Pickled, Potted & Canned by Sue Shephard

Pickled, Potted & Canned: How the Preservation of Food Changed Civilisation by Sue Shephard is a fascinating and thoroughly researched history of humanity’s efforts to make food last longer. Rather than presenting a conventional recipe book, Shephard explores the inventions, experiments and discoveries that transformed food preservation and, in turn, helped shape civilisation.

The development of portable and preserved food enabled explorers to travel beyond familiar territories, supported expanding trade routes and allowed communities to survive difficult seasons and long journeys. From drying, salting and smoking to pickling, bottling, refrigeration and commercial canning, Pickled, Potted & Canned follows the evolution of techniques that changed what people ate and how they lived.

Sue Shephard combines social history, food history and popular science with colourful accounts of inventors, explorers, cooks, chemists and historical figures. The narrative considers both ingenious breakthroughs and costly mistakes, revealing how preservation methods influenced warfare, navigation, colonial expansion, agriculture and international commerce. Pickled, Potted & Canned also examines the health problems associated with poorly balanced preserved diets and the discoveries that eventually helped overcome them.

Accessible, informative and often entertaining, Pickled, Potted & Canned will appeal to readers interested in culinary history, traditional food practices, social history, industrial development and the science behind everyday foods. This substantial paperback is a rewarding addition to a food studies, cultural history or general non-fiction collection. The paperback edition was first published by Headline Book Publishing in 2001 and contains approximately 384 pages.

Condition – Good

Moderate rubbing, handling wear and small edge scuffs to the covers and spine extremities. The rear cover has noticeable creasing, surface rubbing and adhesive or label-removal damage. Page edges and contents are evenly age-toned with scattered light spotting.