.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It was the winner that day.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yeah, we just.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Left feeling very humbled perhaps, Yes, and that brings us
to the end of this classic episode on the can opener.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I will say it's like an addendum to our outline.
There there was another boom in canned food sales early
in the COVID nineteen pandemic, and it's remained. Sales have
remained higher than they were in years leading up to that.
Experts cite the high prices of fresh foods and also
(37:05):
people just being busy and kind of like meetings, just like,
oh no, that's that's close enough.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Here we go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah, And for people who have been listening to the show,
I mean, you know, I had my whole refrigerator problem.
I had to get real creative if you didn't want to,
like go to the grocery store to you often during
the pandemic and you just get a lot more stable stuff. Yeah,
so that makes sense, That makes sense. I would love
to hear from listeners though your can opener preferences, difficulties.
(37:38):
Let's let's share our.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Difficult Yeah, yeah, safe space.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And I'm just curious, Well, if you want to send
those difficulties to us, you can. Our email is hello
at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. In my
Heart Radio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction by Her And I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And today we have a classic episode for you about
can openers.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This is a favorite of mine me too. I really
enjoy it on a lot of levels about just can
openers can encompass so much and I've learned since we've
did this one. Uh, I don't know how to work
(00:40):
most of them. Okay, I have a story behind this,
but yes, we are talking about can openers. Any reason
that you had can openers on your mind? I was
just kind of going through the archive and it seems
like a fun one. It's from June of twenty eighteen.
(01:00):
I didn't really It feels much fresher in my mind
than that. It feels like only yesterday that we were
struggling with that can of corn beef and that I
was painstakingly writing out the physical description of how a
can works. So I've said it before, I'll say it again.
(01:22):
One of my very favorite pictures we've ever taken together
was when are at the time social media person Alison,
Who's amazing. It was like, let's film you try to
open this corn beef thing, and it took twelve minutes,
and there's a very funny picture where you're looking into
(01:44):
the camera holding a knife and I'm just laughing, unaware
of the danger present.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's really good.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah that was that was That was epic,
was I And this is all bringing back to me
the fact that Annie, I have failed you. I still
have not given you one of these easy open can
openers that just pops the seal. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry,
(02:18):
my dude that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I well, as I told you, I really could use it.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I recently had to.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I was house sitting for a friend and said friend
was very kind and was like, provided me with a
lot of food and things. I was able to figure
out most of their kitchen without problem. Okay, but the
issue came I needed the can opener, and I kid
(02:55):
you not, I couldn't even recognize what the can opener.
When I eventually was like, I think this might be
the can opener, I didn't like. I think I'd passed
that thing over several times. It didn't look like a
can opener to me.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, it was one of the styles that you're not
used to.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Sure, yes, and I almost was like I'm gonna have
to text her and ask her, do you have a
can opener?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
How does it work? Like?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It was a mess, and it was a poorly tired
to miss because I have the friends over and we
were cooking something and we really.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Need you need it, yeah, in a timely manner.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, it was very funny though. I was like, I
just don't know how to work this thing. And one
of my friends eventually figured it out. What I think,
she had to google it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's great. Openers are complicated, they are. They are. I
myself had to I'm in like a kind of like
comedically hilarious housing and car situation right now where my
car isn't working and I'm in this temporary home. It's
all about to work out, I swear. But but yeah,
(04:09):
I had to door dash a can opener so I
could continue cooking dinner the other night. I was like,
all right, well, the next step can just wait for
twenty to thirty seven minutes. I guess that's gonna be.
It's gonna be absolutely fine. The struggle is real. Apparently
(04:34):
all of my googling didn't come up with any particularly
striking can opener news that was not unexpected. But apparently
there's there's a can opener thing on the show Suits.
