Scalding, Precooking, and Chilling as Prreliminary Canning Operations

Experience in the canning of certain food products has indicated that scalding the freshly prepared raw-food materials in boiling water, or exposing them to the action of live steam for a short time, has distinct advantages. This procedure, which is commonly but erroneously termed "blanching," is widely practiced among both home and commercial canners. Commonly associated with it is another operation, namely, the chilling of the freshly scalded materials in cold water before packing into the jars and cans. These two steps in the preliminary treatment were at first applied to a few specific materials, but largely through the influence of enthusiastic proponents of the idea they have come to be applied to the handling of all sorts of materials.

Just what purposes these operations were thought to serve, and the advantages to be derived from them have been set forth in a voluminous literature, the bulk of which has appeared within the last six or seven years. While many of the writers have contributed materially to present-day practices in canning technology, a detailed consideration of their papers is beyond the scope of this bulletin, and a brief general review dealing particularly with the subjects under present discussion will, for the great majority of them, necessarily suffice.

Magoon, Charles Alden

Culpepper, Charles W.

National Agricultural Library

1924

U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin Number 1265