If you liked this article, click "Follow" on the top right. Thank you for your support and encouragement, I hope to bring you a comfortable reading experience.
Canned food is a very common food in people's lives, and China manufactures a large number of canned food every year and is the world's first producer of canned food.
However, canning is not popular in China, and the canning section of the supermarket is almost empty, and not many Chinese will buy canned food unless there are canning lovers.
On the contrary, canned food is very popular in Western countries, and whenever there is a social problem that requires stockpiling supplies, the canned food will be snapped up, and even the supply will exceed the demand. With such a huge difference, one can't help but wonder why this is the case.
For canned food, Chinese seems to have an innate sense of rejection. People would rather eat pickles, spend time cooking or order takeout than canned food.
Why don't Chinese like canned food, is it because of the taste, or is there some other reason?
Under the heavy reward there will be brave men, and Napoleon issued a reward
Canned food was developed in the hands of Westerners and quickly became a delicacy on Western tables.
But if you want to start from the source of canned food, in fact, as early as the sixth century AD, Chinese has invented the method of making canned food.
Jia Sixun of Northern Wei introduced the preparation method of canned food in his book "Qi Min Zhishu":
"One layer of fish, one layer of rice, the hand press the order firmly, the lotus leaf closes, and the mud seal does not leak."
Although Chinese's ancestors invented the method of making canned food a long time ago, it was not valued by rulers and the people in the development of later generations.
In the West, the fate of canned food is very different, it can become an important food on the table of Westerners, and it is directly related to Napoleon, and it can even be said that Napoleon made the widespread use of canned food many years earlier.
In 1812, Napoleon launched a war against Tsarist Russia. However, when the French army arrived in Russia, there were great problems with the logistics of the army.
Because of Russia's special geographical environment, it is very difficult to transport logistics, especially food.
Napoleon had only two choices: either continue to loot Russian civilians to feed the war, or risk using canned food in glass packaging.
Speaking of which, canned food in glass packaging still appeared because of Napoleon.
Years ago, Napoleon believed that the army needed a food that would last a long time, so he issued a bounty order, and if anyone could find a way, he would receive 120 million francs and a certificate from Napoleon himself.
A fortune and unparalleled honor stimulated the French at the time, and later someone really thought of a way to store food for a long time, and Napoleon fulfilled his promise by personally awarding the French chef a certificate and giving him 120 million francs.
However, since the award was issued, except for the construction of several small canneries, canning has not developed much in France, nor has it been widely used in the army as Napoleon's original idea.
Even in the war against Russia, which encountered problems with logistical deficiencies, Napoleon did not choose cans in glass packaging.
Napoleon did not use cans, one is the problem of cost, although glass was not very expensive in the Napoleonic era, but if used in the army, it would definitely be a huge expense, and France at that time may not be affordable.
The second is the problem of preservation, if the canned packaging is not bad, the food can indeed be preserved for a long time.
However, glass is fragile, and the military operating environment is very harsh and unstable. If glass cans are really used, in the event of an unexpected situation, the losses caused are unacceptable to Napoleon.
So Napoleon did not choose cans, which ended up failing. Later, Russia defeated France, and after the Russian army entered France, it destroyed all the few canneries in France, and the development of canning in the West was temporarily stopped.
Although the Russians destroyed the French canneries with their own hands, they also discovered the benefits of canning, but limited by productivity and ideas at the time, the Russians did notice canning, but they did not immediately produce canned food in large quantities.
Even though Gogol, the literary master of the time, repeatedly mentioned the benefits of canned food in his works, the Russian rulers remained indifferent. Later, Russia also suffered a defeat because of the problem of logistics, and it was only then that they remembered the French canneries decades ago.
But by this time it was too late, Russia did not understand the technology of canning and could not afford the high import costs, so it had to leave it at that.
Demand expanded, and World War I and World War II promoted the development of cans
The development of cans did not stop there, and in 1914, the First World War broke out. After decades of development, canned food is no longer a rarity in Western countries, and many countries use canned food in their armies.
Russia even invented self-heating cans, self-heating cans are divided into double layers, one layer is water, the other layer is quicklime, only need to twist, quicklime will react with water to produce a large amount of heat, thereby heating up the cold can.
During World War I, canned food was favored by the vast majority of belligerent countries because of its portability and vegetarian nature, and almost all countries used it as military food reserves.
Such a large-scale demand will inevitably stimulate the production of cans, and at the same time improve the technical and theoretical level of canned production. According to statistics, the number of canned food produced in Western countries such as Britain and France during World War I was three to six times that of pre-war countries.
Since it is necessary to mass production, the price will definitely become the main battlefield of major manufacturers, and which one produces high-quality and inexpensive canned food will inevitably make a windfall.
Therefore, under the competition of various manufacturers, the price of canned food has dropped a lot compared with before the war, and it has become a product that many ordinary people can afford.
It's just that the main goal of manufacturers during World War I was to provide canned military food, so there were not many varieties and quantities of canned food sold to society.
During World War I, canning developed a lot, and after the end of World War I, canning developed to its heyday. The main battlefield of World War I was in Europe, and in order to compete for hegemony, Europe suffered great destruction, and its productivity regressed a lot.
If Europe cannot come up with a good reconstruction strategy at this time, Europe's development will not only not move forward, but will also regress greatly.
The most important issue in post-war reconstruction is food, and as long as civilians are allowed to eat good and cheap food, then most problems will not be too much trouble. Choose and choose, and only canned food as military food is the best choice.