I haven't watched that show. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
No, I'm either, but I am curious.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, I feel like can openers.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Can openers. You have your one that you know and
then that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I just.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And then when it doesn't work, it is a big problem.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's a whole can of worms. It's a anyway, maybe
maybe we should perhaps allow former Annie and Lauren to
take it away.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and
I'm more in.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Vocal Bomb And Okay, Annie, Well we're talking about can
openers today.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, mostly can openers and cans kind.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Of kind of a little bit. Yeah, a whole other
episode on canned food will need to be forthcoming. Yeah, absolutely,
But can opener technology is also really interesting, especially because
the can opener wasn't invented for almost fifty years after
cans were invented.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, and I want struggles being real.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Speaking of struggles being real, Lauren and I engaged in
a twelve minute battle to open a can of corn
beef a week ago maybe.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
It got us thinking because it was a can opener
that eventually saved the day.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It was we tried with the little key.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Oh right. It was one of those those rectangular, kind
of trapezoidal cans that has little the little pull key
on it that hypothetically you're supposed to be able to
like twist the key and the there's a seam in
the can that will kind of pop, and then you
can like twist the seam around the edge of the
(06:53):
can and it will just release. That's not what happened
to us.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, It's one of my favorite things is I we
have footage of this. We have video footage of this,
and I sped it up and it still took six
minutes of us trying to open a can.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's pretty embarrassing and hilarious and hopefully hilarious. Yes, I
laugh about it now now.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
It wasn't quite so funny at the time. I put
like circus music in the background.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
It's very appropriate.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, we will post it eventually somewhere. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And if you saw on social the picture I posted
for Lauren's birthday, oh yeaing.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
With the knife. That's how we were desperate.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, we were desperate. The knife didn't work, FYI.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
No, nothing worked, but the can opener, which is what
we're talking about today.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, so can opener. What is it?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
It is a device for opening cans.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, there you go.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It can be manual or electric, and I myself have
never figured out how to use the electric variety.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's a running joke in my family. I cannot do it.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I put it on there and it doesn't do.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It doesn't do, and then my mom comes over and
she just does some kind of slightly different gesture and
it works. I don't know if maybe I have at
my house an interesting one, or I'm just maybe I'm
not meant to open cans. I'm starting to think about
my whole life. That's a possibility. I you know, you
(08:41):
can do without them, and these are modern times of refrigeration,
so yes, But in an apocalypse situation, I'm going to
be Oh, I'm gonna be in some trouble.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
You also wouldn't need the electrical one, so.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's true, Okay, I'll be fine, Okay. In the UK,
or perhaps with Commonwealth English, a can opener might be
called a ten sure fyi. And from nineteen seventy two
to now ish we have produced globally over three trillion
cans sixty four million tons of those are aluminum. That's
(09:13):
enough to go to the moon and back five hundred
times if they were stacked from end to end. Only
about a quarter of those are recycled, and a non
recycled can can take up to two hundred years to degrade. However,
if you do recycle, an aluminum can can be back
on the shelves in less than sixty days, and it
takes ninety five percent less energy to produce a can
(09:33):
from recycled aluminum as opposed to aluminum or Annually, billions
of cans are sold around the world, So recycle kids, especially, Yes,
I was going to say, especially certain materials are easier
to recycle.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yet, yes, and in terms of aluminum cans, recycle those, yeah, yes, absolutely.
A canned food is made by manipulating the temperature and
the pressure of the stuff inside the can, and you
do this by heating it to the temperature at which
water boils. That's two hundred and twelve fahrenheit and or
one hundred degrees celsius or higher. And at its most
(10:12):
basic here, you're looking to place the food or liquid
that you want to preserve in a receptacle that's airtight
except for the lid, which you place on top of
the receptacle. And you put this in a hot water bath,
and as the food or liquid in the can heats up,
it'll expand, pushing any remaining gases out of the can.
This creates an area of low pressure inside the receptacle
(10:34):
as compared with the normal atmosphere outside of it. Yeah,
as physics attempts to equalize that pressure in the volume
of air molecules inside and outside of the receptacle, that
the greater pressure outside will push the lid down really hard.
