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Its the jar seal that's the problem. Space age plastics have no problem with 240F, 1920s I donno they had to use wax or natural rubber? Edited to add, and the

by VLM 9y ago

Its the jar seal that's the problem. Space age plastics have no problem with 240F, 1920s I donno they had to use wax or natural rubber? Edited to add, and the jar too. The Ball Perfect Mason Jar was introduced in 1913 with a bead for the seal to rest upon. That would have been under patent and expensive in the 20s. So the tech (barely) existed to vacuum seal pressure cooked canned food in the 20s but it would have been patented and too expensive compared to cheaper cans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_jar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_jar

virmundi 9y ago
Just take a second to think about that. 1913. The Romans could not have made such a jar. They lacked the material science. Things like this amaze me. A Ball jar is a simple item from my daily perspective. It is in reality a fairly advanced piece of material science. So if you ever get flung back in time, probably your best best is evaporated sea salt. Then work your way up into simple cosmetics. You don't have the ability to create the supply chain necessary to create canning.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Dunno if the Romans couldn't have made it (their glassware was startlingly good for what we imagine was possible then, if you do a simple image search) but pre-Pasteur, people wouldn't have have conceived of a vacuum seal formed by heat and pressure as a food preservation technique worth pursuing.
  - virmundi 9y ago
    Nor could they have made a rubber for the seal. They didn't have access to the plants (Nazi's tried to use the only source that would have been available at the time to the Romans and failed [1]). Think of the supply chain required to get rubber plants from Asian or the Congo to a Roman city. Carthage would have had a hard time too. Even if they had rubber in enough quantity, they'd have to vulcanize [2] it to make it work. That was years, centuries beyond them. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization Edited for the vulcanization.
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      True, not out of rubber. But remember that air-blocking seals were important for the control of the fermentation process in wine production and preservation, and it's not beyond possible that they could have refined cruder pitch and resin based solutions if germ theory had been better understood then.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  To be fair, Romans not only mastered glass manudacturing (which in itself pre-dates them), they more or less invented (or however the material was first made during their period) "transparent glass" and - more than that - they invented "pressed glass", i.e. they were among the first to be able to mass produce glass objects, by blowing glass into pre-made moulds, JFYI: http://www.ancient.eu/article/592/ http://www.ancient.eu/article/592/ So, they would have been able to produce glass jars alright and would have probably used (like it was done for wine and amphorae ) "sealing wax" together with cork (and/or some resins): https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/history-wine-transport-8000-years/ https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/history-wine-transport-8000-y... And BTW, they were quite good at making airtight cans, too: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/28/artsnews.london https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/28/artsnews.london (though most probably it would have been far too expensive to mass produce them at the time).

by VLM 9y ago

virmundi 9y ago

Just take a second to think about that. 1913. The Romans could not have made such a jar. They lacked the material science. Things like this amaze me. A Ball jar is a simple item from my daily perspective. It is in reality a fairly advanced piece of material science. So if you ever get flung back in time, probably your best best is evaporated sea salt. Then work your way up into simple cosmetics. You don't have the ability to create the supply chain necessary to create canning.

lr4444lr 9y ago
Dunno if the Romans couldn't have made it (their glassware was startlingly good for what we imagine was possible then, if you do a simple image search) but pre-Pasteur, people wouldn't have have conceived of a vacuum seal formed by heat and pressure as a food preservation technique worth pursuing.
- virmundi 9y ago
  Nor could they have made a rubber for the seal. They didn't have access to the plants (Nazi's tried to use the only source that would have been available at the time to the Romans and failed [1]). Think of the supply chain required to get rubber plants from Asian or the Congo to a Roman city. Carthage would have had a hard time too. Even if they had rubber in enough quantity, they'd have to vulcanize [2] it to make it work. That was years, centuries beyond them. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization Edited for the vulcanization.
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    True, not out of rubber. But remember that air-blocking seals were important for the control of the fermentation process in wine production and preservation, and it's not beyond possible that they could have refined cruder pitch and resin based solutions if germ theory had been better understood then.
jaclaz 9y ago
To be fair, Romans not only mastered glass manudacturing (which in itself pre-dates them), they more or less invented (or however the material was first made during their period) "transparent glass" and - more than that - they invented "pressed glass", i.e. they were among the first to be able to mass produce glass objects, by blowing glass into pre-made moulds, JFYI: http://www.ancient.eu/article/592/ http://www.ancient.eu/article/592/ So, they would have been able to produce glass jars alright and would have probably used (like it was done for wine and amphorae ) "sealing wax" together with cork (and/or some resins): https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/history-wine-transport-8000-years/ https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/history-wine-transport-8000-y... And BTW, they were quite good at making airtight cans, too: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/28/artsnews.london https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/28/artsnews.london (though most probably it would have been far too expensive to mass produce them at the time).