Major manufacturers, with the support of the government, began to produce a large number of cheap and varied cans, at this time the civilians in Europe could no longer care whether it was delicious or not, and food was the most important thing.
As a result, the canning producers made a lot of money, and the situation in Europe stabilized. So Europeans have psychological gratitude for canned food, and without these cans, I don't know how many people would starve to death in Europe.
Neither world war affected the United States itself, but the United States contributed greatly to the development of canning.
The relationship between the United States and Europe is very close, so when the United States discovered that Europe produced a large number of cheap cans, the United States imported a considerable amount of canned food to promote its own development.
Before canned food did not enter the United States in large quantities, the diet of American workers was not good, but since the entry of European canned food into the United States, a certain amount of canned meat appeared in the three meals of American workers, which is a good thing for American workers.
The United States has a large population, so their demand for canned food has also promoted the development of canning to some extent.
Especially after canned food entered the United States, American manufacturers have also made certain improvements to the production technology of cans, thereby improving the safety of cans and enriching the taste of cans.
After the outbreak of World War II, the development of cans took another step forward in the West.
At that time, the Soviet Union did not produce enough canned food to sustain the consumption of the army, so the Soviet Union turned to the United States, which was also an ally, and then an agreement was reached between the two sides that the Soviet Union imported a large amount of canned luncheon meat from the United States.
According to statistics, throughout World War II, the Soviet Union imported a total of two billion canned luncheon meat from the United States. With such a large number, it is conceivable that the development of canning has made great progress.
At the same time, the development of canned food was also promoted by the economic crisis in the United States, the high unemployment rate and inflation caused by the economic crisis, so that Americans had to rely on cheap canned food to survive the crisis.
So whether from a practical point of view or emotion, Westerners' love for canned food is understandable.
Cultural differences, canned food in China is only one way to export
Although China's technology for producing canned food can be traced back to the Northern Wei Dynasty, China produced canned food in the early 20th century.
Canning entered China following the Western invasion of China, when Chinese society comprehensively learned Western technology, and the production technology of canned food was naturally among them.
In 1906, a businessman in Shanghai learned canning production technology from the West, then bought canned production equipment from the West, and established a company with the intention of making a fortune from canning in China.
However, when the can is produced, the effect is not satisfactory at all. At that time, the vast majority of people in China were poor and could not afford canned food, although it was synonymous with high quality and low price, but it was still a luxury for ordinary Chinese.
Many Chinese can only afford to eat locally produced things, or rely entirely on the smallholder economy for self-sufficiency, canned food, something they dare not think of.
So later the canning production company changed its original purpose and changed the sales group to the middle and upper classes of society.
These people did have money to buy canned food, but the number of people was small, so from 1906 to 1946, in forty years, China produced only 484 tons of canned food. This figure is pitifully small compared to the consumption of Western countries.
But no way, this was the case in China at that time, plus the government's inaction and different eating habits, canned food naturally did not sell well in China.
The group with the largest consumption of canned food was only the soldiers at that time, limited by the economic level, canned food was actually a luxury in the army, and only Chiang Kai-shek's troops could afford it. Ordinary motley troops are simply not blessed.
The period when China began large-scale production of canned food was after the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, when millions of volunteers supported North Korea, and the supply of logistics materials was a very big problem.
The straight-line distance between China and North Korea was more than 2,000 kilometers, and at that time, China's level of science and technology was not developed enough, so military food must be a product that can be stored for a long time and is easy to transport.
At that time, only cans could be put into mass production. Therefore, since the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China has begun to concentrate its efforts on the production of canned military food to ensure the food of millions of volunteers as much as possible.
After the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, domestic manufacturers once again turned their attention to ordinary people. However, after investigation and statistics, domestic manufacturers found that it was simply unrealistic to want to sell canned food on a large scale in China.
The country has just been established, and another war to resist US aggression and aid Korea has been fought, and the country's economy is very sluggish, and ordinary people still cannot afford canned food. So China can only export canned food abroad and then develop its own economy.
At first it was sold to the USSR, then the USSR did not need it, and China began to sell canned food to Western countries and the United States.
The West does need a lot of cans, and the cans produced in China are cheaper, so China has gradually become the world's number one can producer and the world's largest exporter of canned food.
After years of development, China's economy has developed greatly, and many Chinese can afford canned food, and even the price of canned food is not as expensive as other foods.
I thought that the Chinese people would buy canned food in large quantities, but domestic manufacturers waited for a long time and did not see the scene they were expecting.
This phenomenon made domestic manufacturers puzzled, and later a staphylococcal enterotoxin poisoning incident occurred, which caused a huge impact around the world, even China's canning production has a great impact.
This incident made the world begin to think about the safety of canned food, if there is a risk of poisoning by eating canned food, then the vast majority of people will choose not to eat, there are so many safe choices, why choose canned.
In addition to safety, the reason why Chinese people do not like to eat canned food also has a lot to do with Chinese eating habits.
The Chinese nation is a nation that is good at cooking, so if you can make your own food, you will most likely not choose canned food. Governing a big country is like cooking small fresh food, and Chinese traditions and cooking have a great relationship.
Finally, there is the taste of canned food, no matter how well canned food is made, it is not as good as freshly made food, so of course it will not be popular.
The cultural difference is huge, and the biggest reason why canned food has not been able to sell well in China is actually the difference in culture. Canned food is just one of them, in fact, many Western products have failed in China because they do not know enough about Chinese culture.
Resources:
The history, current situation and development measures of canned food
Canned meat history