And if it's tight fitting enough, the differences in pressure
(10:55):
will be enough to form an air tight or vacuum
or hermetic seal.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And yes, I said pushed down, not pulled down.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Think of think of flying in an airplane. Okay, can
do all right. If some twilight zone stuff happens and
one of the windows on the plane pops out, William
Shatner or John let go take your pick. Isn't going
to get sucked out of the airplane. He'd get he'd
get pushed out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And that's because at commercial flight heights in our atmosphere
that the air is really thin. It's an area of
low pressure compared with the relatively high pressure inside of
the cabin. So if a window breaks, all that high
pressure air is gonna rush outward, pushing other objects like
William Shatner along with it. Similarly, the pressure is involved
in canning, push the lid down.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
I see physics.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I never worked on my Shatner impression.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Now I'm reminded that I need to. I need to
take some time and do that.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Oh, okay, more homework.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, good job.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Very important, and this technology is really great because a
the heat treatment generally gets the food hot enough for
long enough to kill off any microbes that might be
in there, and b that airtight seal prevents any more
other microbes from getting in. And because, as we've talked
about before, food spoils when microbes start eating it before
(12:19):
you get the chance to canning food means that the
food won't spoil for a long long time.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, pretty long.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think that corned beef that defeated US I believe
it was twenty twenty two, and that was the best buy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, so after that, it's just yeah, and there's some
stuff that we will not go into today about different
types of nutrients can degrade due to the canning process,
stuff like that. But in general, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, that's actually a topic I'd love to come back
to because some listeners have written in and ask how accurate,
How accurate could those nutrition labels possibly be for things
that might degrade over time or like a bag of
spinach that was when packed in one place? Anyway, more homework. Yes, Also,
(13:08):
poor cannon can lead to botulism.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Oh, it certainly can. That's because Cleisterdium bochulinum, the microbe
that causes botulism, only thrives without oxygen around. So if
if you can food improperly, if you don't heat it
to the right temperature to to get rid of stuff
like that, then it can start thriving inside of the
can and eventually bloat out the can from the from
(13:34):
the gases that it gives off as it eats your food.
It also gives off really really toxic botulism toxin. So
you don't want that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
No, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So that's that's why if you ever see a can
that's bloated outwards, don't eat that can. No. Yeah, And
generally cook food that you get out of a can
to an appropriate temperature before you start eating it. Usually
that's around ohness, like a one hundred and twenty two
to one hundred and sixty five degrees, depending on the components.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yes, yeah, food safety tip of the episode.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Dented cans are usually fine as long as the dent
is not along either the side seam or the top
or bottom. Scenes.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Seems not scenes different thing entirely.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, that is our primer of canning and the can opener.
But we've got some pretty interesting history for you.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
We do.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, but first we're gonna pause for a quick break
forward from our sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
The tail of the can Opener starts with Napoleon Bonaparte.
What yeah, huh, it's been a while a while since
we've talked about Napoleon.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, hey, Napoleon.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah hey.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
In seventeen ninety five, as he was wont to do,
Napoleon offered a prize to anyone who could figure out
a way to preserve.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Food for soldiers. Nicolas A.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Pear got the prize money in the early nineteenth century,
but his methods called not for ten cans, but glass
jars that were corked and sealed with wax, then wrapped
up and boiled. A pair also went on to publish
a book, The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And a fun aside.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, he was from the Champagne region of France, so
the first glass he used they were Champagne bottles sealed
with a lime and cheese mixture that seems to have
been effective. Later he did move on to wider lipped jars.
But I love thinking about buying like canned cord.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But but it's in a Champagne bottle.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Mm hmm. Finding ways to feed soldiers was a serious
business during the Seven Years War of the seventeen fifties.
It's estimated half of British seamen.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Died from malnutrition. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah. In eighteen ten, the same year that a pair
won the prize money over in the United Kingdom, King
George the third granted a patent for the first iron
and tin cans to an inventor named Peter durand, similar
to a pair, durand sealed food in the cans, submerged
them in cold water before slowly bringing the temperature up
to a boil, and then resealed them it seems Durand
(16:22):
was kind of interested in the fame of this whole thing.
