Convenient meat and meat products. Societal and technological issues.

In past and contemporary foodscapes, meat and meat products have not only been following convenience trends, they have been at the heart of them. Historically, the first substantial demands for meat convenience must have been for the outsourcing of hunting or domestication, as well as slaughtering activities. In its turn, this prompted concerns for shelf-life stabilisation and the development of preservation strategies, such as meat fermentation. Demands for ease of preparation and consumption can be traced back to Antiquity but have gained in importance over the centuries, especially with the emergence of novel socio-cultural expectations and (perceived) time scarcity. Amongst other trends, this has led to the creation of ready meals and meat snacks and the expansion of urban fast food cultures. Additionally, contemporary requirements focus on the reduction of mental investments, via the "convenient" concealment of slaughtering, the optimisation of nutritional qualities, and the instant incorporation of more intangible matters, such as variety, hedonistic qualities, reassurance, and identity. An overview is given of the technological issues related to the creation of meat convenience, in its broadest sense, along with their societal implications.

[Parmentier hygiene and public health]. / Parmentier, hygiène et santé publique.

The legend about Parmentier is quite reductive when it limits his activity to the promotion of potato. This military pharmacist intended mainly to make science serve human being, whatever could be his various activities. Actor of the foundation of food chemistry, reorganizer of military pharmacy, he has always been highly concerned with hygiene and public health. He then studied the quality of water, particularly in the case of river Seine, or the purity of air, especially in hospitals. The affair of Dunkerque exhumations or that of cesspools, or the utilisation of human excrements in agriculture were parts of the occurrences for which he had the opportunity to find a scientific approach allowing to solve the difficult questions that were asked to him, for the best benefit of public health. The exhaustive study he published in "Bulletin de pharmacie" for the conservation of meat shows that he did not ignore anything about freezing of food in order to preserve it. It is necessary not to forget the important role he played, as soon as he were informed of Jenner's discovery, for the diffusion of vaccination in France. It is simply astounding to observe how modern were the questions he solved and how intense was his spirit of dedication to the public good, when exerting his functions in "Comité de Salubrité de la Seine" or "Conseil de Santé des Armées", as well as outside these prestigious institutions.

Pichia anomala J121: a 30-year overnight near success biopreservation story.

Thirty years ago, the ascomycetous yeast Pichia anomala strain J121 was isolated from moist wheat grain stored under conditions of restricted air access. Early observations indicated that an inverse relationship existed between mould and P. anomala colony forming units in grain. This yeast strain was later found to have strong antifungal properties in laboratory, pilot and farm studies with high-moisture wheat under malfunctioning airtight storage. P. anomala had the highest inhibitory activity of 60 yeast species evaluated against the mould Penicillium roqueforti. It also demonstrated strong inhibitory effects against certain Gram-negative bacteria. P. anomala J121 possesses a number of physiological characteristics, i.e. capacity to grow under low pH, low water activity and low oxygen tension and ability to use a wide range of carbon and nitrogen sources, enabling it to act as an efficient biopreservative agent. The biocontrol effect in grain was enhanced by addition of glucose, mainly through formation of the volatile antimicrobial ethyl acetate. Animal feeding trials with P. anomala J121 inoculated grains, fed to chickens and beef cattle, demonstrated that mould control observed in vitro in small scale laboratory experiments could be extended to large scale farm trials. In addition, no adverse effects on animal weight gain, feed conversion, health or behaviour were observed. We have now studied P. anomala J121 biology, ecology and grain preservation ability for 30 years. Over this period, more than 40 scientific publications and five PhD theses have been written on different aspects of this yeast strain, extending from fundamental research on metabolism, genetics and molecular biology, all the way to practical farm-scale level. In spite of the well documented biopreservative ability of the yeast, it has to date been very difficult to create the right constellation of technical, agricultural and biotechnical industries necessary to reach a commercial launch of a P. anomala J121 based biopreservation system. Additionally, the complications caused by a complex EU regulatory system remain a significant barrier to practical applications.

