This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: To most consumers, canned food is an everyday convenience, but to John Coupland, professor of food science at Penn State, each can represents more than two centuries of invention, experimentation and problem-solving. In his new book, "Containing Nature: The Ongoing Invention of Canned Food," Coupland traces the evolution of canned food from its origins in late 18th-century France through the scientific breakthroughs, manufacturing advances and public health innovations that transformed the modern food system.
In this Q&A, Coupland discussed the hidden history of cans, the unexpected connections between military rations and grocery store staples and why the most familiar items still have the power to inspire wonder. Coupland: The idea has been simmering for a long time. When I interviewed for my faculty position at Penn State decades ago, part of the process included visiting a local canned food factory.
I walked in as a young scientist and realized I was surrounded by people with tremendous expertise that was very different from my own. These were people who had spent generations figuring out how to turn vegetables into a successful business. That experience stuck with me.
Years later, after serving as president of the Institute of Food Technologists and teaching Penn State's large general education course "Food Facts and Fads" about food and culture, I became increasingly interested in how people develop expertise and how technologies evolve. Canning turned out to be the perfect lens. Coupland: The inventor of canning, Nicolas Appert, was a leader in the French Revolution.
He even escorted the king to the guillotine. There is a myth that he was somehow paid to develop military rations by Napoleon, but, in fact, his workshop was destroyed twice during the Napoleonic Wars. It's interesting that Appert had no scientific training and made his discoveries by trial and error while making products for sale in his high-end grocery store in Paris.
Ironically, the first scientists who tried to explain canning were completely wrong, not because they lacked intelligence, but because they were working with the knowledge available at the time. Later advances in bacteriology and food science helped explain why foods spoil and how to prevent it. Science is a process of building knowledge, revising ideas and responding to new questions.
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