While it may have been his patent, the patent comes
with this caveat an invention communicated to him by a
certain foreigner residing abroad, and that foreigner was Frenchman Philippe
de Gerard. Gerard couldn't get the product patented in his
own country because of some red tape, so he came
to London to get it done. But he couldn't take
(16:43):
it out himself because the two countries.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Were at war, oh Man.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So Peter Durand was like, okay, I'll do it. Then
Duran sold the patent to Brian Doncan for one thousand pounds.
England's first commercial canning company, Donkin Hall and Gamble, opened
in eighteen thirteen. Before going out, every can of food
they produced into a month at high temperatures as sort
of a quality assurance. And they were numbered two so
(17:08):
you could trace back where they came from. Yeah, and
soldiers loved the canned food. There's even a cove in
chilet called calleta Duncan named because of the arriving cruise
affinity for the canned food.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I mean, and when all you've got after that is
like is like a salt beef and hard tack. Then
it's easy to see why.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
A surgeon on a friendship wrote of the stuff quote
forms a most excellent restorative to convalescence and would often
on long voyages save the lives of many men who
run into consumption tuberculosis at sea for want of nourishment
after acute diseases. My opinion, therefore is that its adoption
generally at sea would be a most desirable and laudable act.
(17:51):
After trying over two year old canned veal, Sir Joseph
banks Over at the Royal Society declared it to be
in a quote perfect state of preservation, and that donkins
invention was one of the most important discoveries at the
age we live. In a letter penned by an engineer
in eighteen fifteen, read, I gave visitors a round of
(18:12):
English beef which was cooked by Messrs Donkin and Gamble
two years and four months before, which with a glass
of wine, made no bad lunch.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's kind of delightful, that is.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
They got a lot of letter to kind of fan letters.
By eighteen twenty one, the order for Donkin's canned food
was somewhere around at nine thousand pounds. That same year,
Donkin ended his relationship with the company and went on
to develop the first paper making machine. And it seems
he was genuinely just interested in inventing things. He wasn't
(18:47):
in it for the fame or the money. He kind
of was like, Okay, I did that. I'm going to
go do this wedding.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, goodbye. I already got a cove from that one,
so yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
I'll have to visit my cove.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
These cans, though, they were very thick, and they weighed
anywhere from four to twenty pounds or about two to
nine kilos. Soldiers found they couldn't get them open unless
they used a hammer and chisel our very first pass
at a can opener, or they would just throw the
cans at things like rocks.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, just bash, just bash them until like, nope, there's
the food.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean, wouldn't it just go everywhere?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I guess if that's all you got.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I guess you form a technique. Yeah, they are men
the tool maker.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I bet a lot of people had a very specific technique.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Oh man, a certain kind of rock that you need.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
To get yeah, in shape certain angle.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, absolutely, cans sometimes actually came with the instruction quote
cut around at the top with the chisel and hammer.
But Lauren and I we used a knife like fools. Fools,
But we weren't the only fools, because instructions made out
on how to open a canister from Fortinam and Mace
(20:00):
in eighteen forty nine catalog red. First stab a hole
with the butt end of the knife near the upper
rim of the canister capital C. Then insert the blade
as far as it will go, Draw the handle towards you,
the claw resting towards the canister as a lever. When
the blade will be found to cut through the tin
with perfect ease, I somehow.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
To have as I some wowed out it too. And
I can see that you doubted it because in the
nerd in the notes here you said draw the handle
towards you, and then in parentheses what with like four
exclamation points, which definitely made me laugh out loud at
my desk, which made everyone look at me. But you know,
these things where were made of like wrought iron lined
(20:43):
with tin, and that combination of metal could be almost
a fifth of an inch thick. That's like five millimeters.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's bake. Yeah, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
And you can find in many a museum but also
online pictures of these old timey cans. And I I
like read the you know, five millimeters, like it.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Must be thick.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But then when I saw the picture, I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Oh, that's a bunch.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I don't know if our can openers would have been
able to put much of a dent in there.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Certainly certainly not the dinky little one.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Oh geez, I'm still mad about this whole thing. Madden tickled.