Emanuel Edward Klein's role in the establishment of food preservation standards.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate Emanuel Edward Klein's role in the establishment of food preservation standards in terms of critiques of his work, taking his experimental investigations into account. STUDY DESIGN: Historical revision of Klein's experimental investigations of food preservation. METHODS: Descriptive, comparative and analytical methods were used to evaluate Klein's achievements in public health. RESULTS: Presentation of Klein's six papers on food preservation. CONCLUSION: Klein's experimental work was of significant value for the development of food preservation standards for hams, milk and, most importantly, oysters, mussels and other shellfish.

[Hexa-sabbath. Foreign matter and vital substances, experts and the critical consumer in the FRG during the 1950s and 1960s]. / Hexa-Sabbat. Fremdstoffe und Vitalstoffe, Experten und der kritische Verbraucher in der BRD der 1950er und 1960er Jahre.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties the regulation of food additives represented a remarkable turning point in German consumer politics, establishing a debate about decision making and policy advice, altering the discourse of purity and contamination, and inaugurating a new political actor, the organized critical consumer. The amendment of the Food Law in December 1958 functioned as a negotiation process between representatives of science, industry and the state, which was institutionalized in the Senate Commissions of the German Research Foundation. While these Commissions for preservatives, foreign matter and colorants worked behind closed doors, a public discourse about the "toxic condition" of modern life and the negative role of the pharmaceutical and chemical industry gained strength. The debate about the admission of hexamethylenetetramine (hexa) took part at a crucial moment. Hexa was used as a preservative in the fish industry. But its anti microbial effectiveness was caused by the decomposition of hexa to formaldehyde. Despite the commission's verdict against hexa, the lobbying activities of the industry granted it a reprieve. In the media, the case of hexa was seen as a touchstone for the capacity of negotiated decision making and the ability of rational scientists to resist the demands of industry. Finally, in 1963 it was the new political actor of the organized critical consumer, heir and successor to the housewife federations as well as to "purists" advocating life reform, who, supported by the media, enforced the prohibition of hexa as a preservative.

Salt or fish (or salted fish)? The Bronze Age specialised sites along the Tyrrhenian coast of Central Italy: New insights from Caprolace settlement.

In 2017, an excavation led by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and in collaboration with the Tor Vergata University of Rome, took place on two small islands in the Caprolace lagoon (Sabaudia, Italy), where Middle Bronze Age layers had previously been reported. Combining the results of an environmental reconstruction of the surroundings and a detailed study of the pottery assemblages, we were able to trace a specialised area on the southern island, in all probability devoted to salt production by means of the briquetage technique. The latter basically consists of boiling a brine through which a salt cake is obtained. The technique was widespread all over Europe, from Neolithic to Roman Times. Since the evidence points to an elite-driven workshop, this result has deep implications for the development of the Bronze Age socio-economic framework of Central Italy. Pottery evidence also suggests that in the Bronze Age sites along the Tyrrhenian coast of Central Italy where briquetage has already been hypothesised, more complex processes may have taken place. On the northern island, we collected a large number of so-called pedestals, which are characteristic features of briquetage, while chemical analyses point to salt or fish sauce production, like the roman liquamen, in a Middle Bronze Age domestic context.

Milk pasteurisation and safety: a brief history and update.

A brief history of the development of milk pasteurisation is presented and updated. Concerns about the margin of safety provided by current pasteurisation standards in terms of milk-borne pathogens such as mycobacteria (in particular Mycobacterium paratuberculosis) and other emerging pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7 are discussed. With the exception of the endospores of Bacillus cereus, current standards appear to be adequate for public health assurance of milk safety provided good manufacturing practices are followed.

The material histories of food quality and composition.

This article argues for material histories of food. In recent decades food historians have tended to emphasize the cultural factors in consumption, in addition to the already well-established social, political and economic perspectives, but what is still missing is the stuff in foodstuffs. With reference in particular to milk and wine, the suggestion here is that physical and chemical composition is a major influence in what we might call the biographies of particular items of food and drink. Product characteristics are rarely static for long and today's mass-produced bread is different from that of the past, but then so are the flour, the yeast, and the even the butter that is spread on it. Adulteration was a particularly interesting aspect of composition in the nineteenth century and was the key to the emergence of two different traditions of understanding and valuing food quality.