At the same time, I recently broke a can opener,
a manual one.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It just like the.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Wheels went everywhere. Again, I'm not sure I'm meant to
open cans. How about the pull tabs? Do you do
okay with those? Generally I have broken off the tab
many more than once, more than anyway. Not only were
these thick cans really tricky to open at am easily
(21:54):
six per hour, these cans were hard to produce.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
They were handmade.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Improvements to speed things up didn't come along until eighteen
forty six with Henry Evans's process to make a can
with a single motion, which brought production up to sixty
cans an hour. Alan Taylor patented a machine that produced
thinner cans quicker in eighteen forty seven, but we still
had no better method for opening them. In eighteen fifty one,
(22:18):
John Gamble, now at the helm of the company left
behind by Donkin, introduced a whole variety of canned foods
at the Great Exhibition. Canned food was more popular than
ever until until undiln In eighteen fifty two, an inspection
of three hundred and six cans of meat revealed only
forty two had not putrefied. The smell was so bad
(22:43):
the inspectors had to leave the room at one point
I think it was multiple times for fresh air, and
the stone floors where they were inspecting these cans had
be coated with chloride of lime. Some of the cans
contained bits of heart rotting tongues, some of the meat
was frown disease animals.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
He had ligaments, tendons, and an.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Entire quote perfectly putrid.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Kidney was found in one oho.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
This prompted a nationwide inspection, and this was in the UK.
Officers on the plover tossed five hundred and seventy pounds
of canned food into the bearing streets in eighteen fifty
three after finding it in a quote pulpy, decayed and
putrid state. This all seemed to trace back to the
eighteen forty five winner of the Admiralty contract, Stefan Goldner.
(23:30):
He'd won this contract because he was cheaper than everyone
else thanks to the chief labor he employed and the
corners that he cut. Despite a growing number of complaints,
he was re awarded the contract with a higher demand
for ten to meat in eighteen forty seven and again
in eighteen fifty. Goldner started using bigger cans, but he
did not cook them correctly. Some historians estimate over six
(23:52):
hundred thousand pounds ended up getting thrown away, valued somewhere
around six six hundred and ninety one pounds. Yeah, Goldner
was never allowed to provide food for the Navy again,
and it took about ten years for people to come
back around to canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
This was kind of like the event at which people
were like, maybe not this invention. Yeah, maybe never again.
This invention it was.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I've read in several places the thing that almost killed
canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Goldner also supplied the can food for Sir John Franklin's
doomed Arctic voyage and could have possibly played a role
in its fate. In eighteen forty seven, when the bodies
of the crew were discovered, they had high levels of lead,
which people attributed to lead leaking from the cans.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Or from the soldering material at the rims of the cans.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, and people were very scared and eager, not eager,
but ready to blame canned food.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
However, more recent research suggests that it was more likely
the lead piping in the ship. Oh yeah, probably wasn't
the cans. Well, good, good, yeah, good for canned food
and can foods PR did recover with the help of
some ads about its nutritional benefits, and condensed milk became
the first mass produced can food item. And this kind
(25:13):
of brings us to some more can opener innovations, because again,
we really don't have a good way.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
To open these things yet.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Nope, nope, But first we're going to take one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. In the US, canned
items like oysters and meats hit the shelves around eighteen
(25:42):
twenty five, but can foods didn't really take off until
the Civil War. Again, we've got to feed those soldiers,
and the demand went up by six times.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Ezra Warner was the first to answer the call for
a better can opener with a US patent for one
in eighteen fifty eight.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Better better as.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
In not a hammer and chisel or a.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Knife heavy square scare quotes right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Nowadays it would be labeled as a bayonut and sickle,
if that gives you any idea. It does kind of
look like a combination of those two things. A blade
would penetrate into the top of the can, prevented from
going too deep by this kind of guard thing, and
then the sickle part, this curved blade would cut around
the top sort of like a saw, which left a
very not safe jagged edge. And so I know another
(26:33):
story in my tail with my bad luck with cans.
I sliced the dickens out of my head with the
edge of a can when I was two years old.
It's one of my first memories. Oh wow, how to
go to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I assume it wasn't a can opened by one of
these things, but nonetheless.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Could have been. Who knows.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Mysteries of Annie's history, Warner's design never really took off
outside of for soldiers in the civil or in grocery
stores where grocers would open cancer customers to take home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, Oh, And I want to mention here that that
Louis Pastor hadn't patented his process of pasteurization of heating
foods or drinks too to an appropriate temperature to kill
off microorganisms up until this point in history. That that
came in eighteen sixty five. So this whole time, this
heating of foods to make them safer was lucky. Wow,
(27:29):
it was lucky that like the ceiling works this way,
and so therefore the food got cooked, killed off bacteria. Ingrats, guys, yeah, kingrats,
you did a thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
You did. Perhaps you didn't understand why, but you did it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
A year later, in eighteen sixty six, Lauren and I's
arch Nemesis can opener was invented by Jay Osterholt. No
thanks to you, sir, the tin can with a key opener.
And yes you can still find these, particularly with canned meats.
I have been meaning to look up a video of
(28:04):
how it should work, because I'm still at a loss
for what went wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Me too, I'd like, were we not pulling hard enough
like I think we both have? Was it a matter
of strength, surprising arm strength? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's the can faulty many questions. The one, the can
opener that's most familiar, probably for most of those outside
of the electric one, came about in eighteen seventy courtesy
of one William Lyman. He patented a can opener that
used a rotary cutter method, but it did look a
bit different than what you'd find a day. It was
just a wheel that went around the can's edge, just
(28:41):
cutting away as it did. The design was refined in
the nineteen twenties by the Star Can Company.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Star Can Company.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yes, and Charles Arthur Bunker, who added the wheels serrated edges.
Before that, though, people lost a lot of fingers with
the so called bull beef can opener. And this thing
looked kind of like a wrench but with blades.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, this was like the fun update to that bayonet
style can opener, A little bit safer.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But a little not for your fingers.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
The name is because a lot of the can foods
in the army were ten meats, and these can openers
were what soldiers used during World War One. To get
to that stuff, I recommend looking out pictures of that
as well, because it's like.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, a lot of them were a terrifying looking, but
be decorated to look like little bulls with a little
like it kind of makes sense, like it's the you're
opening it with like the bulls jaw I guess right, yeah,
the corns. Yeah, it's it's interesting, fanciful, yeah, for something
that might take off a finger.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
The first known Hinz baked beans can traces back to
eighteen ninety five from an old recipe out of Boston,
and these cans made their way over to London in
nineteen oh one and have since become part of the
English breakfast. The UK is the number one consumer of
baked beans and the US isn't even in the top ten.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I just thought that was a little interesting. Yeah, yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
The double seaming of cans helped speed the process of
making them along in eighteen ninety six, and this.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Is a type of seal along along the lid of
the can, and it's still in use today, which is
fascinating to me. Okay, so when the lid is fitted
on the edge of the lid and the lip of
the cans cylinder, like the wall of the can, yeah,
are folded around each other and then crimped together. And
this can create that airtight seal that you're looking for.
And would you guys go on a visual journey with
(30:38):
me on this audio podcast, absolutely, because the way that
it's designed is super fascinating. I mean it's just really
clean design from a design standpoint. Okay, to picture what's
going on in this fold, it's like if you took
if you took a candy cane, okay, and pointed point
(30:59):
to it so that the crook is facing left, all right, yep.
The straight edge of the cane is the wall of
the can, and the crook is this little extra bit
of metal that's going to help form the seal.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Okay, all right, yep.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now take a question.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Mark okay, well, this is fun and rotate.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It ninety degrees counterclockwise.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Okay, all right, so.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
That the crook is kind of facing down and like
the flat flat bit is parallel to the ground. Does
that make sense?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It does?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Okay. The straight edge of the mark is the lid
of the can, okay, And the crook of the question
mark is a little extra bit that's also going to
help form the seal. So you fit the crook of
the candy cane into the crook of the question mark
and while wow, press them together and that's it.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
That was amazing, Laurence.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I'm just shocked that it worked.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I just went on this journey in my head. It's wonderful.
I was in it all the way.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
So, yeah, it's a really ingenious way of just making it,
making it do.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I add a little bit of glue or a rubber
seal in there, and it's very effective.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Centuries olt century centuryls.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
In nineteen thirty one, the electric can opener entered the market.
The company behind it, the Bucker Clancy Company, faced a
lawsuit from the Star can Opener, but they changed their
design enough that they.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Were able to get away with it.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It took twenty five years before they became practical, though,
thanks to a father and daughter duo that came up
with one in their garage that could freestand on the
kitchen counter.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
The first Canda beer cougar cream ale out of Virginia
went on sale in nineteen thirty five. Several can openers
were developed for soldiers during World War two. A lot
of them were more compact, perhaps your Swiss army knife
of multiple uses shan opener. Andy Warhol's painting of thirty
two soup cans hits the art scene in nineteen sixty two.
(33:12):
In nineteen sixty three, Emmy Rays invented the easy open
aluminum can top, especially useful for can drinks. Before that,
you had to use a tool that left a triangle
hole on the top of cans to get to your drink. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, you'd make one little one little punch on one
side of the lid and another little punch on the
other so that you aren't going to get the liquid
pressure stopping from pouring it out.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I feel like I've been to perhaps the hipster esque restaurant.
I still still use it, I think so. I've definitely
drank out of a can like that before.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
In the nineteen sixties, we saw patents for machines that
would unfold that that folded seal of a tin can.
But they took a lot of energy, and that's we're
more of an industrial thing than home use kind of object.
In the eighties, people were experimenting with can openers that
acted on the cylinder wall of the can rather than
(34:08):
on the lid, though that still left a sharp edge
and like wasn't necessarily easier than attacking the lid. But
in nineteen ninety three we finally saw a patent for
the safety can opener, which is my favorite type of
can opener. Okay, all right, So rather than cutting through
the wall of the can or the lid of the can,
(34:31):
it cuts through the outermost layer of that folded seam,
which which is just a little piece of the lid.
So you just cut through the outermost layer of that.
And the way that the way that it works, it
also like bends the metal out a little bit, so
so you you just cut around the seam of the
of the lid rather than the actual huh, lid itself,
(34:54):
and it just pops right off wow boop, and then
it can and you can just kind of pop it
right back on again. No, no sharp edges.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Man, I've never heard of this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh oh man, Okay, probably what I need. I'm going
to go get you one, like right after this podcast.
Do you apparently need one very badly?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Canned food got a boost after the recession in the
US in two thousand and nine about eleven percent increase.
And there was a lot of talk before that of
can food was going to be a dying industry. It's
going to be replaced by frozen food or just like
bagged bagged food. But people in the can food industry
(35:36):
seem pretty confident.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
That it's sticking around.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah, and I would agree.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, and now we have ways to get to the
food inside the can.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Thanks to the can opener.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yes, yes, so that is our look story.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, oh, story of the can opener.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
The story of the can opener. It is a very
interesting one.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
I just love it.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Us that long too to figure out how to do it. Yeah,
and I mean you and I still still struggle, me
more so than you.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But I wouldn't call what I do in that video
succeeding with flying colors.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So no one succeeded in that video except for the
can of corn. It was.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It was the winner that day.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yeah, we just.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Left feeling very humbled perhaps, Yes, and that brings us
to the end of this classic episode on the can opener.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I will say it's like an addendum to our outline.
There there was another boom in canned food sales early
in the COVID nineteen pandemic, and it's remained. Sales have
remained higher than they were in years leading up to that.
Experts cite the high prices of fresh foods and also
(37:05):
people just being busy and kind of like meetings, just like,
oh no, that's that's close enough.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Here we go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah, And for people who have been listening to the show,
I mean, you know, I had my whole refrigerator problem.
I had to get real creative if you didn't want to,
like go to the grocery store to you often during
the pandemic and you just get a lot more stable stuff. Yeah,
so that makes sense, That makes sense. I would love
to hear from listeners though your can opener preferences, difficulties.
(37:38):
Let's let's share our.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Difficult Yeah, yeah, safe space.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And I'm just curious, Well, if you want to send
those difficulties to us, you can. Our email is hello
at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. In my
Heart Radio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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